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Tim Harcourt
Chief Economist
Australian Trade Commission
Sydney
Email: tim.harcourt@austrade.gov.au
17 March 2008
When Adam ‘Gilly’ Gilchrist announced his retirement from international cricket he received plaudits everywhere for his lusty big-hitting, effective wicket-keeping, good sportsmanship and his amazing impact on the record books. However, ‘Gilly’ may not know it but he also started a national trend. When the young Lismore-born wicket-keeper saw limited opportunities to break into the New South Wales (NSW) team he moved to Perth to break into the Western Australia shield team. Whilst the Sandgropers initially gave him a hard time – as he replaced the popular local ‘keeper Tim Zoehrer – they soon embraced Gilly as one of their own as he became a superstar for both WA and Australia. New population data shows that Gilly was followed West by a large number of eastern staters – particularly from NSW. The graph below shows that WA and Queensland have attracted large numbers of interstate migrants, whilst NSW, SA, Tasmania and to a small extent, Victoria have experienced net losses.
Why has this ‘Gilly’ effect occurred? Well, it’s like the case of Gilchrist himself, NSW residents have moved west for employment opportunities. And whilst there’s not a huge demand for wicket-keepers in WA, there’s huge demand for trades and technical occupations as well as services in the resources industry to meet the pressing demands from China and the like. WA’s population growth is outstripping Australia’s; it has the highest level of unfilled job vacancies, the tightest labour market and strong business investment. But it’s not cheap, the story of the strength of Perth’s housing prices has been well told. Once upon a time, people moved to Perth for reasons of housing affordability, but now’s there is evidence that there would be even more interstate migrants going West if the reals estate was cheaper. In short, you go west for the work, but you may not make a killing if you sell in the east and buy in the west.
However, it is not all doom and gloom in the east. Sydney is still ranked the world’s greatest city according to a recent international survey (Melbourne is number 6), and both Australia’s largest cities attract overseas migrants. Interestingly, both Queensland and WA are also attracting new overseas migrants to help fill the labour shortages in the resources sector. There is evidence that in particular sectors, such as in iron ore, WA is attracted a lot of skilled migrants from Brazil, which also has a large iron ore industry and is a major mining exporter. With many Brazilians moving ‘from Rio to Freo’ the ‘state of excitement’ is going to get a whole lot more exciting!
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