When I was born, Australia had a population of roughly 18 million people. When I left school 16 years later, it had grown to a population of 22 million people.
Next year, according to ABS data, Australia’s population will likely reach an astonishing 28 million.
That’s 10 million more people in my lifetime — I’ve seen Australia change rapidly before my very eyes.
In fact, we’re one of the fastest-changing countries in the world.
According to data collected by the CIA, Australia has an annual population growth rate higher than India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam.
Our country’s population growth rate (2.1 per cent) is more than double that of the United States (one per cent), and seven times that of France (0.3 per cent), according to data from the World Bank.
Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Iraq all share population growth rates the same as ours at 2.1 per cent.
You can probably guess this isn’t because of Howard’s baby bonus.
Since 1961, the year the contraceptive pill was introduced in Australia, our fertility rate has been in freefall.
Today, Australia’s fertility rate is 1.48 births for every woman, well below the replacement level.
No, Australia’s population surge isn’t organic; it’s artificial – a result of government policy.
As of March this year, net overseas migration was more than triple that of Australia’s natural increase.
The situation is particularly striking in states like New South Wales.
There, not only did immigration outpace natural births, but tens of thousands of people fled the state for places like Queensland and Western Australia.
Victoria also lost more people than it gained through interstate migration.
Coincidentally, these two states received the most international migrants by far.
As one Sydney Morning Herald headline put it: “Sydney residents move out as city depends on migrants for growth.”
The best-known Australian cities are on track to become minority Australian-born.
Australia’s population growth rate is akin to that of a developing country, driven almost entirely by immigration.
Australia reached its population of 27 million a full 18 years earlier than was predicted in the Howard government’s 2002 intergenerational report.
Demographers are warning that this rapid population growth is putting pressure on hospitals, schools, and housing.
With young families now priced out of owning a home and struggling to get ahead, it’s no wonder people are having families later, or choosing not to have children at all.
Life under the uniparty’s mass migration regime is simply too stressful and too expensive to raise kids and start a family.
This puts Australia into a demographic spiral: more immigration means fewer kids, fewer kids creates demand for more immigration.
Immigration goes up, family formation goes down.
Australia is racing to a population of 30 million far sooner than anyone anticipated – and it’s changing the country dramatically in the process.
Yet while some on the pro-immigration side are calling for a calmer debate on immigration, they’re also disingenuously refusing to have that debate.
This month, Immigration Minister Tony Burke conceded there was concern over numbers, but ruled out setting immigration targets.
“The principle you start with is not a magic number,” he said.
Of course, for an increasing number of Australians, the magic number is zero.
Polling released by the IPA shows 71 per cent of Australians want a “temporary pause” on immigration to let housing, roads, and hospitals catch up.
People are getting angrier.
Just this month, police were pelted with rocks, glass bottles, and rotten fruit – just because they were protecting protesters who wanted to be heard on immigration.
It’s a tragic situation.
Not only have Australians been subjected to decades of immigration that they never really asked for.
They also now face a humiliating situation where they’re simultaneously being told to soften their rhetoric, while being pelted with rocks.
It can’t go on like this.
One Nation – the only party currently in parliament which has consistently stood against mass immigration – is now watching its polling numbers reach record highs.
And because they have so far refused to put Australians first, the major parties have only themselves to blame.
Both politically and in daily life, an Australia of 28 million is set to look very different.
First published in SkyNews Australia 28 October 2025 as “Coming Soon: Australia to hit population of 28 million within a year driven by mass ‘artificial’ migration surge” © Jordan Knight 2025. All Rights Reserved.
