Seeing cities in lockdown was the push Jancine and Steve Harrison needed to pack up and move to Kalbar – a regional Queensland town, population about 2000.
“When the Brisbane lockdowns happened, I just worked from home so it didn’t affect me much, but COVID-19 was definitely the push for us to move,” Ms Harrison said.
“We were looking at what was happening in other cities, with constant lockdowns, and we didn’t want to get caught up in it all so we just thought no, we love the country, so let’s move out there.
“There’s a sense of community in Kalbar that you didn’t really feel in Brisbane … it’s like you really belong somewhere.”
Recent Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed a net loss of 11,247 people were recorded in capital cities in the September 2020 quarter as residents rushed to regional areas.
The loss of residents from major cities was the largest quarterly fall on record, double the September 2019 quarter figure of 5631 people.
Queensland University of Technology nursing and paramedicine graduate Morgan Brown made the decision to spend her first year working in Augathella, about 740 kilometres north-west of Brisbane.
“I’m really excited to move to the area. I went and had a look recently and the countryside is just gorgeous,” she said.
“The community is a factor as well when I visited it everyone knew each other by name and that blew me away.”
University of Queensland population geographer and demographer Elin Charles-Edwards was not surprised by the trend of people migrating from the city to the country.
“We expected that COVID-19 would have an impact on internal migration,” Dr Charles-Edwards said.
“It’s hard to separate the reasons for why people are making the move.
“What certainly seems to have evolved is that we are less tied to places of work so the largest group of people moving away from major cities are within the 25- to 44-year-old range, and this is the age group where people can work remotely and have families with kids.
“The real question is whether this is a permanent shift in the population now … whether these regional areas will retain these residents.”
Queensland gained 7237 people from interstate moves, whereas NSW and Victoria saw a net total loss of 7859 residents.
Sunshine Coast real estate agent Alan Nash, of Aspire Estate Agents Sunshine Coast, saw this interstate interest in moving to Queensland firsthand.
“There’s a lot of interest from and properties being sold to Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney residents looking to get away,” he said.
Mr Nash said working from home was a blessing in disguise for many Australians looking to get out of major cities.
“Now that people work from home, they are looking for somewhere they can enjoy as well as work from,” he said.
“The residential market is incredible at the moment. I’ve been doing this job for 11 to 12 years and never seen it like this … we haven’t got a property to rent until April.”
Article Source: www.brisbanetimes.com.au
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