From the ABS is the population statistics for the states. The 2007 stats haven't been released yet.

It is interesting to note on the report that population flows have been matching the states with booming economies. For instance, Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory have to the largest changes over previous years with a 2.1% gain in WA. This suggests some mobility in the workforce in moving to opportunities though none of the states had negative changes, possibly due to immigration working to continue population increases.

Update: I take that last sentence back, oversea migration made up 52% of Western Australia's increase in population, there was almost no inter-state movement to WA either, it was all births or overseas migration. More at clubtroppo.

Political power in a market-state system comes through economic power; and the latter is heavily dependent upon population. Australia has twenty one million, and if it is to rival the political power of nations such as the UK, Germany and France it is going to have to increase its population. The Imagining Australia folks argue that forty million is easily achievable by 2050.

Russia and China are good examples of autocratic nations who have chosen different paths to achieve political power on the international stage. Russia has chosen military power backed by government controlled oil and gas resources. On the international stage they are treated more as an annoyance than a genuine political threat.

China, on the other hand, has chosen economic power as the fastest means to international power, and as a result are out-stripping Russia in international influence. (Would the IOC give Moscow the olympics in today's environment?) This is the difference between a market-state approach and a martial-state approach.

Australia has adopted the market-state with the economic rationalist policies from the 1980s and we have now maxed out our economy; it is genuinely limited by its labor output. Productivity and immigration are the main means for it to grow now.

Nation-states remain the dominant political entity on the international stage for bartering over local or regional interests. In this area Australia needs to assert itself more and back it with the economic power of the market-state. For instance the 'great and powerful friends' doctrine of foreign policy must go now, and that independence backed with the economic output of forty million (I have argued for sixty million in the past).

The Imagining Australia folks argue for an immigration flow of approximately 1% of the population each year up to 2050. This would double our existing immigration intake each year.

This would make our immigration intake about the same as what it was post-WWII. This level of immigration is not historically scary, nor is it that much of an increase on present levels of population growth:

It would lead to population growth of around 1.5%, which is only marginally more than the population growth of 1.25% that Australia has experienced for most of the last twenty years.

The Imagining Australia book (which is a policy book) has policy recommendations for achieving the target of forty million Australians by 2050.

The NSW government has population demographics broken down by health areas. I am assuming AHS means Area Health Sector. The most interesting part of the graph is the 19-34 demographic which dips in the country regions, is flat in Sydney's north and west, and increases in the city's south and south-west.

I made the mistake last time of divining conclusions on migration from population statistics so will limit my comment that the Sydney South West and Sydney South East have a larger proportion of 19-34 year olds than the North and Western Sydney areas while the country regions have a demographic drop off of young people.

I want to say that country youth are heading to the city and are ending up in the city's south, but that is a migration pattern and may not be true from that graph.