Population change: Auckland suffering from growing pains

Cruise ships such as the Diamond Princess helped boost Gisborne's Census night figures. Click on 'more pictures' below for a graphic of Auckland's increasing population.

Auckland's share of New Zealand's population has grown again, to a fraction under a third - but first results from this year's Census provide the first solid evidence that the region's rising house prices and traffic jams may be slowing its growth.

The crude population count for Census night, March 7, shows that Auckland's population rose by 12.4 per cent in the past five years to 1,318,700, or 32 per cent of the national population of 4,116,900.

But Auckland's share of the national growth dropped from 69 per cent in the 1996-2001 period to 49 per cent in the latest five years, as the growth was spread this time across all of the country's 16 regions.

Even the five regions that lost people in the five years to 2001 - Gisborne, Taranaki, Manawatu-Wanganui, West Coast and Southland - have gained population in the last five years.

A booming regional tourist industry made Queenstown-Lakes the country's fastest-growing district, up 29.2 per cent in the past five years, and helped to lift Gisborne into positive growth.

Gisborne's figures were distorted by cruise ships sailing round its coast, pushing the region's Census night tally up by 4360, or 9.9 per cent, since 2001. Census official Adele Quinn said she sailed on the largest cruise ship to have visited New Zealand, the Diamond Princess, to collect Census forms as the vessel rounded East Cape on a voyage from Dunedin to Auckland.

But even without the cruise ships, Gisborne recorded an increase of 280 people, or 0.6 per cent, following years of decline. Gisborne economic development manager Rick Mansell said the district was boosted by people coming into the district for its relaxed lifestyle or to retire.

"We've got quite a significant population, especially tangata whenua, over in Australia, and there is a call to return home," he said.

Waikato University economist Warren Hughes said Gisborne offered the same sunny climate as Auckland or the Bay of Plenty, but housing was much cheaper.

Regions surrounding Auckland also gained from the Queen City's spillover, with growth of 7.3 per cent in the Bay of Plenty, 6.6 per cent in the Waikato and 5.4 per cent in Northland. Tauranga City grew by 14 per cent and Hamilton by 11.8 per cent.

Manukau City (up 16.4 per cent) and Rodney District (up 15.8 per cent) were the third and fourth fastest-growing local bodies after Queenstown-Lakes and the Christchurch spillover district of Selwyn (up 22.3 per cent).

Far fewer districts recorded population declines this time. The biggest falls were in the Chatham Islands (down 11.2 per cent), Wairoa (down 7.6 per cent), South Taranaki (down 5.6 per cent) and Ruapehu (down 5.3 per cent).

On a regional basis, Southland recorded the slowest gain of just 230 people, or 0.2 per cent. Southland Institute of Technology head Penny Simmonds said her institute's zero fees alone more than accounted for this increase, with about 600 more students from outside Southland than it had five years ago.

Manawatu-Wanganui recorded the next-smallest proportionate increase of 0.6 per cent. Growth in Palmerston North was offset by continued decline in Wanganui, Rangitikei, Ruapehu and Tararua districts.

Taranaki did slightly better with a 0.8 per cent gain. Venture Taranaki head Stuart Trundle said the region was seeing growth in both food processing and energy.

The crude Census night count showed a national increase of 7.8 per cent since 2001, the biggest growth since 1971-1976, when the population grew by 9.3 per cent. However, Statistics NZ estimated that the count included 184,900 short-term overseas visitors, compared with only 83,472 at the same time five years ago.

In the same period the estimated number of NZ residents who were temporarily overseas on Census night increased from 46,000 to only 58,600.

After those adjustments, the increase in the usually resident population may be as little as 5.5 per cent, slightly down on the officially projected growth of 6.3 per cent.

City becomes more crowded, youthful and expensive

A surge of immigrants in the three years following September 2001 squashed more people into Auckland's available housing, making the region's homes notably more overcrowded than the national average.

Crude census-night counts published yesterday show the region's population grew by 12.4 per cent to 1,318,700 in the five years to March, while the number of occupied dwellings rose by only 10.9 per cent to 437,700.

The average number of people in each dwelling rose from 2.97 to 3.01 in Auckland. Outside Auckland the number in each dwelling continued a long-term decline, from 2.72 to 2.71.

The population gap between Auckland and the rest widened from 9 per cent to 11 per cent. The numbers per dwelling declined in all other regions except Canterbury and Otago.

Economist Phil McDermott said the increased numbers in Auckland homes reflected both the dominant student age group among recent immigrants, who peaked in 2002-03 after the September 2001 terrorism scare, and the region's escalating house prices.

"The migrants tend to be young and are either students or non-household-forming people living in flats, or younger families. They are keeping Auckland's population relatively young and in far bigger household units," he said.

"The populations outside Auckland are ageing more rapidly because retirees are moving out of the city and younger people are moving into Auckland. That will reinforce that difference in household size." Young people were also being forced to wait before buying their own homes, or were leaving Auckland to do so.

"The lack of affordability means people are taking longer to form households and move out of home.

"We have a daughter and her partner living with us at home," Dr McDermott said.

"Land prices are accelerating as a proportion of the total house price. That's because we are running out of land while the land bank is getting smaller.

"We might see a response of increased out-migration, or a slow-down in immigration."