CANBERRA has become more millennial, less godly and a little bit richer. 

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) latest census reveals the ACT has significantly changed over the past five years. Here’s how and what it means.

Population

First off, there’s more people. A lot more. Canberra’s population has reached 454,499, up from the 397,397 recorded at the last census in 2016.

That’s a population growth of 14.4 per cent, the highest out of any other state or territory in Australia.

It’s also about 21,000 people more than what was predicted in the ACT’s last Estimated Resident Population.

That sizeable error has spawned quite the controversy as it could mean that Canberra has been missing out on millions of dollars of federal money, especially via the distribution of GST.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the error is the equivalent of about one whole suburb missing and that he’ll be meeting with federal treasurer Jim Chalmers to make sure the capital gets its “fair share”.

CEO of the ACT Council of Social Service Dr Emma Campbell said the undercount also has significant implications for vulnerable Canberrans and the services provided to them.

“The statistics continue to highlight that the ACT community sector is under-resourced to appropriately support vulnerable Canberrans,” she said.

“This growth in population – which we witness every day in rapidly increasing demand for our services – means that we need improved and expanded social and physical community infrastructure to support this.”

Age

Nationally, the census showed that millennials are on the march. Those born between 1981 and 1995 for the first time are the dominant age demographic throughout Australia.

It’s no exception in Canberra, with millennials also the highest of any age category across the territory.

However, Canberra’s median age remains at 35. We’re still a touch more sprightly than the rest of Australia though, which has a national median of 38.

Canberra has considerably grown up over the last 50 years. The median age in 1971 was just 23.

Income

Canberrans also generally have a bit more cash in their back pocket than they did in 2016, with the average median income rising from $998 a week to $1203 a week.

It’s the highest in Australia by a fair margin. The next closest jurisdiction is the NT at $936 a week, with Tasmania coming in the lowest at $701. The national average sits at $805.

Religion

One of the most chewed over findings from the census is that Australia has also become significantly less religious over the last five years, a result that  also showed in the nation’s capital.

While Christianity is still the primary religion in the ACT, with 38.1 per cent of the population identifying with the faith, it’s taken a steep dive since 2016 when it stood at 45.4 per cent.

The number of people identifying with Christianity is also now lower than those who identify as having no religious affiliation at all with 44.2 per cent of people ticking no religious afffiliation on their census sheet, up from the 36.8 per cent who did the same in 2016.

The next highest religious affiliations in the capital were Hinduism, Islam and Judaism.

Ethnicity

In similar stats to religious diversity, Canberra has also increased in its multiculturalism.

According to the data, 28.7 per cent of Canberrans are born overseas, an increase from 26.4 per cent in 2016.

Next to Australians, Indians are the second most populous nationality in the capital at 3.8 per cent. They’re followed by those from England at 2.9 per cent and then China at 2.7 per cent.

The number of Indigenous Australians has also risen, with 9000 people marking they were of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. That’s two per cent of the population, up from the 6500 people recorded in 2016.

Housing

The stats show that there are now 175,000 people occupying private dwellings in Canberra, up from 151,000 in 2016 with 26.6 per cent of Canberrans owning a home outright, 40.2 per cent own a home with a mortgage (with an average cost of $2080 a month) and 30.7 per cent  renting.

While home ownership has risen, the increased population figures have spurred the ACT Opposition to renew calls for more housing supply in the territory.

Other interesting tidbits:

• Volunteering in Canberra has dropped from 23.3 per cent to 18.4 per cent in the last five years.
• Mandarin was the second most spoken language in Canberra, followed by Nepali, Vietnamese and Punjabi.
• Households are getting smaller in Canberra. In 2021, the average number of people who lived in each household was 2.5, a decrease from 3.6 people in 1971.
• Sadly, no data was available on the numbers of puffer jackets across the territory, which seems to have been on a dramatic upward trend in the last five years.