NORMAS DE CONVIVENCIA / Decreto 361/2011, de 7 de diciembre Cumplimiento de los deberes y ejercicio de los derechos (Art 29).

4.1 Introduction

As a result of interstate migration, Victoria had a small net loss of population to other parts of Australia between 1966 and 1971, though such losses were completely overshadowed by gains from international migration, which mainly favoured metropolitan growth. Migration within Victoria, like migration in most other states, resulted in a net movement of people from

smaller to larger settlements. Internal migration in Victoria also followed the national pattern in that large gross migration volumes produced only minor net shifts of population.

This chapter examines smaller scale patterns of internal migration. Most attention is given to net migration in rural and urban communities,

the origins of internal migrants to Victorian towns and country areas and the volume of migration streams to and from statistical divisions and selected towns. The discussion is introduced by an analysis of the significance of the Victorian border as a migration divide, and the origins and destinations of Victoria's interstate migrants.

4.2 The Victorian Border as a Migration Divide

To test whether the State of Victoria is a meaningful unit within which to analyse internal migration, some figures are presented in Table 4.1 showing the importance of Victoria as an origin or destination for people living in neighbouring areas of New South Wales and South Australia. The Table contains gross migration figures for the five statistical

divisions which lie within about 100 kilometres of the Victorian border. Gross migration flows to or from Victoria or to or from the home state were adopted as measures of the importance of migration linkages. To indicate whether each statistical division had stronger ties with its own state or with Victoria ratios were calculated from the two sets of gross migration statistics (Table 4.1).

The ratios show that all but one of the statistical divisions near the border had stronger migration links with their home state than with Victoria. The exception was the New South Wales statistical division of Murray, which extends the length of the northern border to just west of the Snowy Mountains.

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TABLE 4.1 Gross Internal Migration 1966-1971 in Statistical Divisions near the Victorian Border.

Statistical Division State of Origin or Destination

I II III

Other SDs

Victoria Same Ratio State I:II New South Wales

Murray 13,966 12,870 1:1 Murrumbidgee 4,777 30,083 1:6 South-Eastern 2,934 26,833 1:9 South Australia Murray 1,427 14,651 1:10 South East 3,682 11,980 1:3 *

Sum of inward and outward movements. Source: 1971 census, unpublished data.

In this division, for every person who moved to or from Victoria only one moved to or from New South Wales. The area thus had equally strong migration ties with the two states and may be regarded as a zone of competition. The Murray division, which includes part of the Riverina district between the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers, has had a close association with Victoria

from the nineteenth century. In 1880 a railway line linked Deniliquin (N.S.W.) and Melbourne, whereas railways from Sydney did not reach far west of Wagga Wagga."*" Describing the contemporary Riverina district the Learmonths noted:

’The rail links still draw the products of the south and west of the region towards Victoria, and the people drink Melbourne beer and read Melbourne newspapers. In the northern Riverina

the railways converge on Narrandera and take the fruits of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area to Sydney.'^

Although the economic ties of the Murray area with Victoria are important, the internal migration links may be exaggerated by the presence of a

Blainey, The Tyranny of Distance, p.230.

2

Learmonth, Nancy and Learmonth, Andrew, Regional Landscapes of Australia, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1971, p.160.

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number of twin communities on opposite sides of the Murray River, such as Albury-Wodonga, Corowa-Wahgunya, Yarrawonga-Mulwala, and Echuca-Moama. Migration between these pairs of towns, which might best be regarded as local mobility rather than internal migration, has undoubtedly

influenced the volume of movement shown in Table 4.1.

The size of the statistical divisions also affected the gross

migration ratios as linkages with Victoria probably diminish in importance with distance from the border. For example, the Murray statistical

division of South Australia most likely has stronger ties with Victoria in its north eastern section near Renmark than in the south western

portion round Murray Bridge. Nevertheless, in the light of the available statistics, Victoria is a suitable unit within which to analyse internal migration, the main qualification being that the neighbouring Murray division in New South Wales should be viewed as an area of transitional affiliations.

4.3 Internal Migration to and from Victoria

When gross migration ratios, like those in Table 4.1 are calculated for Victorian statistical divisions, Melbourne is found to have a ratio of about 1:1, as did the Murray division (N.S.W.). The ratio indicates that Melbourne has almost equal migration ties with the rest of Australia as with non-metropolitan Victoria. Other Victorian divisions had stronger migration links with their own State, intrastate moves outnumbering

interstate moves by 3:1 or more in most areas. Lower ratios of 2:1

characterised the border statistical divisions of Mallee and Northeastern, short distance moves, such as between Albury and Wodonga, being at least partly responsible for the lower figures.

Gross migration ratios are only an index of the strength of migration affiliations, and the net migration figures in Table 4.2 are needed to show the effects of interstate migration on population distribution. Between 1966 and 1971, every Victorian statistical division experienced a net loss of population through interstate migration, the total loss from Victoria being nearly 27,000. The lowest ratios of net loss were in the Melbourne statistical division and the adjoining areas of West Central and East Central, while the highest rates occurred in the border divisions of North Eastern, Mallee and Wimmera (Table 4.2). In general terms, the set of net

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