Regional ‘ghost populations’ should be counted in census for better funding, says advocacy chair Glenn Wilson

The “ghost populations” of regional towns should be counted in census data to allow local governments access to better funding, Australian Mining Cities Alliance chair Glenn Wilson says.

Mr Wilson said census data playing a part in securing government funding created an uneven playing field for places with “ghost populations” such as fly-in, fly-out workers and tourists using regional airports, roads, infrastructure and amenities.

The alliance is lobbying the Federal Government to include questions in future census surveys to capture where people have worked and spent a lot of their time outside of where they live.

Mr Wilson, who is also the mayor of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, said the issue affected tourism towns such as Bunbury, as well as mining areas.

“Ghost populations affect not just mining communities, but they also affect tourism towns. When you go down south and the amount of infrastructure that has just recently gone into things like the Bunbury Outer Ring Road, that’s taking the pressure off on the roads in the South West,” he said.

“That’s the sort of infrastructure that we’re seeing as an example (to tackle) when the ghost populations or the tourist populations swell that area that puts the pressure on the roads especially, have a long weekend.

“A tourism population may peak and trough during different times whereas a mining situation, where we’re seeing it at the moment through a boom cycle, it is having a pronounced effect on the long-term infrastructure for many of the mining communities.”

While he does not think the changes will happen in time for the upcoming census, Mr Wilson said he hoped it would be included in a future census.