Research Reports

This page lists research reports held by the Australian Population Research Institute.

October 2024
Mike Moynihan, Rural The rise and decline of rural obstetrics in Victoria: what we can learn

August 2024
David McCloskey and Bob Birrell, The Housing crisis in Sydney and Melbourne — new strategies to fix it

June 2023
Bob Birrell, Ernest Healy, and John Masanauskas
Labor’s Big Build has hit a dead end — What’s next?

May 2024
Katharine Betts, Bob Birrell, and John Masanauskas
Half of all Melbourne voters, and most young voters, don’t feel Australian

April 2024
Katharine Betts and Bob Birrell
Australian voters’ views since the voice referendum: key messages
Australian voters’ views since the referendum: main report

February 2024
Michael Moynihan
Emergency Department attendance by triage category: what the data suggest

October 2023
Adrienne Millbank
The Voice: self-determination is the problem not the solution 

August 2023
Bob Birrell and Katharine Betts, Why the voice referendum is failing

July 2023
Katharine Betts, Free speech on immigration versus the guardians against racism
Based on the September 2022 Tapri survey

March 2023
Katharine Betts and Bob Birrell, Driving without a licence: voters’ views on Labor’s immigration agenda, the September 2022 Tapri survey

December 2022
Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, The skills crisis, university culpability and the overseas student industry, December 7 2022

November 2022
Michael Moynihan, MWF Australia’s medical workforce: maldistributed and lately never enough

July 2022
Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, The Suburban Rail Loop: Not needed, not fit for purpose and a debt bomb

June 2022
David McCloskey, Impacts of Structural Changes In Australia’s Economy (2006 – 2016) on labour productivity, income inequality and competition in local markets June 2022

October 2021
Katharine Betts and Bob Birrell, Politics and the population question during the pandemic: The 2021 TAPRI survey

December 2020
Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, Making things in Australia again? Not in Victoria

October 2020
Katharine Betts and Bob Birrell, A Big Australia: why it may all be over

July 2020
Bob Birrell, The Australian Horticultural Workforce: Working Holiday makers are no longer the ‘Backbone‘,  A submission to the National Agricultural Workforce Strategy Inquiry

July 2020
Kerry Breen and Bob Birrell*, Selling medical education to international students IMJ published, Internal Medicine Review, 2020 (50)
* TAPRI member

July 2020
Bob Birrell, The Australian Horticultural Workforce: Working Holiday Makers are no longer the ‘Backbone’ – A submission to the National Agricultural Workforce Strategy Inquiry

June 2020
Bob Birrell and Katharine Betts, The Crisis in the Overseas Student Industry: How should government respond?

March 2020
Katharine Betts, Demographic ageing: time-bomb or break through?

November, 2019
Bob Birrell and David McCloskey, Australia’s ‘jobs and growth’ strategy: pathway to a low productivity economy

July, 2019
Bob Birrell, Australia’s partner visa program: reform needed

May, 2019
Bob Birrell, The 2019 election and the impending migrant parent deluge

April, 2019
Bob Birrell, Overseas students are driving Australia’s Net Overseas Migration tide

April, 2019
Katharine Betts and Bob Birrell, Immigration, population growth and voters: who cares, and why?

December 2018
Bob Birrell and Katharine Betts, Australia’s higher education overseas student industry revisited

November 2018
Bob Birrell and Katharine Betts, Australia’s higher education overseas student industry: in a precarious state

October 2018
David McCloskey, Downward economic mobility in Australia — A report on households and people who have experienced income decline from 2011 to 2016

October 2018
Stephen Saunders, Why do we have a ‘Big Australia’?

July 2018
Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, Immigration and the Housing Affordability Crisis in Sydney and Melbourne

May 2018
Katharine Betts, Immigration and public opinion in Australia: how public concerns about high migration are suppressed

March 2018
Bob Birrell, Australia’s skilled migration program: scarce skills not required

October 2017
Katharine Betts and Bob Birrell, Australian voters’ views on immigration policy

August 2017
Bob Birrell, The Coalition’s 457 visa reset: tougher than you think

August 2017
Don Edgar, Patricia Edgar, Bob Birrell,* Katharine Betts,* Briony Dow and Chris Lovell, The New Middle Age: ways to thrive in the longevity economy
*TAPRI members

December 2016
Mike Moynihan and Bob Birrell, GP Oversupply — ignoring the evidence

December 2016
Bob Birrell, Ernest Healy, and Bob Kinnaird, Immigration overflow: why it matters

June 2016
Katharine Betts, Disability and age, from 1998 to 2015

June 2016
Mike Moynihan and Bob Birrell, Why the public cost of GP services is rising so fast

April 2016
Adrienne Millbank, Moral Confusion and the 1951 UN Convention in Europe and Australia

March 2016
Bob Kinnaird and Bob Birrell, Review of the 457 visa Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT)

March 2016
Bob Birrell and David McCloskey, Sydney and Melbourne ‘s housing affordability crisis—Report two: No end insight

December 2015
Katharine Betts, Voters’ attitudes to population growth in Australia: results of a survey conducted for Sustainable Population Australia

November 2015
Bob Birrell and David McCloskey, The housing affordability crisis in Sydney and Melbourne—Report One: The demographic foundations

November 2015
A brief article based on the above paper appeared in The Conversation, 2 November 2015: The root of Sydney and Melbourne’s housing crisis: we’re building the wrong thing

November 2015
Katharine Betts, Migration to Australia: an overview of the data, from 1860 to 2014-15

July 2015
Bob Birrell and Katharine Betts, The 2015 Intergenerational Report: Misleading findings and hidden agendas

A short article based on the above paper is on The Conversation web site: Truthy untruths: behind the facade of the Intergenerational Report

****
The following titles were originally published by the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University.

Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, Immigration & unemployment, August 2014
This paper attracted criticism from Judith Sloan at The Australian. See ‘Migrants no threat to jobs‘, 26 August 2014. Sloan argued that the authors had drawn data from two incompatible sources and thus their results were meaningless. Birrell wrote a reply pointing out that this was not so; all of the data come from the ABS Labour Force Survey. The Australian did not print this correction. His piece, ‘The recent migrant impact on employment—a reply to Judith Sloan’, is appended here.

Katharine Betts, The Ageing of the Australian Population: Triumph or Disaster?, April 2014

Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, Melbourne’s High Rise Apartment Boom, September 2013

Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, Scarce Jobs: Migrants or Locals at the End of the Queue, August 2013

Bob Birrell, Too Many GPs, March 2013

Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, The Impact of Recent Immigration on the Australian Workforce, February 2013

Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, Immigration Overshoot 2012, November 2012

Bob Birrell, Ernest Healy, Virginia Rapson and T. Fred Smith, The End of Affordable Housing in Melbourne, June 2012

Bob Birrell and Genevieve Heard, The 2012-13 immigration program: record numbers, city-bound, May 2012

Bob Birrell, Australia’s New Health Crisis—Too Many Doctors, September 2011

Bob Birrell, Ernest Healy, Katharine Betts, T. Fred Smith, Immigration and the Resources Boom Mark 2, July 2011

Bob Birrell, Dharma Arunachalam, Ernest Healy, Guardianship and demographic trends, a research report prepared for the Victorian Law Reform Commission, Melbourne, December 2010

Bob Birrell and T. Fred Smith, Export earnings from the overseas student industry: how much?, 2010

Bob Birrell, Population growth and sustainability (report prepared for the Australian Parliamentary Library), 2010

Bob Birrell, Ernest Healy and Bob Kinnaird, Immigration and the nation building and jobs plan, 2009

Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, Melbourne’s population surge, 2008

Bob Birrell and Virginia Rapson, Clearing the myths away: higher education’s place in meeting workforce demands, October 2006

Bob Birrell, Virginia Rapson and T. Fred Smith, Australia’s net gain from international skilled movements (report prepared for the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs), May 2006

Bob Birrell, Ernest Healy and T. Fred Smith, Melbourne’s second speed economy, 2006

Bob Birrell, Virginia Rapson, Ian Dobson and T. Fred Smith, Skilled movement in the new century: outcomes for Australia (report prepared for the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs), 2004

Bob Birrell, Ian Dobson, Virginia Rapson and T. Fred Smith, Higher Education at the Crossroads, May 2003