Australia’s is ageing faster than ever and birth-rates have fallen over 3 percent last year, according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The figures show that immigration remains critical to Australia’s sustained growth but what is troubling is that migrants are flocking to Sydney and Melbourne while the other states are experiencing drastic falls in the rate of population growth. The statistics certainly indicate that there is an urgent need to better manage Australia’s immigration system to encourage a more even distribution of new arrivals.

Immigration added over 212,700 people to Australia's population in the year ending June 2014.  Net Overseas Migration (NOM) remains the key driver to Australia’s population growth, contributing over 58% to growth over the year to take the country’s resident population to 23,490,700people.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Australian Demographics report, released last month, found that while all states had population increases from migration over the 12 months, some states saw drastic falls in the rate of growth.

Western Australia's migrant intake dropped by 40% or almost 20,000 people over the same period - on par with the Northern Territory (down 40% or 2000 people) and dropped further than the Australian Capital Territory (down by 700 people or 25%). Queensland's rate fell 24% with nearly 10,000 migrants coming to the state in the year to June.

New South Wales and Victoria continued to experience growth in net overseas migration, adding 6,300 people in NSW and 2,300 people in Victoria.

ABS spokeswoman Denise Carlton said natural population growth - births versus deaths - was also decreasing, with 300,900 babies born last year (down 3.3%) and 148,700 deaths (down 0.3%).

"Today's release also reveals how fast the number of people aged 65 years and over are growing," Ms Carlton said.

"Over the past 20 years, this group has grown by 65%, more than double the rate of increase for the working age population and four times faster than children.

"Because of this, Australia's median age has increased by four years over the past 20 years, from 33.4 years in 1994 to 37.3 years in 2014.

"Tasmania remained our oldest state with a median age of 41."