More potential StatsChat readers!

The Auckland population is predicted to hit 1.5 million this week, and we actually have an example of good reporting of statistics to commemorate the occasion.

Of course, I did find one point to nitpick: the Stats NZ expert quoted by the Herald,  Andrea Blackburn, says

“The 1.5 millionth person could be a migrant coming from overseas, or from within New Zealand, but it is most likely to be a baby, because births add more than net migration to Auckland’s population growth.”

Surely in this context it’s gross rather than net migration that counts.  Suppose net migration were zero — that wouldn’t mean that the 1.5 millionth person was certain to be a baby rather than an immigrant. And what if net migration were negative?

There don’t seem to be figures for gross immigration rather than births, but if we ignore migration within NZ and conservatively guess that Auckland gets about 1/3 of the country’s immigrants, that would mean about 28000 permanent and long-term arrivals per year, compared to about 23000 births.  The 1.5 millionth Aucklander has about an even chance of being a migrant or being a cute little baby.

[Update: as commenter Andrew points out, the Mayor has annointed his own cute little 1.5Mbaby.   Also, a lot of the media seem to think citizenship and residence are the same: Auckland has 1.5m residents, not citizens.  And the mayor of Invercargill thinks moving to Auckland is unfair and should be stopped].