2015-03-03 Planning & Organisation Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                  3 MARCH 2015


Only a very small proportion of Noosa’s population identified as Indigenous and of these the
majority were Aboriginal.

Approximately 72.5% of the Shire’s population were born in Australia. The figure was over
80% for the hinterland localities and as low as 70.6% for Noosaville and Doonan. The most
common places of birth outside of Australia were the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
Most localities reported having over 95% of residents speaking only English in the home.
Aside from English, generally German, French and Italian were most commonly spoken.

3. Households and Families

The AEC report shows that the most prominent family category across all localities in 2011
was “couple families with no children”. At 47.9% almost half of all families in the Shire fell
into this category, well above regional and state proportions. There was significant variance
with the highest proportions at Noosa Heads (60.0%) followed by Noosa North Shore and
Noosaville and Doonan, reflective of the high number of “empty nesters” attracted to these
localities.

Accordingly the rate of “couple families with children under 15” was less than SEQ and
Queensland rates. The highest proportions of couple families with children under 15 were in
Sunshine Beach to Peregian Beach and in Cooroibah. The highest proportion of one parent
families was reported in Tewantin.

Cooroibah reported the highest 2011 average household size at 2.8 persons per household.
At the lowest end the figure was 2.2 persons for Noosa Heads and Noosaville & Doonan.
The Shire average was 2.4 while the SEQ region and state averages were both 2.6 persons.

Noosa has a high proportion of people living on their own. Census data has shown that the
number of occupied private dwellings with usually one resident has risen from 1,802 in 1991
to 4,661 in 2011. At 2011 25.2% of Noosa households were recorded as lone person
households with the comparative State figure 22.8%.

Tewantin had close to 1,200 lone person households which represented the highest of
localities in both number and proportion. In general the proportion of lone person
households was lower in the hinterland.

Figure 3, not from the AEC report, shows the composition of households in persons for all
occupied private dwellings from the census years 1996 – 2011, for Noosa Shire. While there
has been an increase in each category, one and two person households account for roughly
two thirds of all households by 2011 and the proportion of households with three or more
residents has decreased from 37.9% to 33.6% over that time.




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