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Exactly. And it's much the same everywhere outside of Sydney, Melbourne, SE Queensland, Canberra (public service jobs) and defence force towns/cities.chops_a_must said:
Whilst there will always be some who want to live in a country town or in the smaller cities (that is, any city other than Syd / Melb / Bris) history has shown pretty well that they aren't the number one choice for the majority.
Perth has had the big attraction of relatively easy to get employment (compared to the other capital cities) since at least the early 1990's recession. Add in cheap housing and a resources boom and it's not hard to see why the population has increased.
But the underlying point is that many in Perth are there for economic reasons alone. They came for money and will likely head back to their home states if/when the money dries up.
It's not just Perth either. Tasmania has long experienced the exact same situation with workers from interstate during big construction projects - once it's built the workers head straight back home with a fist full of $.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with people moving between the Australian states (or overseas) to pursue the available opportunities. But a problem arises when a temporary boost to economic growth is assumed to be permanent. At best they stop arriving but more likely some will leave thus pushing population and economic growth heavily down if not into reverse.
As for public infrastructure, we seem to be massively underinvesting in the future of this country. We haven't added serious water supply capacity to Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane for over two decades. We're not doing much better with electricity (except Queensland and Tas) and we've got no long term plan for gas or what to do about oil depletion or greenhouse.
It's worth noting that those latter 2 points, oil and greenhouse, directly threaten 99% of our transport and 90% of our electricity in this country. Obvious national priorities that we're doing basically nothing about.
Meanwhile, as all this important invesment is neglected, we choose to borrow a fortune and push up house prices - something that fixes no real national or state problem and produces no real wealth. Pure madness.