It declined last year to 52 per cent.
These migrants are primarily settling in Sydney and Melbourne, but in terms of total population Melbourne is growing faster with its population rising by 600,000 in the past decade, outstripping Sydney at less than 450,000.
Sydney has seen the biggest inner city increase, with a 21 per cent rise in population growth close to the CBD.
But it still has the greatest gap between housing supply and demand. Nationally there's a shortfall of 200,000 homes.
More homes may need to be built in Queensland because there's an acceleration of people moving north, but as housing affordability worsens more young people are staying in the family home, especially in Victoria and Western Australia, reversing a near 20 year trend.
Of the 18 cities in the report, Wollongong has the worst unemployment rate at 8 per cent and that may get worse with the recent redundancies at Bluescope Steel.
The best is Darwin at 2 per cent.
Whether it be the fact that more of us are choosing to work near home, or because of the rising cost of petrol, there's been an increase in the use of public transport, with cycling also picking up.
In fact, more than 11.5 million bikes were sold over the past 10 years, 2 million more than cars.
As we know petrol costs are up, so too are electricity prices, and that may have contributed to a 1.2 per cent decline in electricity consumption.
This report reminds us that even though there's so much focus on Australia's resource boom, Australia's major cities are home to three-quarters of the population and generate around 80 per cent of national wealth.
They need to be managed well to help economic growth.
