TAMWORTH is largely keeping the faith, new census figures have revealed.
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released data from the troublesome 2016 Census on Tuesday.
While Tamworth showed growth in a number of measures, including population and median wages, the local government area bucked the nationwide trend of atheism, opting to keep on believing.
Nationally, 29.6 per cent of Aussies registered “no religion” on their census form, 10.3 per cent higher than Tamworth’s count.
Tamworth’s top religious affiliation is Anglicanism with 30 per cent of locals aligning with the faith, more than double the national average of 13.3 per cent.
It’s still the city’s most-followed belief but it has dropped off by six per cent since 2011.
Tamworth Catholics haven’t seen as much of a drop-off with 24.4 per cent of population, slightly higher than the national average of 22.6 per cent.
The region’s population didn’t crack the 60,000 threshold with the census finding 59,663 in the council area which represented a growth of about six per cent since 2011.
The growth has prompted calls for more investment in regional areas.
“I think we’re very well placed as a city to accommodate growth,” Tamworth mayor Col Murray said.
“When we look at the stress that growth brings on to the capital cities, in particular Sydney and Melbourne, and the cost of congestion, I would argue it’s a much better for government to invest in regional cities.”
Cr Murray said jobs, transport, connectivity and water were key to sustaining growth
“We need to make our inland cities more livable,” he said.
“The connectivity is always high on people’s agenda, that’s air flights, passenger rail, freight rail, transport links and very high on everyone’s list is connectivity for NBN.”
While employees in the region are taking home more pay, rental prices have risen. The median personal wage rose 23 per cent since 2011 to $633, however, median rents rose 30 per cent, to $260 in 2016.