A quarter of Eurobodalla's homes empty on Census night, a third of its people over 65

Three numbers from the Australian Bureau of Statistics describe the three council areas from Shoalhaven to the Victorian border better than any slogan. On the night of the 2021 Census, 6,226 of Eurobodalla's 22,829 private dwellings had nobody in them, 27.3 per cent; in Shoalhaven it was 12,794 of 55,461, 23.1 per cent, and in Bega Valley 2,914 of 17,544, 16.6 per cent. For New South Wales as a whole the figure was 9.4 per cent. Residents aged 65 and over made up 32.8 per cent of Eurobodalla, 29.0 per cent of Bega Valley and 28.0 per cent of Shoalhaven, against 17.6 per cent of the state; the median Eurobodalla resident was 54, the median NSW resident 39. And in the four years to June 2025 the ABS estimates the three shires together added 5,201 people, a rise of 2.8 per cent, while NSW grew 6.1 per cent.

Put together, the data says this is a coast with more houses than households, more retirees than almost any comparison you can draw with the state, and a population growing slowly. Each of those is a fact about how every other story on this beat plays out: how big a hospital needs to be and what it treats, how much water a town must store for a summer that doubles it, who is on the rate roll and who is not, and where the people who staff all of it are supposed to live.

What an empty house is, and is not

The Census does not ask why a house is empty, so the 27.3 per cent is not a count of holiday homes. The ABS defines an unoccupied private dwelling as a house, townhouse or flat with no one staying there on Census Night, and its list of what that includes is broad: holiday homes (for owner’s use only or those rented out commercially), newly completed dwellings, habitable dwellings due for demolition or repair, and dwellings to let (Census dictionary, Dwelling type). A home whose owners were simply away that Tuesday counts too. It also leaves things out: unoccupied cabins and holiday homes in caravan and residential parks are not counted in the Census at all, so some of the coast's holiday stock is invisible to this measure.

Then there is the night itself. Census night was Tuesday 10 August 2021, and the ABS's own summary records that many parts of the country were in lockdown or subject to border restrictions (Snapshot of Australia, 2021). A winter weeknight during a lockdown is about the emptiest a holiday coast gets, so the unoccupied share that night is likely to sit above a normal August, and far above January. We cannot say by how much, and nor can anyone else from this table. What the number does establish is the gap: the coast's share is between 1.8 and 2.9 times the state's on the same night under the same rules, and Eurobodalla's 27.3 per cent is the highest of the three by a clear margin.

The oldest coast, and the fewest young adults

The age figures are counts by place of usual residence, so holiday-makers are not in them. In Eurobodalla, 13,326 of 40,593 residents were 65 or over, and 4,055 of them were in the single five-year band from 65 to 69, the largest band in the shire. The three youngest adult bands together, 20 to 34, held 4,509 people, 11.1 per cent of the shire against 20.3 per cent of the state. Bega Valley (12.0 per cent) and Shoalhaven (14.5 per cent) are less extreme, and Shoalhaven's size means its 30,419 residents over 65 are the largest group in absolute terms. People aged 85 and over were 3.7 per cent of Eurobodalla, 3.2 of Shoalhaven and 3.0 of Bega Valley, against 2.3 per cent of NSW.

These are 2021 figures and the only Census figures there are. The 2026 Census was taken on 11 August 2026 and its first results are due in June 2027, so every line in this story is open to revision in nine months. Our expectation, held lightly, is that the age shares will have risen rather than fallen: the 60 to 64 band in 2021 was larger than the 65 to 69 band in Shoalhaven and Bega Valley and nearly as large in Eurobodalla, and those people have since crossed the line.

Growing at half the state's pace

The ABS's estimated resident population puts Shoalhaven at 111,755 at 30 June 2025, up 3,205 on June 2021; Eurobodalla at 41,309, up 845; and Bega Valley at 36,921, up 1,151. In percentage terms that is 3.0, 2.1 and 3.2 per cent, against 6.1 for the state. Eurobodalla, the shire with the most empty houses and the oldest residents, also grew the least.

Two cautions travel with these numbers. An estimate is not a count: the ABS's 2021 estimate for NSW is 8,097,062 people, where the Census counted 8,072,163, because the estimate adjusts for people missed, people counted twice and residents overseas on the night. And the estimates move. The ABS describes the series as final for 2001 to 2021, revised for 2022, 2023 and 2024, and preliminary for 2025, and adds that Some caution should be exercised when using the estimates, especially for areas with very small population. The 2025 figures are due to be revised at the next release in March 2027, and the whole series will be rebased once the 2026 Census is in. The growth gap between the coast and the state is large enough to survive that; the second decimal place is not.

Why it matters for the hospital, the dam and the rates

Our reading of the figures, and it is a reading: a hospital serving a population where one resident in three is over 65 is treating a different caseload from one in Western Sydney, and the arithmetic behind the arguments over the Eurobodalla and Shoalhaven hospitals starts here. A water utility whose dwellings are a quarter empty on a winter night is building storage for a summer population it cannot count from the Census, which is part of why a $150 million second dam has just been built in Eurobodalla. And a council's rate roll is a list of properties, not of the people home on a given night. A house that stands empty most of the year asks little of the library or the pool; it also does not fill a school, a GP's books or a winter cafe, and it is a house a nurse or a teacher cannot rent. Which of those effects wins is a judgement, not a statistic, and the figures in this story do not settle it. They do settle that the question is bigger here than almost anywhere in the state.

The counts behind every percentage

Private dwellings on Census night, 10 August 2021, by place of enumeration (ABS QuickStats "Dwelling count", excluding visitor-only and other non-classifiable households). Share is unoccupied divided by occupied plus unoccupied.

Area	Occupied	Unoccupied	Share
Eurobodalla (LGA12750)	16,603	6,226	27.3%
Shoalhaven (LGA16950)	42,667	12,794	23.1%
Bega Valley (LGA10550)	14,630	2,914	16.6%
Three councils	73,900	21,934	22.9%
New South Wales	2,900,468	299,524	9.4%

Residents aged 65 and over, 2021 Census, by place of usual residence. The 65+ count sums the five QuickStats age bands from 65-69 to 85 and over; share is that sum divided by the page's "People" count.

Area	People	Aged 65+	Share
Eurobodalla	40,593	13,326	32.8%
Shoalhaven	108,531	30,419	28.0%
Bega Valley	35,942	10,413	29.0%
Three councils	185,066	54,158	29.3%
New South Wales	8,072,163	1,424,141	17.6%

Estimated resident population at 30 June, ABS dataflow ERP_LGA2025 (final for 2021, preliminary for 2025). Change is 2025 minus 2021, with the percentage of 2021 in brackets.

Area	2021	2025	Change
Eurobodalla	40,464	41,309	+845 (2.1%)
Shoalhaven	108,550	111,755	+3,205 (3.0%)
Bega Valley	35,770	36,921	+1,151 (3.2%)
Three councils	184,784	189,985	+5,201 (2.8%)
New South Wales	8,097,062	8,592,524	+495,462 (6.1%)