since 1916, when many australians left our shores to fight in the first world war. graph 3 population growth % % projection - 2 - 2 sources : abs ; australian treasury ; rba the fast population growth of recent decades has been a major factor shaping our economy. it has underpinned our relatively fast growth in gdp compared with other advanced economies. it also slowed the ageing of the population, given that the new arrivals have been fairly young. the large number of students coming to australia has also boosted our education sector. and the effects of fast population growth have also been felt in our housing market and in pressure on some of our infrastructure. so the effects have been widespread. looking to the future, it remains hard to predict when the borders will open again and when they do, what the rate of new arrivals will be. if population growth is to be noticeably slower in a post - covid world, the trajectory for our economy will look different too. a changed property market a third area where the pandemic is having a marked effect is on our property market. it is a complex picture here, with the market simultaneously adjusting to : a recession ; lower population growth ; record low interest rates ; substantial government incentives to support residential construction ; and changes to the way that people work, shop and live. so there are a lot of moving pieces at present and the effects are very uneven across different types of property and across the country. the effects of the pandemic are most obvious in the market for retail properties in our cbds, where vacancy rates have increased sharply ( graph 4 ). not surprisingly, rents and the capital values of these properties have both fallen. there has also been an impact on the cbd office market, as people work from home. the national office vacancy rate has increased sharply this year and further increases are expected ( graph 5 ). but even here, there is considerable variation across our cities, with the biggest increase in cbd office vacancies in sydney and melbourne. in contrast, the markets for industrial property have been stronger, with increased demand for warehousing and distribution facilities as people increasingly shop online. graph 4 retail vacancy rates * by property type % % cbd retail 10. 0 10. 0 7. 5 7. 5 5. 0 5. 0 regional * * 2. 5 2. 5 0. 0 * * * vacancy rates for specialty stores centres anchored by department stores source : jll research 0. 0 graph 5 office vacancy rate

, but all over the world, have been insufficient, was to take care of the distributional consequences of reforms that basically were positive for growth, but not necessarily for equity. back to the italian elections : aren ’ t you worried about the fact that in one of the most pro - european countries traditionally, the anti - european forces have gained more than 50 % of the votes? what does this mean for the european project? don ’ t you think that it 7 / 10 bis central bankers'speeches could jeopardise even the euro area reforms? it ’ s the third biggest country in europe, in the eurozone. my second question is on this day, it ’ s 8 th march, it ’ s women ’ s day. don ’ t you think it is a little bit sad, with all respect for mr de guindos, that there are always men appointed for the ecb and that the presence of women in the governing council is still so rare? draghi : on the first question, i really don ’ t want to comment. i can only say that the euro is irreversible and progress on deepening – and i just read it in the introductory statement, where the governing council ’ s view about this can be found – the governing council says that deepening economic and monetary union remains a priority. the governing council urges specific and decisive steps to complete the banking union and the capital markets union. now, on what you said, certainly i think the gender balance ought to be improved. this ought to happen at all levels. by the way, let me congratulate mr de guindos because the governing council approved him. i am absolutely confident that he is going to be a very, very good colleague for all of us. as far as the ecb is concerned, there will be a press release because we are also working on improving our gender balance situation. there will be a press release stating what sort of initiatives we ’ ve undertaken and the board has approved recently. these initiatives are undertaken because we ’ ve made significant progress since we set explicitly our targets – explicit targets which had not been set before. still, this progress is less than what we wished for. the numbers now fall short of our interim targets. we introduced the gender targets in 2013 and the interim now, right now – actually at the end of last year – 27 % of management positions were held by women compared with an interim target of 29 %. for the most senior management