Subject: Regional migration
EO&E........................................................................................
DAVID CAMPBELL: Now, to try and ease population pressure in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, the Federal Government will increase the number of regional migrant visas.
ALLISON LANGDON: And joining us now is Immigration Minister David Coleman, thank you so much for coming in this morning.
DAVID COLEMAN: Great to be here.
ALLISON LANGDON: So early this year, your Government announced 23,000 positions for regional areas. That’s clearly been a success. You’re now upping that number?
DAVID COLEMAN: Yeah, that’s right. We’re increasing it to 25,000. We saw a really strong demand for regional migration in the first quarter of the year. And basically what this is about is saying we know that about 70 per cent of all of Australia’s population growth is in three places right now. Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. And what we want to do is spread Australia’s population growth around more evenly. And there are a lot of places in regional Australia that are really crying out for more people, in our farming communities and other places, and so this is about saying we want people to commit to regional Australia. And if they commit to regional Australia for at least three years, they’d then be eligible for permanent residency.
DAVID CAMPBELL: David, are those communities accepting of the immigrants that are then coming in?
DAVID COLEMAN: Yeah absolutely. I mean, my experience has been that right across Australia, there’s a lot of goodwill towards migrants who come in, who help fill skills gaps and who also buy things at the shops or maybe start a shop or get involved in local communities. And that’s needed right around the country, whereas in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, we have seen very rapid population growth, we have seen significant congestion pressures, and so it makes sense for the Government to focus not only on the total number of migrants – which we’ve also reduced somewhat – but also the distribution of where people go. And that’s what we’re really focusing on.
ALLISON LANGDON: So if you’re fast-tracking applications for those who want to move to the bush [inaudible] you’re actually then seeing that the pressure on our cities is being eased?
DAVID COLEMAN: Well yeah. This year, there will be less spots for people who settle in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane because we’ve got a larger number of these spots that are restricted, that effectively don’t enable people to settle in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. And that’s a deliberate design, because we have seen that rapid growth in the big cities. We haven’t seen as significant growth in other places, and so we want that distribution of people to be more even. So South Australia, for instance, has had quite low population growth but has a lot of opportunities for skilled migrants so we want more people to take up those opportunities.
ALLISON LANGDON: Well, having grown up in a small country town, it’s a great lifestyle and it’s a great initiative. Thanks for joining us.
DAVID COLEMAN: Thanks very much.
