According to a new report released by Australia`s Bureau of Statistics ABS, immigrants from China have overtaken New Zealand as Australia`s second-largest migrant group, after the UK.
Anthony Grubb, director of demographics, said 395100 new people were added in the year to September 2018, compared with 407000 the previous year.
"the rate of population growth varies from state to state and territory," he said. Victoria continued to grow at the fastest rate of 2.2 percent, with an increase of 140000 to 6.5 million. NSW`s population grew 1.5 percent to 8 million, but the most remarkable number of immigrants born in China was the number of immigrants born in China.
Since 2016 or the third largest number of Chinese immigrants, there are now 606450 people, surpassing New Zealand, to become the second largest group of immigrants in Australia! Second only to British immigrants (997830).
The arrival of a large number of Chinese immigrants is not only reflected in the number, but also greatly promotes Australia`s multiculturalism.
Mandarin has become Australia’s second-largest language, after English, according to the Australian media SBS. There are 2.5%of people in Australia who communicate in Mandarin at home. Whether you walk on the streets of Melbourne or Sydney, there are almost many places where you see Chinese signs or Chinese names of the restaurant barbers’ supermarket, and so on.
All these show that the development of Chinese community in Australia is growing, at the same time, more and more Chinese choose to emigrate here every year.
However, the recent release of the new immigration policy has worried many Chinese families. One of the most important and direct changes is the reduction in immigration quotas from 190000 to 160000.
The reduction in quotas indicates that competition for Australian immigrants will intensify.
Recently, Australian Prime Minister Morrison held a press conference on the new population policy, announcing the reduction of immigration quotas and the signing of a settlement policy in remote areas.
Prime Minister Morrison says the annual limit for permanent immigration has been changed to 160000, which means 30, 000 quotas have been cut directly from the previous Labour government target of 190000! This largely confirms rumors that Australian immigrants have tightened over the past year, from talking on paper to landing.
What are the main categories of 30, 000 quota cuts? The prime minister said the Independent skilled Immigration Visa. During the change, 188 business immigrants were not mentioned, meaning Chinese investors continue to apply, with a minimum of 200000 Australian dollars.
(2) to increase the proportion of highly skilled migrants and promote migrants from remote areas in addition to reducing immigration quotas, this time the reform also has one key point: adjusting the immigration structure and increasing the proportion of highly skilled migrants. Ensure that only the "best, smartest" immigrants who can really contribute to Australia`s economic and culture are accepted.
In addition, government stressed once again that skilled immigrants must stay away from popular cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Brisbane and Perth and travel to remote areas.
This is the previous so-called "go to the mountains and the countryside" plan.
At present, the situation in Australia varies widely, with new states and Victoria desperately "driving out", but remote areas such as South Australia are in urgent need of more than 5000 immigrants. There are also Western Australia, Northern Territory and so on. So Prime Minister ScottMorrison said: the reduction in immigration quotas is mainly to ease the population pressure in big cities, optimize the population structure, and avoid excessive population growth.
In the last fiscal year, 112000 people received Australian PR, through skilled immigrants, and as many as 87 per cent chose to settle in Sydney and Melbourne.
To this end, Australia`s government has officially launched two new visas:
- Visa for skilled immigrants from remote areas with employer guarantee;
- State government or family member guarantee remote area skilled immigration visa.
The two types of visas will split 23,000 quotas from the original technology immigrants.
The new visa will apply to more jobs than the existing skilled immigration visa. In other words, it used to be impossible or difficult to emigrate through skilled jobs, as long as you want to go to remote areas.
In addition, federal government said that in order to reduce excessive congestion in big cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, government will also encourage international students to attend universities in remote areas and will give some "incentives." Government allocates 1000 places and 15000 scholarships to subsidize the lives of overseas students.
New fiscal year employer guarantee quota increase, speed up the remote area employer guarantee visa will receive unprecedented attention.
Government will allocate 19.4 million Australian dollars to deploy additional manpower to remote areas to solve infrastructure problems in remote areas to support the development of remote areas. Under the plan, visas for employers in remote areas, guarantee, will be given priority.
At the same time, the quota for employers` guarantee visas for fiscal year 2019 will be increased from 36000 to 39000.
The quota for family reunion in the new fiscal year remains unchanged. At present, the Australian Migration Board has a large backlog of family reunion visa applications, with a total application fee of up to $500 million. The immigration minister Coleman also announced that the quota for this category (including parents and spouse immigrants) would remain unchanged at 47732 in fiscal year 2019.
