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Australian Embassy, Lisbon
Press Release - 2 January 2007
Immigration: 131,000 new arrivals now call Australia home
More than 131 000 people from overseas chose to make Australia their new home in 2005-2006, an increase of about 8000 on the previous year.
Announcing the 2005-06 new settler figures, the Australian Minister for Immigration Ms Senator Amanda Vanstone, said that the largest number of new settlers came from the United Kingdom - with 23 290, choosing to make Australia their new home and increase of about 5000 on last year.
Other European countries contributed about 7000 migrants, while the number of arrivals from Sudan fell almost 2000 from the last year to 3,783.
Iraqi arrival numbers were up almost 500 to 2425, while more than 52 000 people from 34 Asian countries also made Australia their new home during 2005-2006.
Senator Vanstone said the majority of new arrivals entered Australia through the family and skill streams of the migration programme.
She said that increasing numbers of migrants has chosen Western Australia to set up home. In 2005-2006, some 17,638 migrants settled in WA, an increase of 16,318 over the previous year. More than 6700 United Kingdom settlers led the charge to Western Australia, while other source countries included Sudan with 441 new settlers, Singapore with 936, Malaysia with 751, India with 558; and South Africa with 1086.
Australia’s new arrivals also made their homes in the three major Australian states: NSW 44,661 settlers; Victoria 32,2971; and Queensland 24,962 settlers.
The Minister said that Australia’s migration target for 2006-2007 was about 140 000, including 97, 500 in the work skill stream.
“That number does not include the 13,000 refugee and humanitarian entrants who will begin new lives in Australia through Australia’s humanitarian programme,” The Minister said.
Canberra
02 January 2007