PhillN01

Taken from the www.couriermail.com.au today. 21st Sept

ALMOST a quarter of Australia's population was born overseas, the highest figure since Federation, according to new figures released yesterday.


And they are most likely to be from the UK, New Zealand, Italy, China and Vietnam.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has found 24 per cent of Australia's population at June 30 last year – or 4.8 million people – were overseas-born.

ABS migration chief Ian Appleby said Australia had one of the highest proportions of overseas-born citizens in the world, along with New Zealand and ahead of Canada.

"It was nearly as high as this at Federation, with 23 per cent of the country born overseas then," he said.

"But, at that stage, most of them were British. What's changed hugely over the century is the mixture of countries people have come from."

The fastest-growing group of Australians born overseas were Sudanese, jumping by an average 26 per cent each year, followed by Afghanis and Iraqis.

Daniel Zingifuaboro, 35, came to Australia from Sudan in 2001.

Like many other arrivals from strife-torn Sudan, Mr Zingifuaboro had fled his home country, applying for residency from Kenya.

He said he liked his new country, which had offered him permanent residency under the humanitarian visa scheme, and he had taken out citizenship in 2003.



The ABS report also saw a continuation of the trend of internal migration, with sun-seekers migrating from cities to Queensland and Western Australia.