Professor says Australia is split

It's official. New immigration figures from the Bureau of Statistics show Australia is being split in two.

Migrants from Asia now outnumber those from Europe and New Zealand, while multicultural Australia is now divided by race.

Dr Robert Birrell runs the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University. He's an authority on the subject and he's worried.

"Sydney and Melbourne are diverging from the rest of Australia," said Dr Robert Birrell.

Immigration figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show Asia has now overtaken Europe and New Zealand combined. Almost all new Asian migrants are heading to either Sydney or Melbourne.

"(We now live in) two Australias, because Melbourne and Sydney can be regarded as one Australia where you've got very high proportions of persons born overseas," Dr Birrell said.

"In Sydney, about 40 per cent of all adults are born overseas, in Melbourne it's about just over 30 per cent."

"I don't think facts lie. Australia's population is changing.

"Sydney and Melbourne are diverging from the rest of Australia.

"In the case of Sydney, by far the biggest single source of migrants in recent years is China and in the case of Melbourne it's now India," Dr Birrell added. "We're a nation that's now split."

Between July and December last year 27,623 people arrived here from Asia, while 27,325 arrived from Europe and Oceania, which includes the United Kingdom and New Zealand, where traditionally most new Australians came from.

And here's where they're going: 10,624 Asian settlers chose Sydney, while 9,035 chose Melbourne.

Chinese Malaysians Daniel Chong and his wife Josephine came here with baby boy Timothy last year.

"Well, most of the friends we made here are Asians, Chinese," Daniel said.

"At first, when we come here, our English is not very well, so we tend to join the group of people who talks our own language."

President of the Australian Chinese Community Association in NSW, Lucilla Leung, said new migrants liked Australiaâ•˙s egalitarian roots.

"It is such an open society," she said.
"Everybody is Mr and Mrs average. I think that attracts a lot of people from old culture."

Ms Leung said most Asian migrants were not trying to become 'traditional true blue' Aussies.

Asked whether such migrants had a "strong policy of assimilation", she said it was more about integration.

"I don't think so," Ms Leung said. "We have a strong policy of integration."

This grouping together means that in some parts of Sydney and Melbourne, 65 per cent of the adult population is overseas-born.

Under the Howard Government, immigration has doubled to 165,000 per year and rising.

"I don't see diversity in population as a threat in any way to Australia, rather than an opportunity," Voula Messimerri, from the Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia, said.

"Australia is a country of migrants. We accept it and we become, in turn, proud Australians."

Ms Messimerri said migrants, especially those with skills, can only make Australia better and more prosperous.

"Increasingly, we're seeing Perth and Western Australia, because of the mining boom, becoming another satellite for economic prosperity, so I'm not really sure what Mr Birrell is talking about," said Ms Messimerri.

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