A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said the projected target of upto 148,000 new immigrants for 2006-07 would be met once the figures were tallied.
It represents one of the greatest immigration influxes in decades. Aided by a risingnumber of births, Australia is experiencing a rise in population numbers not seensince the two most significant boom periods, after World War II and in the 1980s.
The secretary of the Department of Immigration, Andrew Metcalfe, had already hailedthe previous year's growth as a record.
In the department's annual report, he commended the outcome for 2005-06 of 143,000new migrants as "the largest migration program for several decades".
This year's intake and projections for coming years suggest the increase willcontinue. The Government is aiming to accept 152,800 new migrants in 2007-08, a farcry from the low immigration stance it adopted on coming to power in 1996.
After huge immigration numbers during Bob Hawke's years as prime minister in the1980s, his successor Paul Keating slashed immigration in his first year as primeminister.
The rapid increase in immigration has been fuelled by a growing skills shortage. TheGovernment has altered the mix of the immigration program to focus on attractingmore skilled migrants.
Two-thirds of those expected to settle permanently this year and next will fallunder the skilled migration category.
Visa for Australia and Australia Visa Application made easy! Australian Working Visamade possible to easily have one!

You are welcome to include these headlines in your own pages. If you want to find out how to parse this RSS file please read our tutorial How to parse RSS feeds with PHP.