It’s Time to Start Really Considering Regional Australia as an Option

01 Dec It’s Time to Start Really Considering Regional Australia as an Option

With more and more talking from politicians and media about wanting to push migrants out of Australia’s major cities into regional areas, it’s wise to start changing your great Australian dream from the city hub to the regional townships. Not only are regional areas screaming out for more immigration and diversity, for both cultural and economic boosts, but living ‘regionally’ may not be as hard as you think.

This week I had a call from a restaurant in Wangaratta, 2.5 hours north of Melbourne CBD by car and also has a train from the city, who has struggled for 2 months to hire a restaurant manager, fully willing to sponsor the right person. They spent almost $500 on advertising, and had no applicants. The next closest main regional town of Shepparton, 2 hours from Melbourne CBD and train option also, is a booming area that I’ve also struggles to place migrants into vacancies even when the employers have been willing for RSMS sponsorship (direct PR on subclass 187). I find this surprising, because Shepparton has trendy cafes, a beautiful lakeside housing estate, and La Trobe University and Melbourne University campuses.

Regional NSW has it’s own beautiful town’s that are likewise not far from Sydney CBD but yet everyone wants to live in ‘Sydney’ itself, Goulburn the perfect example. Located 2 hours south of Sydney and 1 hour north of Canberra, this beautiful town was dubbed Australia’s first inland city in 1863, has more than 15 heritage listed buildings, and is home to the Big Merino. Soon, you’ll learn that Australia has this odd love for all things ‘big’ and you’ll be wanting to visit other regional Australian towns so that you can get a photo with The Big Banana, The Big Prawn, The Big Pineapple, Big Trout, Big Orange, Big Lobster……..the list is great. My personal favourite, The Big Potato, given how lazy the design is compared to the others.

Further to this, if you’ve ever had a dream of living in an Australia coastal town (Home & Away your favourite Aussie show?) then just open up Google Maps and have a scroll up and down Australia’s east coast to realise how large it really is. The only regions currently excluded as regional are Sydney, Newcastle, Central Coast, Wollongong (NSW), Great Brisbane and the Gold Coast (QLD), metropolitan Melbourne (VIC) and Perth and surrounds (WA).

Would it really be so bad to live regionally to drastically boost your chances of Permanent Residency, but then travel into the city once a weekend, or even monthly, should you choose? The talk of ‘forcing’ migrants into regional areas is getting louder and louder, so it’s time to start shifting the mindset from this being a negative and start perceiving it as an opportunity.

Worldly Migration has meeting spaces across Melbourne CBD, Ringwood, Dandenong and Lilydale, and travels to employer client locations across all of metropolitan and regional Victoria. Migration Agent services are available to all migrants world-wide. Contact Us to discuss your options.