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9th October 2018
12:35pm BST
Irish people moving to Australia may be banned from settling in major cities like Sydney and Melbourne.
The Australian government want to cut the number of immigrants moving to Sydney and Melbourne and as a result, are considering adding a geographic condition to visas.
Minister for cities, urban infrastructure and population Alan Tudge said that placing a condition on immigrant visas that would make them stay in less popular places for several years would help ensure they would settle in those places permanently.
According to Independent.ie, Australia is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world, but a high proportion of its population live in cities.
Around two in five Australians live in Sydney and Melbourne.
Australia currently has the second fastest growing population of any developed OECD country at 1.6%.
The population in Melbourne alone grew 2.7%, while Sydney grew by 2.1%.
Tudge some immigrants would be exempt from geographic visa restrictions.
Immigrants on sponsored visas could work wherever their company needed, and those on family reunion visas (an immigrant married to an Australian) would be able to live anywhere in the country.
This could scupper a lot of plans to move Down Under.
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