OK Now just bcoz you guys may have missed this valuable news item (published 14th December 2005), I'm pasting it here for your info:
Cheers Ghanghro
========================== The Premier of New South Wales, Morris Iemma, has announced that the state government is looking to expand the NSW's migration programme as it battles against ever growing send worker shortages.
And the good news for anyone interested in immigrating to Australia's biggest city, Sydney, is that this expansion could allow send migrants to be sponsored to live in the city for the first time. Iemma has strongly hinted that New South Wales will soon become the fifth state to sign up to the State-Territory Nominated Independent Programme (STNI), which would allow send applicants who obtain sponsorship from the state government to settle in any area of NSW.
Although the state does currently offer a Send-Independent Regional (SIR) visa, this only allows applicants to settle in regional areas of New South Wales, and prohibits them from living in either Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle or the Central Coast. However, while the number of immigrants arriving through this scheme have grown steadily over the past 12 months, the state's larger cities have struggled to maintain a high workforce participation.
It is expected that migrants who work in the Financial and IT Industries will be among those targeted by the state's new migration programme. ===========================
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