Migration of Muslims to Australia

The government and opposition looks agreed when it comes to immigration policies. Immigration system in Australia is non-discriminatory. Australian government has pursued immigration strategy that is making it difficult for the Muslims of the Middle East to settle here.

According to report by immigration officials, the low number of Muslim Migrants from the Middle East has nothing to do with the religion, even religion is not asked for immigration to Australia.

Instead they focus on skilled and professional individuals without any discrimination of faith or religion. Now India is a source of permanent migrants with 34, 874 arrivals last year and China is second source of permanent immigrants with 27,874 migrants last year.

Islam was once the fastest growing religion in Australia, there are now more Buddhists (2.5 per cent of the population) than there are Muslims (2.2 per cent), and the Hindus are rapidly catching up.

It is difficult to answer how many Muslims have migrated to Australia last year, but the number of Muslim migrants are reduced to very low numbers as it used to be in the past.

Australia continues to welcome immigrants from Iran (4093 people in 2013-14), the ABS data suggests that as many as 62 per cent of those who arrive are not Muslim but Christian.

The focus on skills means Australia takes more people from Ireland (5541 in 2013-14) than from Iraq (4304), and more from Nepal (4470), whose population is about 80 per cent Hindu, than from Bangladesh (2569), where most of the population is Muslim.