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SOUTH AUSTRALIA'S Premier, Mike Rann is seeking to lure more business and skilled immigrants away from Sydney in an attempt to boost the State's slow population growth.
He announced a population policy as part of a pitch to the Federal Government to lift South Australia's share of the annual migrant intake beyond the existing 4.2 per cent.
Central to Mr Rann's pitch are proposals for a fivefold increase in business migrants to 600 each year by 2013 and a doubling of skilled migrants to 2500.
The policy also hopes to attract expatriate South Australians back home and interstate residents to Adelaide.
Mr Rann wants the State Government to play a much greater role in migrant assessment to ensure a tailor-made migration intake that suits South Australia's economic needs.
South Australia already runs a special scheme to assist skilled migrants to settle in the State and has a data base of skilled migrants with trades, which it makes available to interested prospective employers in the State.
The population policy forms a. key plank in the Premier's broader State Strategic Plan - a 10-year blueprint setting out infrastructure, social, environmental and economic targets for government departments.
The State's peak business lobby group, Business SA, said that South Australia should aim to increase its population by about 500,000 to a total of 2 million by 2013.
University of Adelaide' population expert Graeme Hugo said: "My particular view is that I think it's not necessarily sheer -numbers that South Australia should be worrying about. I think population policy is not just about migration.
"One of the dangers of the past is that population policies have plucked a number out of the air... and that number does not have any meaning in relation to environmental, economic and social policies."
Professor Hugo said many state governments would "be embracing" the Government's moves for a population policy. It's quite an innovative step.