Newman and Abbott governments plan for immigrants and refugees to be sent to regional Queensland towns The Boswell family from the UK settled at Clifton Beach, Cairns, after moving to Queensland in 2003. From left is Charles, 8, Freddie, 4, Annabel, 6, Angelina and Chris Boswell. Picture: Brian Cassey. IMMIGRANTS and refugees wanting to call Queensland home will be required to live in regional cities and towns to alleviate future growing pains in the southeast corner. The Courier-Mail can reveal the Newman and Abbott governments have begun initial discussions about developing a quota system aimed at funnelling new arrivals into cities such as Cairns, Townsville and Rockhampton to promote growth. Requiring prospective Queensland residents to live in a predetermined city for a designated period would have to be considered as part of their residency conditions to prevent people circumventing the decentralisation policy by moving shortly after they've been granted access. Do you support the plan? Tell us your thoughts below. Premier Campbell Newman said Queensland had a unique opportunity to grow regional centres unlike NSW, Victoria, South Australia and West Australia which were virtually single-city states. "I have actually already had a discussion with the Federal Immigration Minister and we will work on some sort of plan or policy together to try and get people to go as immigrants and refugees to regional Queensland," he said. Mr Newman said the governments would work together with councils to consider ways to prioritise residency applications for people prepared to live in certain areas. "I am prepared to say these are the immigration targets that we will take in Queensland of migrants and refugees," he said. But we want to actually have really a great deal of influence about where they go, working with the mayors. Past Queensland governments have promoted similar decentralisation policies but have failed to have any demonstrable impact on channelling new arrivals away from Brisbane or the Sunshine and Gold coasts. The Department of Immigration has schemes in place to attract residents with particular skills, such as the one that operates in West Australia, although the Queensland model would be based on the cities where they are prepared to live. About 100,000 overseas immigrants move to Queensland each year and the state's population is predicted to rise from 4.5 million to eight million in 30 years. Under the Queensland Plan, the Government wants 50 per cent of the population to live outside the southeast corner by 2034, meaning the regions would have to cater for another 2.3 million people. Mr Newman said the Government would "positively discriminate" its infrastructure priorities in regional Queensland to compliment this growth which could prove cheaper in the long-term. "If we have got to retrofit (southeast Queensland) it is really expensive," he said. Where if we can divisive a way, with the mayors and the Feds supporting us, to get people into all these places maybe you could absorb more and its more cost effective I believe. Mr Newman said he did not believe immigrants would bypass Queensland because they were being asked to consider cities and towns outside the southeast. "The wonderful thing about these cities already in a world sense, in an international sense, is they are actually pretty nice places to live," he said. I mean you go to all these places, they've got civic centres, theatre companies, wonderful parks, beaches, great recreational and sporting facilities. Great infrastructure is already there. Being forced to resettle in a tropical paradise doesn't sound like a hardship to the Boswell family from the UK. Chris, 50, and his wife Angelina, 40, left behind the high crime rate, grim weather and clogged roads in 2003 in search of a better life for them and kids Charles, 8, Annabel, 6, and Freddie, 4. They welcomed Mr Newman's plan and said their only concern was overcrowding. " (Brisbane) is very overpopulated," Mrs Boswell said. I suppose there's the worry ... is it going to change the loveliness of the regional areas or are they going to grow into big cities?