Dubbo Regional Council to look into why migrants are leaving Dubbo for other cities

His notice of motion, which passed unanimously, asked the Chief Executive Officer to undertake a gap analysis on migrant support services available in the Dubbo Regional LGA and provide a subsequent report to the November 2022 Ordinary Meeting of Council.

The report shall include a comparison with other comparable regional cities and how migrant support services are delivered and what support is available.

Cr Chowdhury said he placed the notice of motion because Dubbo's migrant population is continually increasing.

"At the same time there is a loss of migrant population every year with many migrants leaving Dubbo for other cities," he said.

Regional Development Australia Orana and the Australian Government reached an agreement on the Orana Region Designated Area Migration Agreement (DAMA), which was approved in April 2019.

The DAMA program is a five-year labour agreement between the Federal Government and Regional Development Australia Orana.

"Also skilled migrants are coming to Dubbo through Permanent and Temporary skilled migration pathway," Cr Chowdhury said.

"The question arises why migrants come to settle in the Dubbo LGA, and many do not choose to make this their home.

"Anecdotally we are advised that there are a range of issues that impede a more permanent settlement here, and I recommend that the council investigates the reasons behind the skills and resources drain from our region."

Aspects for consideration include:

Cr Chowdhury said there needed to be a "coordinated" and "whole of government approach" to the issue.

"Given the significant agreements entered by both levels of government to increase migrant services Dubbo LGA," he said.

"Dubbo Regional Council is best placed to lead and implement a placed based approach to the issues."

Cr Jessica Gough supported the motion, stating that as a businesswoman herself, she understands how short staffed people were at the moment.

"If this report is going to enable us to keep skilled workers here, especially migrant workers then go for it," she said.

Deputy mayor Richard Ivey said it was important to attract people to Dubbo and keep them in the region.

"This motion will enable us to do, as I understand it, a desktop analysis and look at what we offer compared to what we could offer and what we should be doing or what we could do and looking at what other councils are doing and if we can adopt some of those things," he said.

Cr Ivey said the report will provide a basis for council to make decisions later on some actions they could undertake to implement a strategy to retain people in the region.

Cr Joshua Black said the motion highlights the "disastrous" cutbacks to TAFE NSW.

"We will have people come to Dubbo, hopefully stay as part of the community, have their kids here, raise their family, but how are we going to train those kids to retain them within the city and region in quality jobs?" he said.

Cr Black highlighted the need for a fully functioning TAFE system, and the opportunity for council to advocate for better TAFE funding in the region.

"I'm worried about what's going to happen to the kids, we can't just keep bringing people from overseas all the time and say 'right, here you are', we need to train them further and train up their kids when they have them here, to become part of the community," he said.

Cr Matthew Wright said there were not enough people to fill the jobs available currently.

"The collaborative approach with other areas in our region, I applaud that and there's no greater way to come up with an idea than to plagiarise someone else's, so I am curious to see how that unfolds with all those areas having similar issues as us," he said.

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