MELBOURNE is absorbing half of the migrants intended for regional Australia, while areas like Ballarat struggle to keep multiculturalism buoyant.
A Monash University analysis of immigration data shows four out of five holders of regional migration visas are living in Australian capital cities and 51 per cent have settled in Melbourne.
This is despite the aim of the Federal Government's regional migration program to lure migrants out of the big cities.
Melbourne is able to attract migrants under the regional migration program because it is classified a regional centre.
At the same time, Ballarat's multicultural population is in free fall.
Census figures for 2001 showed less than seven per cent of Ballarat's population were born outside Australia, compared with the state average of 23 per cent.
Deputy chair of the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia Sundram Sivamalai said he was surprised to learn Melbourne was classified as a regional migration centre.
Dr Sivamalai, who is also a nursing lecturer at the University of Ballarat, said regional areas like Ballarat were failing to attract migrants "simply because the regions don't have the infrastructure."
"If the Federal Government is serious about looking at getting migrants to regional areas they should be looking at what is the infrastructure and services needed by migrants," Dr Sivamalai said.
Author of the Monash University study, Centre for Population and Urban Research director Bob Birrell, said taking Melbourne out of the regional migration equation would not help Ballarat attract any more migrants because it lacked the drawcards of the big city, predominantly jobs.
Mr Birrell also said most of the migrants under the regional migration program were sponsored by family, which largely ruled Ballarat out.
"The best thing you could do in Ballarat to promote migration would be to further develop the university so you could further attract students from all over the state," Mr Birrell said.
"That would be an excellent basis for developing what we call new economy industries."
A spokesman for the Department of Immigration said the states and territories were responsible for determining which areas were considered regional for the purposes of migration, based partly on skills shortages.
State Government spokesman, Jeremi Moule, said Melbourne was classified a regional migration area by the Kennett Government in 1998 and that regional migration visas represented only a small number of migrants.
"This year this government increased from $6 million to $12 million money for it's skilled migration program," Mr Moule said.