The Gold Coast wants to be reclassified as a regional area so it can boost its number of skilled migrants and international students.
The south-east Queensland city is classed as 'metro' under the federal government’s migration program, alongside Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
That means the Gold Coast won’t benefit from new visas and incentives set to be introduced next month as part of the federal government’s push to ease congestion in the cities and encourage migrants and international students to go regional.