The surge of Indian and Chinese migrants over the last ten years has driven the growth rate of overseas born Australians to a 120 year high.

Not since the gold rush of 1880s has Australia seen such high migration rates. The difference however is that Asian countries now figure prominently in this surge according to a media release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

People born overseas now make-up 28 per cent of the resident population of Australia, sates the release. That equals to about 6.6 million people, numbers not seen in 120 years or since the tail end of the gold rush, said ABS spokesperson Denise Carlton in the media release.

“Overseas migration has been a large contributor to the total Australian population growth for several years: it has consistently been the main driver since 2005-06, contributing more than 50 per cent of population growth in Australia,” Ms Carlton said.

“While the largest migrant groups were people born in the UK and New Zealand, with a total of over 1.8 million Australian residents being born in those two countries, the next two most common birthplaces were from the Asian region.” These were China and India, with about 450,000 and 400,000 respectively.

"Of the top ten countries of birth, the number of Australian residents who were born in India increased the most, almost tripling from just 132,800 people in 2004 to 397,200 people in 2014," said Ms Carlton. "The number of residents born in China also more than doubled, going from 205,200 persons to 447,400 persons over those ten years.”

"In contrast, the proportion of the population born in the United Kingdom saw a drop, falling from 5.6 to 5.2 per cent over the last ten years. Over the same time, New Zealand born migrants have grown from 2.1 to 2.6 per cent."

In total, immigration added over 212,700 people to Australia's population in the year ending June 2014.  Net Overseas Migration (NOM) remains the key driver to Australia’s population growth, contributing over 58% to growth over the year to take the country’s resident population to 23,490,700people.

ABS spokeswoman Denise Carlton said natural population growth - births versus deaths - was also decreasing, with 300,900 babies born last year (down 3.3%) and 148,700 deaths (down 0.3%).

Australia is ageing faster than ever, with statistics showing that the number of people aged 65 years and over are growing: "Over the past 20 years, this group has grown by 65%, more than double the rate of increase for the working age population and four times faster than children,” said Ms Carlton.