MULTICULTURALISM advocates are showing how the region can grow without government funding and overcome sometimes-stifling bureaucracy.
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According to new figures, Tamworth Regional Council hosted citizenship ceremonies for 135 people in the past 12 months.
In the council's quarterly budget report, the number of new citizens sworn in during the latest financial year was more than double the number of Evocities' tree-changes in the same time (57).
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Eddie Whitham, through his work with Multicultural Tamworth, has seen migrant numbers steadily grow in recent years.
He has been helping Gunnedah launch a similar program in recent weeks and he said it could assist many towns across the region.
He'd like to see Moree and Narrabri adopt similar models in the future.
"We've had Evocities and it is not really bringing people," he said.
"I'm hoping in the long run we will have Gunnedah, Moree, Narrabri and do the whole area, so every town is aware and has a group of people in the community who can do things outside the box."
He said there had been continued growth through regional migration, largely without the funding of programs like Evocities.
"We have no money and we are doing it the other way and, despite all of the machinations of state and federal governments, the bush communities have looked after themselves," he said.
Mr Whitham said the Multicultural Tamworth model was sought after across the country.
"I know in different parts of Australia people say that's the way to go, because it keeps the bureaucracy out of it and it allows us to be mobile."
The growth has been substantial, particularly in local Nigerian, Nepalese and Sikh communities, which are in the process of becoming their own incorporated not-for-profit bodies.
"They can then work a plan out so they can help their own community, and that's what we encourage," he said.
"The more of these groups we have, the easier it is for us."
The council has focused on rapid growth with an eye to growing the population to 100,000 people, and Mr Whitham hit out at people using water scarcity as an argument against immigration.
"Forty-one years ago, when we brought the first Lao families, the first objections by people in the town was water and taking other people's jobs," he said.
"With Evocities, no one talked about water or jobs, they just talked about bringing people. "It's a furphy.
"It is rubbish, what people don't understand is, in the last three months four migrant families have moved to Tamworth."