‘New Australians’ is a term used in North Queensland to acknowledge people who arrive from overseas to live in Australia. In 1988 the population in Queensland was 213,525 growing to just over a million people in 1954. The earliest settlers in Mia Mia arrived in 1883. A plaque at the Mia Mia Park commemorates some of these early settlers.

The British Isles furnished the greatest number of people arriving in the Shire of Mirani for the year 1921. Germany provided the second highest number of people arranging in the Shire followed by Polynesia, Italy and then Sweden. Again in 1933, England provided the greatest number of New Australians followed almost equally by Scotland and Ireland with again Germany, Italy and New Zealand. This trend continues in the following decades with a slight increase in the number of Italians and Maltese arriving in the Shire. In 1966 the Maltese overtook the number of people arriving from Italy with an ever slight increase in the number of people coming from Malta in 1971.