Many developed countries have adopted the growth centre strategy for regional development since 1960s.This Paper analyzes the formation of growth centre policy and its practice in Australia, on the base of review of large amount of relevant literature and data sourced from the author's own surveys A thorough case study of the national growth centre, Albury-Wodonga. with consideration of both quantitative analysis and enterprise information, concludes that growth centre policy in Australia has not been successful in practice. Factors that caused failure of the policy are then discussed and some suggestions made to remind the policy-makers in China.