Asylum seekers to lose $200 a fortnight in benefits, given three weeks to find own accommodation and told to make arrangements to quit the country
The government will cut income and accommodation support for up to 100 asylum seekers who have been transferred to Australia from offshore detention for medical reasons, leaked documents show.
The group will be issued on Monday with what’s called a “final departure Bridging E Visa” that cuts the $200 a fortnight that they had been receiving and gives them three weeks to find their own place to live.
They will be immediately forced to find a job or source other income, despite not knowing when the government will force them to leave Australia.
An immigration department document indicates the government will also force the move on asylum seeker families in the community, including more than 37 babies and 90 children who attend Australian schools.
“You will be expected to support yourself in the community until departing Australia,” the document, “Information about the final departure Bridging E Visa”, the document states.
It tells the asylum seekers: “If you cannot find work to support yourself in Australia you will need to return to a regional processing country or any country where you have a right of residence.
“From Monday 28 August you will need to find money each week for your own accommodation costs. From this date, you will also be responsible for all your other living costs like food, clothing and transport. You are expected to sign the Code of Behaviour when you are released into the Australian community. The Code of Behaviour outlines how you are to behave in the community.”
It is thought 50 to 100 single people, including a woman who may be pregnant, were called last week to meet immigration officials from Monday. Their immediate assistance is likely to fall to refugee support services and churches.
Children and families are not included in the first batch of asylum seekers, who will have work rights. However, the immigration document refers specifically to the children of asylum seekers, heightening concerns the government will also force families of asylum seeker in the community into “destitute” situations.
The families include more than 37 babies and 90 children who attend Australian schools, as part of a group of about 350 people in the community transferred from offshore detention for medical reasons.
“Please remind your children that they will also be required to abide by Australian values and laws. Breaking Australian laws may result in their removal from the community,” the document says.
The Labor opposition immigration shadow, Shayne Neumann, who understood the move might capture up to 400 people – with another 50 asylum seekers in detention following medical transfers – said the government had “sunk to a new low”.
“By purposefully making these people destitute and homeless, the Turnbull government can only be exacerbating the health conditions which asylum seekers were originally transferred to Australia to be treated for,” Neumann said.
Hugh de Kretser, executive director at the Human Rights Law Centre, described the government’s move as “a shocking act of cruelty”.
“We’re talking about people who have endured great suffering. They’ve first fled persecution, then been locked up on Nauru and Manus Island. They’ve finally been brought to Australia and got the chance to rebuild their lives in freedom and safety as part of the Australian community. And now out of the blue, Peter Dutton’s decided to make them destitute to try and force them back to harm.”
The human services minister, Alan Tudge, did not confirm the precise number involved but said it was “consistent with the principle that anybody who arrives by boat to our shores won’t be settled in Australia”.
“They will be settled elsewhere. That’s what this is about,” Tudge told ABC on Sunday.
Senior Liberal frontbencher Dan Tehan told Sky News that “we want these people until they go back to be getting a job”.
The chances of the single adults finding work are extremely low. Those over 18 are not permitted to study and have not had access to training programs. The government has also not indicated any timeframe for their forced departure.
The group will continue to have access to Medicare for “some healthcare costs”, the government letter says.
Neumann said the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, had “completely failed to make a case for why these people haven’t been allowed to apply for resettlement in the US while receiving medical treatment in Australia”.
“The recent Senate inquiry into serious allegations of abuse, self-harm and neglect of asylum seekers in Nauru and Manus Island recommended that the Turnbull government publicly confirm asylum seekers transferred to Australia for medical reasons can apply to participate in the US refugee resettlement arrangement,” Neumann said.
On Sunday the Greens vowed to try and use parliament to stop the government booting asylum seekers off welfare and out of taxpayer-funded accommodation.
The party’s leader, Richard Di Natale, said the Greens were seeking advice on whether the use of a new visa could be overturned when the Senate returns in a week’s time.
“We do call on members of the crossbench and the Labor party to support us in doing everything we can to stop this unspeakable cruel act getting through the Senate,” he told reporters in Melbourne.
Also on Sunday, Richard Marles, the Labor frontbencher who helped to set up the asylum seeker centre in Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, conceded his party made mistakes in refugee policy.
But Marles said the blame could not be placed entirely on one side of politics or the other. “Am I willing to say that Labor at that point in time [when in government] made some mistakes? Yes, I think we did,” he told ABC TV on Sunday from PNG.
“But I also know this: we negotiated an arrangement with Malaysia which would have materially changed circumstances ... yet the Coalition at the time opposed it.
“I think it’s unreasonable to sheet all of the blame home to one side.”
Marles also said the Coalition’s policy of turning back asylum seeker boats had been critical. But he said the government had been “something of a one-trick pony”.
“In those first couple of years, they were only focused on that and did not see the significance of finding third-country resettlement options,” he said.
He again argued the Turnbull government had all its eggs in one basket by relying solely on a deal with the United States to resettle refugees from Nauru and Manus Island.
Nevertheless, Labor does not want any of the refugees now on Manus Island to be settled in Australia when that centre closes in October. Marles said it was difficult to come to that policy but it was important to hold firm to ensure the people-smuggling trade could not restart en masse.
SOURCE: The Guardian
