Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier this year I had in my office an intern from the Australian National University, Ms Amanda Pashley. Amanda conducted a research project that explored the development of settlement services for newly arrived migrants. She did this by comparing the experiences of the Vietnamese refugees who arrived in Australia following the Vietnam War to those of the more recently arrived refugees mainly from the Middle East and Africa.

Being able to provide effective and efficient settlement services is beneficial not only to the newly arrived refugees but also to the economic and social wellbeing of their host community. I was particularly interested in Amanda exploring this specific issue as successful settlement of migrants and refugees is highly significant to my multicultural electorate of Fowler.

According to the most recent census data, approximately 55 per cent of my electorate was born overseas and 20 per cent of my electorate speaks Vietnamese at home. Many of them arrived in Australia as refugees following the fall of Saigon 37 years ago. This was Australia's first experience on a large scale of asylum seekers arriving within a short period of time and, understandably, our services were under great stress. Research conducted by Amanda confirmed the commonly held view that Vietnamese refugees who arrived in Australia following the fall of Saigon in 1975 were not provided with adequate support or services necessary for their successful settlement. This was partly due to the government at the time not being experienced in dealing with such a large influx of asylum seekers, and it required a reform of Australia's migrant settlement services. Effort was made to increase the funding for community based organisations to take charge of assisting in settlement services programs. However failure to tailor services to refugees from different cultural backgrounds and the lack of adequate English-language training and employment services resulted in Vietnamese and other Indo-Chinese refugees experiencing prolonged and difficult settlement processes.

A recent SBS documentary, Once upon a time in Cabramatta, outlines the consequences of a prolonged and inadequate settlement services process and how much we as a nation needed to learn in terms of providing more suitable assistance to newly-arrived migrants and refugees. Today Australia has come a long way in providing adequate support and services to migrants and refugees from around the world. English programs that take into consideration different teaching methods, employment assistance tailored to migrants and various community based organisations such as the migrant resource centres demonstrate that our society is now much better equipped to assist during the crucial settlement process.

Despite the evidence of positive development, there are still many areas of improvement necessary. The recent examination of settlement services by the Refugee Council of Australia raised a number of concerns. These were mostly related to funding and the way it was distributed. A major issue relates to the Settlement Grants Program being condensed and offering funding for one year as opposed to three years. Four organisations in my electorate—the Liverpool Migrant Resource Centre, the Cabramatta Community Centre and the Fairfield Migrant Resource Centre, as well as the Vietnamese Community in New South Wales and the Khmer Community of New South Wales—recently received funding under this program.

Settlement grants enable community based organisations such as these to provide vital assistance to refugees and newly-arrived migrants during their settlement process. Assistance ranges from school enrolment and employment search to establishing a healthy social life within the community for the entire family.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the founder of the Fairfield MRC, the late Mrs Ulla Bartels, who in 1978 started the English courses for the Indo-Chinese refugees. Her daughter, Ricci Bartels, is now the Manager of the Fairfield Migrant Resource Centre and takes up a lot in her mother's place. I would also like to thank Ms Amanda Pashley for conducting this very important research and producing the report. This is something the community is very proud of.