Sarah Stephen
On April 22, Fijian-born Sereana Naikelekele was released from Villawood detention centre, where she had spent almost three years. She was granted a bridging visa E (BVE).
Naikelekele spent four months struggling to survive with her five children on what some call the "fresh air" visa, because it only permits you to breathe. BVE holders are not allowed to work, access Medicare or receive any government payments.
Naikelekele had to ask a Fijian church and community organisations for help. They gave her shopping and food vouchers.
Naikelekele and her three youngest children - Glen (3), Lomani (4) and Mereani (6) - have been living in one room of a two-bedroom flat with friends. The cramped conditions have contributed to the stress and sickness Naikelekele has suffered since being released.
Naikelekele's oldest children, 11-year-old Jope and 13-year-old Sally, have been staying with a teacher from Macarthur Adventist School during the week, coming home to their family on weekends. Naikelekele had to ask the school to provide lunch for the two children each day.
A BVE holder who is not an asylum seeker and therefore is not applying for a protection visa can apply for work rights if they can demonstrate a compelling need to work; in other words, if they are in financial hardship.
Despite the hardship of living off charity, Naikelekele wasn't able to go back to work straight away. She told Green left Weekly that for a long time after her release she felt very weak.
It was almost three months after her release before Naikelekele applied for a work permit, and then she had a month's wait for it to be approved. She is now on a bridging visa A.
Naikelekele is finding the separation from her two oldest children very difficult. "It's still like detention, being separated from my kids", she said.
At a recent parent-teacher meeting, Jope's teacher told Naikelekele that the separation was affecting Jope quite badly: he is often moody and doesn't concentrate well. This is the same child whose classmates described less than a year ago as the best at sport and the funniest boy in their class, always making jokes.
Naikelekele is happy that all families are now out of the immigration detention centres, but she is angry that the accommodation and financial support that was provided to families released into "residential detention" )i.e. living in the community but still formally in detention) in July and August were not extended to all families who had spent time in detention. She wishes that she had stayed in detention for two or three more months so that her family could have received that support.
At the end of August, Naikelekele started work. She is working two days a week in Manly - a very long drive from Liverpool where she lives - but she is working with friends, which she says is a relief. "I'm still very angry. I can't hold my temper. I don't want to mix with people yet." Naikelekele is desperate to have all her children living with her and is now looking for her own flat.
She will remain on a bridging visa until a decision is made on her application for ministerial intervention to grant her the right to stay in Australia on humanitarian grounds. Naikelekele has lived in Australia for 17 years and three of her children are citizens, so she has very strong grounds for such intervention. However, the immigration minister is not obliged to make any decision on her application (some applications have been pending for years), and when a decision is made it cannot be appealed to any other authority.
From Green Left Weekly, September 14, 2005.
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