BY BEN COURTICE
MELBOURNE The Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) released in May a report on its Review of Settlement Services for Migrants and Humanitarian Entrants. The report is available on the web at <http://www.immi.gov.au/settle/settle_review>.
The report recommends "mainstreaming" reducing migrant-specific services wherever their work can be done by another (non-migrant-specific) government-funded service.
DIMIA will move to funding only "core" services "building self-reliance, developing English language skills and fostering connections with mainstream services in the early settlement period".
Citing "the growth in the number of smaller and diverse migrant groups", the report advocates a move away from funding "ethno-specific" services for settlement, favouring "generalist organisations".
Translating the bureaucratese, the report's proposals amount to funding private organisations, reducing to bare-bones services in fewer locations and cost cutting at the organisations that survive.
Migrant services can be cut, the report implies, back to minimal English language tuition and housing services and some sort of beginners' guide to "mainstream" services.
The report spends some time acknowledging community "cynicism about the Commonwealth Government's commitment... and about agencies' achievements in relation to people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds".
The Migrant Resource Centre (MRC) in Footscray was forced to close recently, when it ran over budget and was refused further funding by DIMIA. If a busy MRC in an area with a large concentration of recent immigrants can be closed down without warning or even a semblance of consultation with the affected communities it is no wonder that immigrants are cynical about the government!
The report criticises "some" MRCs because "their desire to focus on promoting multiculturalism has also represented a loss of focus on the core role of settling new arrivals".
Most recent migrants are already denied the most crucial "mainstream" services: unemployment benefits. Immigration policy is designed to suit the wealthy and English speaking, others, like refugees, who slip in the cracks in Fortress Australia, are hardly supported to start a new life.
Migrants, particularly refugees, need more than accomadation, English lessons and a guided tour. Yet cultural support is deemed simply "promoting multiculturalism".
Of course, if broke and bored migrant youth act up they can expect access to one "mainstream" service pretty quickly: racist law enforcement.
[Ben Courtice is a member of the Socialist Alliance in Footscray.]
From Green Left Weekly, June 25, 2003.
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