The desire to give generously runs through the veins of our regional communities. Over the past year, as I’ve interviewed both newly arrived refugees and longtime residents from towns across Victoria, I’ve been heartened to witness the reciprocal relationship that exists between those who have recently fled their home countries, and those who have called Australia home their entire life.
In Mansfield, at the foothills of the Victorian Alps, there came stories of refugees sharing recipes from their homelands, teaching the locals how to cook, and volunteering at the Country Fire Authority and local theatre. The town banded around them in a swell of support, assisting with their literacy and numeracy skills, helping them source employment, and even teaching them how to line dance.
It was a similar story in Warrnambool, where an Iraqi family felt they could finally lead a “free and dignified life” thanks to the freedom afforded to them in their newfound community. The sentiment was shared by Sakineh, a widow and her two boys, who settled in Bendigo after fleeing war-torn Afghanistan.
Australia has granted permanent visas to refugees through a formal offshore resettlement program since the 1970s, with most refugees who are resettled referred by the UN high commissioner for refugees. A number of complementary pathways including labour mobility programs, education pathways, family reunion and community sponsorship programs are also available, as well as the oversubscribed special humanitarian visa where refugees living outside their home countries can be sponsored by an Australian proposer.
But while some are able to resettle successfully, there are still many thousands who are unable to find their way. Not for lack of empathy or care, but due to the lack of a suitable pathway.
Last year, I spoke to Wal Wal resident Unmani Unmani who has been assisting an Afghan asylum seeker family in their efforts to gain asylum in Australia. Having fled to Islamabad, the family of six continues to suffer due to a number of medical ailments as they await news of their humanitarian visa’s approval.
Unmani was connected with the family through the not-for-profit Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR), and has spent months communicating with them through WhatsApp messages and phone calls. “Why doesn’t Australia open up more places?” she asked me. “Who makes that decision? We’ve got a huge country here. Here I am, this middle-class woman on this farm in the Wimmera. And there is all this space.”
Unmani is just one example of the very many individuals in our regional communities, where we do indeed have “huge country”, who are ready and willing to open their hearts and homes to those seeking refuge from crises unfolding across the Middle East, Europe, Sudan and beyond. In the town of Goulburn in New South Wales, a local philanthropist was recently inspired to provide housing for 10 refugee families after witnessing the impact a newly arrived Syrian family had made on his community.
The Syrian family had arrived in Goulburn through Community Refugee Sponsorship Australia (CRSA)’s Community Refugee Integration and Settlement Pilot (Crisp). The program’s first refugee intake began arriving in August 2022 through the federal government selecting those identified by the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) as being in the most urgent need of resettlement. Hundreds of refugees from countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Congo, El Salvador and Guatemala have settled in dozens of locations across the country since the program’s launch.
But CRSA chief executive officer, Lisa Button, says Crisp works well as an “unlinked” community sponsorship program, meaning Australians are matched with refugees identified for resettlement by the UNHCR and the Australian government. She says a new pathway needs to be introduced in addition to Crisp, where Australians can themselves identify the refugees they wish to resettle and support.
“Whether their connection is through family, work, friendship, a shared faith, or shared identities, such as the LGBTQIA+ community, CRSA receives many inquiries from Australians each month who would like to sponsor a refugee or family already known to them,” Button says.
“These would-be sponsors are prepared to fund their resettlement costs as well as provide practical support upon arrival but are often unable to find a viable avenue to do so in the absence of a flexible and accessible linked community sponsorship program.
“While there are some current pathways that allow Australian proposers to nominate a refugee for resettlement, these have eligibility requirements and other features that exclude many refugees notwithstanding that they have Australians ready, willing and able to sponsor them.”
In 2022-23, there were 66,179 offshore humanitarian visas lodged. About 15,875 offshore visas and 2,000 onshore visas were granted.
In August last year, the federal government announced it had expanded its humanitarian intake from 17,875 places a year to 20,000. The minister for immigration, citizenship and multicultural affairs, Andrew Giles, said the government aspired to gradually increase its community sponsored and other complementary places to 10,000 in addition to its humanitarian intake, a pledge that was then reiterated at the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva last December.
“This is a bold and worthy aspiration which CRSA would like to help the government achieve,” Button says. “CRSA believes that the introduction of a flexible and accessible ‘linked’ sponsorship program is an essential tool to reaching this goal and would be a life-changing opportunity for the individuals involved. Canada has successfully operated programs like this for decades, and the US has recently introduced something similar.”
Refugee advocates have recently called for the creation of an “emergency uplift” visa after an increase in the number of Palestinians relying on tourist visas to escape conflict in Gaza. The Refugee Advice and Casework Service told Guardian Australia that “what this shows is a gap that needs to be addressed by Australia’s immigration system”.
“The tourist visa is not fit for purpose in these circumstances, and really Australia should be considering an emergency uplift-type visa, similar to that of the 449 visa which was used for those evacuated from Afghanistan, where families, communities and individuals can apply for or request of the Australian government at such times of dire need,” a spokesperson says.
According to Button, a linked sponsorship program would provide an additional tool the government could use in response to global events such as the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, and the wars in Ukraine and Palestine.
“Such a framework would provide the means for everyday Australians to mobilise and pool resources to bring people to safety and help them rebuild their lives in safety here, in addition to government-funded efforts,” she says.
The arrival of migrants and refugees contribute to the evolving cultural makeup of our communities. And as the landscape evolves, regional communities learn to embrace diversity as they rally around their resettlement and showcase kindness, compassion and a newfound understanding they perhaps would not have had the chance to otherwise exhibit.
The world is traversing an ever-increasing state of adversity, but in our communities there remains solid evidence of love and mutual support. The time is ripe for us to come up with a solution to embrace those who are suffering not only in our own neighbourhoods, but also abroad. Our hearts and towns are open wide – it’s time we opened the path too.
