SOUTH PACIFIC	MARCH 2, 1998 NO. 9
	Hard Landing Australia increasingly demands that migrants have job skills, but many find no chance to use them By SUSAN HORSBURGH atna and Prashanthi Maddula packed up their life in Hyderabad, India, 16 months ago, eager to build a better one in Australia for their daughters. Ratna, an experienced architect, expected to start over as a draftsman; what he didn't expect was the dearth of jobs in his field. Ineligible for social security and buoyed only by casual carpentry work, the couple exhausted their $A5,000 savings in four months. High child-care costs meant Prashanthi couldn't work--so they made the painful decision to send their daughters, aged 1 and 3, back to relatives in India. That was more than a year ago. "Every second I think about them," says Ratna, who hopes to send for them soon. The migrant dream is not supposed to work out that way. But for increasing numbers of migrants to Australia, reality is falling miserably short of expectations. Some blame unemployment rates or unreasonably high hopes; others say the fault lies with the immigration system. Since the Howard government was elected two years ago, it has cut family reunion quotas and increased the number of skilled migrants, yet many do not have a job to go to. Nor, since a law was passed last March denying new migrants access to most social security benefits for two years, do they have a safety net while they look for one. Last week, in a landmark ruling, a Russian couple successfully challenged the two-year waiting period, prompting a rethink of how Australia treats its newest arrivals. For all its success as a multicultural society, Australia continues to wrestle with the slippery issue of immigration--how many migrants, who they should be, what the country owes them. The debate has always touched a collective nerve, tapping into fears about unemployment and cultural identity. The Coalition was mindful of those fears when it took office in March 1996; Philip Ruddock's brief as Immigration Minister was to restore public confidence in a program widely seen as overly generous and riddled with welfare abuse. "We were bringing people here who weren't growing the economy," says Ruddock. "They were welfare dependent, kept by other taxpayers, and it undermined the credibility of the program." The government adopted a range of cost-cutting measures: eligibility criteria were tightened and the intake was cut by 11% to 74,000 the first year, then to 68,000. Once almost 70% of the migration program, the family reunion category now accounts for less than half the intake. The government's controversial decision to extend the social security waiting period from six months to two years--barring new migrants from almost all welfare payments, including the last resort Special Benefit--was expected to reduce federal spending by more than $A550 million over the following four years, but critics say the saving does not compensate for the human cost. Last month, a family from Pakistan--who do not want to be named--were forced to leave less than four months after arriving in Australia. Unable to find a job, the father could not rent a house or feed his four children. Ashamed of his failure, the architect fell into depression. The family sold their most valued possessions--gold ornaments for their daughters' dowries--and bought six air tickets back to Pakistan. Theirs is not an isolated example. Worried by the growing poverty among new arrivals, welfare groups have met with the government to argue the migrant case; Social Security Minister Jocelyn Newman insists "the essential elements of the policy are sound." Tony Pun, chairman of the Ethnic Communities Council of New South Wales, says the vast majority of migrants do not come to leech off the system, yet they are paying for the faults of a few. "I would rather see some rotten apples sucking up our precious dollars than see the deserving ones--and there are a lot more of those--do without, because it's inhuman," says Pun. "This two-year waiting period will create an ethnic underclass." Professor Stephen Castles, director of the University of Wollongong's Centre for Multicultural Studies, says refusing to throw migrants a lifeline when they need it most makes little economic sense: "Even highly skilled people need that adjustment period and they should be supported. It doesn't solve anything if they have to go out and beg for charity or do illegal work--that just delays their entry into the skilled workforce." One Indian woman, a genetic researcher from Punjab Agricultural University, has been destitute since she arrived alone three months ago with $50 in her pocket. She knew nothing of the two-year waiting period. Friends had told her casual work would be easy to come by while she looked for a professional position. By luck, she met an Indian family on the train on her way from the airport and has lived with them ever since. Now, "they are giving me everything. I feel guilty all the time," she says. Every day she is turned down--even for kitchenhand jobs--because she has no local experience. To survive, she sold all her gold bangles and chains for $A200. "If they don't have any work," she asks, "why does the government want educated people, the cream of other countries?" Linda Forbes, a case worker at the Welfare Rights Centre, says that some migrants are gullible and ill-prepared: "There is this funny trust; it's a little bit naive and innocent, but it's just the way it is. You just pity the people." Others are misinformed. Last week, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal found that Australian embassies overseas had given two migrant couples from Russia and Bangladesh misleading information about job prospects. Justice Jane Matthews said: "To tell them merely that they will need resources to maintain themselves for two years does nothing to prepare them for the reality of life in this country." Ruddock says it is the migrants' obligation to check employment opportunities before they come and to make sure they have enough money to support themselves: "It is not a responsibility that other members of the community have to pick up." Most Australians agree: according to a poll last August, 69% said they were "very concerned" about immigrants receiving welfare on arrival. Helen Hughes, emeritus professor of economics at the Australian National University and member of the 1988 FitzGerald committee on immigration, says the waiting period is an "excellent selective procedure" to test an applicant's commitment to Australia. People "would be inept," she says, "if they couldn't find a job in six months." Some migrants believe they will not need government assistance; what little they learn leads them to believe their skills are wanted and a job is waiting for them. Before Russian civil engineer Andrei Kogan arrived in Melbourne last May, the only information the embassy in Moscow would give him was an outdated "Welcome to Australia" brochure. "I thought I could at least support myself by cleaning, but I could not even find a job doing this." He applied for 150 jobs in the first three months and finally got a trainee position selling floor coverings. Ruddock stresses: "There is no guarantee of jobs for anybody." So why make skills a basis for selecting migrants if those skills can't be used? The director of Monash University's Centre for Population and Urban Research, Bob Birrell, says an unemployment rate hovering above 8% makes the program almost obsolete; if firms need skilled employees from overseas they can bring them in on a temporary entry visa. "It really only makes sense to bring skilled migrants in if there's a shortage or we're in some sort of boom growth phase," says Birrell. "But that's not the case today." Yet the first priority of the strict points test prospective migrants must pass is employability--judged on the basis of English fluency and recognized skills. But Birrell says, "The government does not discriminate between credentials that are in demand and those that are not." Sherry Xia worked for 10 years in an international finance corporation in Nanjing before coming to Australia last April; she now counts shampoo bottles into boxes. Her husband, Jason Zhu, an experienced electronics engineer, operates a packing machine at the same factory. "I brought a lot of suits but now all I wear is overalls," says Zhu. In 1996-97 the government increased the quota of independent skilled migrants from 10,600 to 15,000 and raised the pass mark on the selection test, which awards points for such things as youth, language skills and tertiary qualifications. ANU professor of public policy Glenn Withers says the new system has brought in better quality migrants. "If they don't find work in their immediate area," he says, "these people are so skilled and adaptable and educated, they find work pretty readily in related occupations. The surgeons who end up as floor sweepers are very unusual. " Says Wollongong University researcher Robyn Iredale, who has studied skilled migrants in the workforce for 20 years: "The government only wants people who can integrate into the labor market very quickly. But that's in the hands of employers," who, she says, can be as choosy as the government. More than 5.5 million migrants have settled in Australia in the past 50 years, yet, in a country where almost one in four are overseas-born, public support for immigration is low; the majority of Australians have not favored higher migration since the early 1970s. The program has been affected not only by high unemployment but by a disillusionment with multiculturalism. In 1988, the FitzGerald committee reported that multiculturalism was "seen by many as social engineering which actually invites injustice, inequality and divisiveness." A decade on, the immigration department still fields calls from irate Australians who believe migrants are given free cars and houses on arrival. In December, the government issued a discussion paper to stir debate on the future of multiculturalism. "They are acknowledging that multiculturalism is on the nose for ordinary people," says Birrell. "The problem is that in Australia migration and multiculturalism are seen as entwined and the dislike for multiculturalism has burdened migration." Ethnic groups say the government's seeming lack of support for multiculturalism and immigration has lent racism a cloak of legitimacy. Says the E.C.C.'s Anthony Pun: "The most glaring change is that in the 1960s and '70s you had covert racism and in the '90s you have overt racism--they mean business." The White Australia immigration policy--not fully dismantled until 1973--can be traced to the goldfields of the 1850s and disputes between white and Chinese diggers; 150 years on, racial and cultural differences can still provoke resentment. Bangladeshi community worker Rezina Anwar was shopping for halal food last year dressed in a sari in Granville, western Sydney, when a man abused her and demanded evidence of her Australian citizenship. Friends have come to her in tears. "When people harass them, they don't know how to counter them," says Anwar. "In this country you really need to be assertive--and we don't want to do that because we come from a humble society." If confidence is all it takes to succeed, Ratna Maddula should have a giant head start. Taking a break from his latest job, packing brochures, he speaks of plans to do a drafting course and restart his architecture career. "I don't mind if it takes five years," he says. "I will find a job in my field." Maddula's faith in Australia never falters; it remains to be seen whether that trust will be rewarded.
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