Armidale Panorama
The
Announcement
On 11 August 2017, the Turnbull/Joyce
Government announced Armidale as a new community-driven regional settlement
location for the settlement of refugees. Deputy Prime Minister and Member for New England, Barnaby Joyce, was joined by Minister for
Social Services, Christian Porter and Assistant Minister for Social Services,
Zed Seselja in Armidale for the
announcement.
Mr Joyce said the first of an estimated 200
refugees would settle in Armidale in February 2018.
“Armidale is a good fit as a new regional
settlement location for humanitarian entrants to Australia,” Mr Joyce said. “It has
a strong, welcoming community demonstrated by the fact that this push for the
city to be a settlement location for refugees was driven by the community
itself.
“I have absolutely no doubt that Armidale
will work closely with the refugees settling here to ensure they can take up
all the opportunities available to those who choose to embrace the great lifestyle
available in regional Australia.
“Some of the people who will settle here
are fleeing unimaginable circumstances which have torn families apart.
“I’m sure that, with the necessary
settlement services that will be provided and our welcoming community that
refugees arriving in Armidale will be able to make a new start and build a
safe, stable future which provides them with the same opportunities that all
Australians enjoy.”
Minister for Social Services, Christian
Porter, said the addition of Armidale as a key regional settlement site was
part of the Government’s commitment to encourage migrant and humanitarian
settlement outside the major cities.
“This move reflects the Government’s aim to
encourage settlement of humanitarian entrants across Australia, not just in our larger
cities and I thank and congratulate the people of Armidale and the NSW
Government for their support for this initiative,” Minister Porter said.
Armidale Panorama
“Australia is a welcoming country to
refugees. Our Humanitarian Program is growing from 16,250 to 18,750 in 2018-19
and beyond and it’s important that through our settlement services we encourage
more settlement in regional areas.
Completing the trifecta of ministerial
remarks, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs, Zed
Seselja, said the about 200 humanitarian entrants settling in Armidale would be
primarily drawn from persecuted minorities from Syria and Iraq.
“The Government has focused on resettling
women, children and families with the least prospect of ever returning safely
to their homes,” Senator Seselja said. “Under the Government’s new Humanitarian
Settlement Program, service delivery has been optimised to achieve better
outcomes in employment, education and English language.
“We are committed to ensuring humanitarian
entrants are able to overcome barriers, start a new life and integrate into
Australian society as quickly as possible.
Settlement Services International, which is
contracted through the Department of Social Services to provide settlement
services, will provide on the ground settlement services to refugees in
Armidale. “This will supplement existing services, providing a further boost to
Armidale through SSI staff and resources in the region,” Senator Seselja.
“This settlement program in Armidale will
build on the additional 12,000 refugees from Syria
and Iraq who Australia
committed to resettling. “The vast majority of these 12,000 refugees have
arrived in Australia,
with the remaining families expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
“Armidale provides a similar regional
environment to the refugees’ source country,” he said. "The Australian Government carefully
considers the establishment of new settlement locations.” Factors considered in
selecting settlement locations include:
- availability of mainstream services such as health and education;
- opportunities for employment;
- the size, cultural and religious composition of potential settlement communities;
- the availability of affordable rental housing;
- the support of the local council and community in welcoming newsettlers;
- the potential for the harmonious settlement of the specific group.
Comment
I have included links to media coverage at
the end of the post.
University of New England International Hub
I assume that the majority of this refugee
intake will be families, although it could included some individuals. I make
this point because 200 sounds like a lot. If the average family size is four, we
are talking about fifty families, 100 adults, 100 children. That is large
enough to provide for self-support within the group but is small relative to
Armidale’s size and existing international community in town, at the university and in the schools.
In the media coverage, considerable
emphasis was placed on the availability of jobs, including jobs in agriculture and
at the big tomato growing facility at Guyra which has experienced some
difficult in attracting workers. All this may be right, but it misses an
important point. We should not assume that people will stay in Armidale.
I have been researching a little of the
history of the big migrant camp at Greta in the Hunter Valley.
Between 1949 and 1960 100,000 people passed through this camp. Some settled in
the Hunter, most settled elsewhere. The camp was a transit point.
The critical thing for the refugees coming
to Armidale is that they come to a stable and welcoming environment that can
provide them with a base to recover and plan for their future. Hopefully that
future will include Armidale, but it may not.
Civic welcome for International Students
While I know that there are some private
reservations in Armidale, I have no doubt that the City will be welcoming, It’s
had to work hard enough for the opportunity. Here I quote from the Express story:
"The federal government has finally
recognised Armidale as a suitable refugee settlement location. It comes after
years of lobbying by refugee advocacy groups and Armidale Regional Council.
“It’s not just Armidale who has been
pushing for this either,” Sanctuary Humanitarian Settlement member Robin Jones
said.
“Multicultural NSW has promoted it, The
Refugee Council of Australia has promoted it, Paul Power [its chief executive] has
promoted it, it’s been a long time coming.”
Dr Jones said this was excellent news for
Armidale.
“We’ve ready, willing and able, let me
assure you,” she said.
The city will also receive a boost in
refugee services to assist the new arrivals according to Dr Jones.
“We already have four services here - and
the major one is Northern Settlement Services,” she said.
“But we also have a refugee nurse - two
refugee nurses in fact. “We have STARTTS, which is a councilling
service that comes up from Coffs
Harbor.“We have TAFE that has the language
programs.
“And we have a community that is very
supportive too"
Armidale has already been a centre for some refugee resettlement. Makuach Maluach and his family arrived in Armidale in 2009 as refugees from South Sudan. Now Makuach is set to play college basketball in the US
The question of the availability of support
services is a vexed one. I have made the point before that I think the approach
adopted by the Federal Government is far too rigid and bureaucratic.
The Armidale announcement was preceded by
an announcement on 27 July that Settlement Services International had been
awarded a contract to provide settlement services to refugees and humanitarian
entrants under the Commonwealth’s Government new Humanitarian SettlementProgram (HSP) in NSW Regional, which covers northern NSW. That contract
followed a competitive tendering process that began in September 2016. This
means that SSI will manage Newcastle, Coffs Harbour
and now Armidale,
I wondered how Settlement Services
International meshed with Northern Settlement Services. Digging a little, I
found that Northern Settlement Services is a member of SSI and part of the the NSW Settlement Partnership (NSP). Led by SSI, the NSP is a consortium that delivers settlement services in agreed areas of NSW, as of July 1, 2015 until June 30, 2018, under the Department of Social Services’ Settlement Services Program (SSP). Presumably some
form of collaboration will be involved in Armidale delivery.
There has been a fair bit of criticism of NSW
co-ordinator general for refugee resettlement Peter Shergold over the failure
to resettle refugees in regional areas, as well as the lags that have occurred in
Armidale’s case. Reading the Guardian report, I suspect he has been caught between a rock
and a hard place. I quote in part::
"NSW co-ordinator general for refugee
resettlement Peter Shergold told a resettlement conference in Sydney
that efforts to help settle refugees in rural and regional areas would ease
pressure on Fairfield and neighbouring Sydney councils.
He said NSW and Australia’s refugee intakes were
“eminently manageable”. NSW took more than half of the additional intake of
Syrian and Iraqi refugees, in addition to its regular refugee resettlement
program.
Refugees made up a tiny percentage –
0.14% - of population growth in NSW, Shergold said.
“But refugees don’t just distribute across
NSW. In this last year, relatively few refugees have gone to Wagga, or Albury
or Coffs Harbour,
or even to Newcastle or Wollongong. To a very large extent these
additional refugees have come to western Sydney…
they’ve come to Fairfield.
That’s the challenge.”
Shergold said the issues facing Fairfield
City Council were “acute”, and that a broader spread of resettlement would ease
pressure in that area, and, critically, assist refugees in finding employment.
“What refugees want is a job. And that has
been the most challenging, helping refugees do what they want to do most, which
is get employment.
Armidale Campus, New England Institute of TAFE, location of TAFE NSW's new digital hub
Shergold welcomed the Armidale
announcement, saying the regional city had the necessary infrastructure and
support services already in place to help refuges.
“This decision has the potential to boost
Armidale’s local economy, create new business and most of all, become a
template for the kind of Australian mateship the world needs to see.”
Now that approval has been given for this group of refugees to come to Armidale, groups in both Tamworth and Glen Innes can be expected to redouble their efforts to achieve similar outcomes for their towns.
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