Category: charity

Refugees leave Nauru (at last)

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Shinkiari refugee camp in Pakistan David Mark www.pixabay.com

One hopes the headline is not a jinx, like headlines pre-empting the Federal Government’s $2 billion investment in social housing. The Government is having trouble getting the legislation through the house and we ought to be asking why.

We should also be asking what is happening with Australia’s human logjam of refugees awaiting decisions on their future. As you probably gathered, it is Refugee Week in Australia. We will be doing our bit on Sunday with a Welcome Walk in Warwick, itself declared a Refugee Welcome Zone a few years ago.

The Guardian published a story late last week that suggested the Federal Government would finally take the remaining 12 refugees held on Nauru Island and re-locate them to the Australian mainland.

Cue a song I wrote in late 2018 when there was a concerted campaign to remove minors and people needing medical assistance from Nauru. The title ‘Get the Kids off Nauru’ may have dated, but the mere fact there are still refugees in offshore detention shows that not much has changed. And this article does not even mention Manus Island.

Even if all refugees are removed from Nauru by June 30, as is widely suspected, the Australian Government will reportedly retain the ‘capacity’ to continue using the remote island for offshore detention.

The Guardian cited intel from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) and Refugee Action Coalition which has been monitoring the inflow of refugees to Brisbane; most of them moving to hotel detention. Most are expected to be given bridging visas and encouraged to work. That’s a subtle change to common practices since the Howard government saw the opportunity to create offshore processing in 2001, in the wake of the discredited ‘children overboard’ Tampa affair.

Over the ensuing years, the public has mostly been in the dark about what went on in Nauru. In 2014, the Nauruan Government was asking news organisations to pay $8,000 per journalist for a three-month visa. If the application was rejected, the payment was non-refundable.

The newly elected Rudd government stopped offshore processing in 2007, after reports filtered out via humanitarian groups about abuses, overcrowding, and a shortage of potable water. Not that Labor proved to be the panacea, re-introducing offshore processing  in 2012. The right and left of politics have long played ducks and drakes with the lives of people shunted from their homelands by war, famine, religious persecution and/or terrorism.

A week or two away from the 2022 election, the soon-to-be outgoing Coalition Government quickly moved to close a controversial hotel detention centre in downtown Melbourne,. Refugees were the least of former PM Scott Morrison’s problems, but it was an egregious move to deflect attention from other issues.

Offshore processing is one aspect of Australia’s policies about refugees and asylum seekers. Onshore, the prevailing wisdom has been to lock ‘them’ away. As of April 30, 2023, there were 1,128 people in closed detention and another 319 in community detention. Of the people in closed detention, 168 are there because they came to Australia by boat, seeking asylum. On the basis of what it costs to keep one person in jail, closed detention is costing taxpayers at least $45 million a year.*

Conservative governments have been apt to describe boat arrivals as “illegals” when in law the term is “irregular”. Such attempts are often doomed to failure as the boats are intercepted by Australian or Indonesia border forces and turned back. Some sink and people drown – we seldom hear about that. As a ‘champagne socialist’, it pains me to report that the seed of this treatment of refugees was sown by a Labor Government.

In 1992, Paul Keating’s government introduced mandatory detention for any non-citizen who arrived in Australia without an appropriate visa. Keating changed the law from a limit of 273 days to indefinite detention. This meant that non-citizens without a valid visa, suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorised arrival, could be held in indefinite detention until their case and status was heard and resolved.

The policy (it was meant to be temporary), is regarded as controversial and has been criticised by humanitarian organisations. However, subsequent governments of all creeds have upheld indefinite detention and the High Court decreed that it was constitutional.

The two largest onshore detention centres are Villawood in NSW (441 detainees) and Yongah Hill in WA (248).

The important number in these statistics compiled by the Refugee Council of Australia is the average time spent in closed detention (two years and five days), with another 259 people spending more than two years in community detention.

Australia is also responsible for 1,367 children in the community on bridging visas and 95 children held in community detention.

These numbers are miniscule in the global scheme of things, with 108 million people forcibly displaced as of December 31, 2022. Of these, 28 million were assessed to be refugees by the UNHCR and another 5.4 million judged to be asylum seekers.

As the war in Ukraine continues unabated, as Iran bubbles and boils and people in feudal African countries are hunted like rabbits, we here in Warwick are doing our bit to improve the lot of five people.

Our local refugee support group applied to be part of the Federal Government’s CRISP refugee sponsorship scheme. The latter encourages local community groups to sponsor a family to settle in rural Australia. Thanks to our generous community, we raised more than $10,000 and were gifted a houseful of furniture. So it was that a family of five from Pakistan arrived at Brisbane airport in mid-May. We are responsible for their welfare for the next 12 months. A month later, the family are settling into their new abode; adapting to Warwick’s cold nights after living in a Sri Lankan refugee camp. The daughters are enrolled in local schools and the parents have been getting out and about. It is a challenging but rewarding way to turn abstract concerns into real action.

Having said that, volunteers who get involved with refugee and asylum seeker support groups often suffer from ‘empathy fatigue’. Then there is the perpetual quest for donations to keep much needed support going.

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre was last year at risk of having to close because of a shortage of funds. The Melbourne-based charity said donations were down 45% since re-opening in mid-2022 after the pandemic. In any given year, more than 7,000 people seeking asylum approach the ASRC for essential services including food, housing, medical care, and legal help. Good to see that the organisation’s annual telethon on World Refugee Day (June 20) raised $1.34 million.

This story is not just about refugees and asylum seekers. The Federal Government has for years struggled with the ongoing problem of non-citizens overstaying their visas. The Canberra Times reported in 2017 that more than 64,000 people were in Australia illegally, after overstaying work and tourist visas. The Federal Government estimated as many as 12,000 have been here for more than 20 years.

For certain the population of refugees in ‘closed detention’ would include overstayers who have been picked up one way or the other. People who come to Australia on a tourist or working visa and overstay by 28 days or more face deportation and a three-year ban on being issued with another Australia visa.

A good start with Nauru, but surely it is time to sort this mess out and restore Australia’s reputation of a fair go for all.

Footnote: These are my personal opinions and not those of the community refugee support group to which I belong

  • based on the estimated annual cost ($40,000) of keeping one person in prison (in Queensland)

‘Tis the season of charitable giving

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Image: Hunger relief charity Foodbank Australia

When our internet landline rings (rarely), I know for certain it will be my sister in New Zealand or Guide Dogs Australia asking for “Mrs Wilson”. She Who Gives to Charity Sometimes is like most of us. If she feels inclined to donate to a charity, she likes to do it on her terms. Guide Dogs Australia is a worthy charity that we support in several small ways (calendars, Christmas cards and so on). In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Guide Dogs volunteers will offer gift wrapping at selected shopping centres. There is usually a dog to pat too.

If you have an email subscription to a charity like the Salvos, Lifeline or Red Cross, they do like to remind you that they’re there. On Monday I had an email from the CEO of Lifeline, Colin Seery. He began: “Christmas is upon us. People will need us. We have to be ready for what could be the busiest days we have ever faced.

“The festive season brings additional challenges to charities which support people in need. In 2021 Lifeline received over 98,000 calls in December, a record for that time of year.

“It’s sobering to think that of all the hardship we’ve faced over the past few years,” Mr Seery wrote, “The festive season remains overwhelming for so many.” 

Lifeline says it needs to raise $328,000 to ensure people find the support they’re looking for when contacting Lifeline.

The major problem for fund-raisers – and who knew there are 57,5000 charities in Australia – is that there is a lot of competition for a limited pool of money set aside for ‘giving’. Organisations which offer similar services to Lifeline (The Salvation Army, St Vincents, The Smith Family, Beyond Blue etc), all have their collection tins out at this time of year.

On a global scale, there are the large charities like Red Cross, Save the Children and World Vision. They draw funding from affluent Australians and those who donate as their means dictate.

As the weeks roll by, you can expect to hear about the need for Christmas food hampers and why flooding in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia will make them difficult to deliver. The ABC reported on events unfolding in southern states as suppliers struggle to source food hampers.

Hunger relief charity Foodbank said it had “real challenges” supplying its 1,000 charity partners and schools in New South Wales and the ACT. Chief executive John Robertson said fresh produce and sources of protein were particularly hard to secure when the pressures of natural disasters were factored in.

Foodbank Australia, which organises food hampers for needy Australians on a regular basis, has a big demand this year for its Christmas appeal. Mr Robertson told the ABC that even though production had been lifted from 20,000 hampers last year to 30,000, it was still not going to be enough. Christmas hampers include canned leg ham, Christmas cake, pudding & custard, along with a range of staple foods such as pasta, cereal, canned fruit and vegetables. Foodbank also does this in other states and territories, along with organisations including Anglicare, The Salvation Army, OzHarvest and FoodAssist.

A Foodbank spokeswoman told FOMM the supply chain issues include the recent freight train derailment, which will cut off a main route. The floods in both Victoria and New South Wales in very rich food-producing areas have also disrupted operations, she said.

There is clearly a demonstrable need for charitable organisations to provide food, clothing and shelter for those whose needs are not being met. It is comforting to know the scale of the not-for-profit sector, as outlined by its regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC). As of 2021, there were 57,500 registered charities in Australia and another 600,000 not-for-profits. The latter are commonly small community groups put together for a specific purpose and not all are charities. If they are incorporated they can raise funds if needed, but fund-raising is not usually their core business.

The difficulty for smaller charities is that when they do need to raise funds, for whatever reason, they are competing with the big end of town.

The ACNC report on Australian charities shows that 65% of them are rated small (annual revenue of $250,000 or less). Medium charities are ranked as those with annual revenue of $250,000 to $1 million (16%). Large charities (19% of the total), have annual revenue of $1 million or more. One-third of small not-for-profits are uber-small – revenue of $50,000 a year or less.

The charity sector in Australia overall employs 1.2 million people – 10% of the country’s workforce, the majority employed by large charities.

McCrindle Research says charitable giving is deeply ingrained in the Australian psyche, with 82% of people giving to not-for-profit organisations in some capacity. Of these, 61% believe that not-for-profits are an essential pathway for Australians to fulfil their human duty of providing hands-on-help to others in need.

David Crosbie, CEO of the Community Council for Australia (CCA) said the sector had been transformed in just two decades.

“A charity space shackled with red tape in 2000 and lacking even a legal definition of its powers and purpose has (been) transformed into a vibrant sector with an effective regulator and legally-enshrined advocacy rights.

“But as the number of charities has grown, so too has the sector’s reliance on government funding.

“This in turn has increased the scrutiny on charities to be effective, as more organisations are forced to compete for fewer resources.”  

Mr Crosbie, writing in Pro Bono Australia’s annual report in 2020, said the biggest win for the sector was the establishment through the Charities Act 2013 of a clear legal definition of a charity. This definition included advocacy as a core activity for NFPs(Not For Profits).

Charities had fight again to protect their hard-won status in 2017. The Federal Government’s foreign donations bill threatened to curtail the sector’s advocacy rights, by broadening registration and disclosure requirements for non-party political actors including charities. (Could have been termed the ‘Anti ‘GetUP’ bill’. Ed)The sector successfully campaigned to amend the bill, arguing it would stifle advocacy and impose unnecessary red tape on many NFP organisations.

Flooding and subsequent clean-ups in NSW, Victoria and South Australia will make it difficult for families to regroup in time to celebrate Christmas. For those of us who live in places not affected by floods, look around and you’ll become aware of organisations that provide hunger relief for people who need it.

Foodbank, which is based in South Australia, operates nationally. The organisation sourced 48.1 million kilograms of food and groceries in 2021, equating to 86.7 million meals or 238,000 meals per day. Foodbank partners with farmers, growers and retailers including major supermarket chains to deliver food boxes to charities for distribution to those most in need.

A Foodbank report released in October showed that more than 2 million households in Australia ran out of food in the last year, due to limited finances. This meant sometimes skipping meals or going whole days without eating. About 1.3 million children lived in food insecure households during that time. Demand for hunger relief services is now higher than it was during the pandemic – much of it to do with the roll back of JobSeeker in early 2021.

Whether it’s with the aim of helping people right now or to lift spirits at Christmas, you can help. A donation of $50 can provide a hamper to a family in need.