Welfare Recipient Patterns Among Migrants
Background - The current situation
In response to these criticisms and in an atmosphere of stringency towards welfare in general, there have been a number of changes in recent years, especially since the election of the Coalition in 1996.
The previous Labor Government had already withdrawn some benefits (including unemployment benefits) from immigrants (other than those arriving in the humanitarian categories) in the first six months after arrival. As throughout the post-war period, the Age Pension was not available until ten years after settlement.
However, as we show below, where recently arrived migrants in the pension age category were not able to support themselves, they have usually been able to access a Special Benefit or some other benefit (like the Widow's pension) equivalent to the Age Pension. The points system for the Independent and Concessional categories, in any case, awarded nil points to those aged over forty-five.
The Labor Government had already closed remaining migrant hostels in 1994, replacing them by flats. Only detention centres remained. The hostels had mainly been used by refugees and provided settlement services including English teaching and referrals for employment and to welfare agencies.
Charges were introduced for English tuition under the Adult Migrant English Program, again with exceptions including humanitarian and preferential family entrants who made up a large part of the clientele. Language services in translation and interpreting were put on a partly commercial basis. Grant-in-aid workers and migrant resource centres continued at about the same level and the ethnic communities' structure continued to be subsidised by the Commonwealth and some States.
The principle of cost recovery for services was well established before the election of the Coalition in 1996. Payments in advance for language tuition and bonds against becoming reliant on welfare after arrival, were put in place by its Labor predecessor.
The Coalition extended the waiting period for welfare payments to two years after arrival and increased already existing charges for services. The two-year waiting period did not apply to those entering Australia under any of the Humanitarian categories, and for New Zealand citizens the six months provision remained until February 2000. However, asylum seekers awaiting refugee status were ineligible for most welfare support but received government-funded assistance through charitable organisations, principally the Red Cross.
Unemployment continued at a level around eight per cent until October 1998 when it fell to 7.3 per cent. Unemployment was especially likely to be experienced by new arrivals who were ineligible for support as shown by successive Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Labour Force Survey results.
Thus the savings have been significant over the first two years of settlement. Savings on the hostels were replaced by growing expenditure on detention, which Labor had made mandatory for undocumented arrivals.
Additional funds have been allocated to grant-in-aid, migrant resource centres and ethnic community advocacy groups. These are essentially referral and advice organisations and are not involved in welfare benefit payments. While there have been reductions in services and increases in cost recovery, there has also been a shift towards support for humanitarian entrants.
In regard to skilled and family category migrants, since 1996 intake policy has been tightened to ensure that only job-ready and productive immigrants were admitted. Changes by the Coalition after 1996 have included an increase in the skilled and business intake; a reduction of family reunion and the replacement of the Concessional family category by a 'Skills-Australian-Linked' class; and periodic capping of the family reunion and the humanitarian intake when numbers appeared likely to exceed those planned.
Some proposed changes have been held up in the Senate but there has been a degree of bipartisan agreement.
The overall effect of changes made since 1986 (and particularly since 1992 when the Labor Government reduced the program and made it more focussed on skills needed in Australia) has been to focus selection on immigrants likely to be productive; to reduce the cost of on-arrival services such as accommodation and English tuition; to transfer welfare dependency for non-refugee arrivals to relatives or charities; to shift the balance in the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs away from settlement and towards selection and compliance; to determine funding through competitive tendering; to 'mainstream' provision within the major social security departments; while maintaining the principle that all eligible migrants continue to have equitable access to those services to which they are entitled.
The overall objective is to move towards what in the United States is called 'cost free immigration' and away from the notion that immigrants have special welfare needs not shared with others.
The main focus of debate on immigrant welfare since 1947 has been on the Department of Immigration. However, the main transfer payments and service delivery to NESB Australians do not come from that Department.
For at least the past ten years the issue of 'who is a migrant' has been canvassed in policy discussion. This is particularly relevant to the post-war European migrants who are now ageing and coming within provision for the aged.
The Galbally report, like all subsequent recommendations, saw ethnic-specific or immigrant-specific services as 'temporary', on the assumption that settlement was a process which would gradually merge into the mainstream and no longer require special treatment or the role of the Department of Immigration. This is based on an expectation of eventual assimilation, although that term had become unfashionable as early as 1978.