An estimated 1.1 million people are in Australia on temporary visas and are excluded from the jobkeeper and jobseeker support.
They include international students, working holiday makers, skilled work visa holders, asylum seekers and refugees.
Far from being the great leveller it is asserted to be, Covid-19 has laid barethe structural inequalities that exist in Australia. Those who are in Australia temporarily – to study, to work, to pick fruit, to be protected from persecution – have had their second-class status brutally exposed by the extremis of Covid-19. They face the very real prospect of destitution, of being left homeless, of not having enough to eat.
Many work in jobs and industries severely affected by shutdowns. They have lost jobs in their tens of thousands. But they are excluded from all government support measures, including the centrepiece jobkeeper wage subsidy and jobseeker welfare payments. As the government has rolled out massive and unprecedented rescue packages for jobs and businesses – $214bn – for those in Australia on temporary visas there is no safety net at all.
Their treatment reflects a more fundamental conception in Australia that people temporarily in the country – who live among Australian citizens as neighbours, work alongside them as colleagues, catch the bus as fellow commuters, and pay taxes as fellow contributors – are somehow less deserving of the country’s protection. A government’s most fundamental duty, after all, is to protect its people. But who are its people? Who are the people the government should care for and consider its own? Australia’s government has chosen to define that narrowly – as citizens and permanent residents. It has consciously decided that those in Australia on temporary visas are undeserving of support.
These are extraordinary times. The world faces a global pandemic the likes of which has not been seen for a century. There exists an obligation to offer some measure of assistance to people in this country in a time of unprecedented crisis.
Telling people they should “make their way home” is simplistic and impractical. Many simply cannot: they cannot afford flights home; the borders of their country have been sealed shut – even to citizens; transit countries will not allow them to pass through; or they have come to Australia seeking protection and cannot safely go back. Others have lived in Australia for years and have built families and lives and communities here, there is no other “home” to go back to.
Portugal has temporarily granted all migrants in the country the rights of its citizens.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/23/australias-coronavirus-relief-exclusions-prove-we-are-not-all-in-this-together
They include international students, working holiday makers, skilled work visa holders, asylum seekers and refugees.
Far from being the great leveller it is asserted to be, Covid-19 has laid barethe structural inequalities that exist in Australia. Those who are in Australia temporarily – to study, to work, to pick fruit, to be protected from persecution – have had their second-class status brutally exposed by the extremis of Covid-19. They face the very real prospect of destitution, of being left homeless, of not having enough to eat.
Many work in jobs and industries severely affected by shutdowns. They have lost jobs in their tens of thousands. But they are excluded from all government support measures, including the centrepiece jobkeeper wage subsidy and jobseeker welfare payments. As the government has rolled out massive and unprecedented rescue packages for jobs and businesses – $214bn – for those in Australia on temporary visas there is no safety net at all.
Their treatment reflects a more fundamental conception in Australia that people temporarily in the country – who live among Australian citizens as neighbours, work alongside them as colleagues, catch the bus as fellow commuters, and pay taxes as fellow contributors – are somehow less deserving of the country’s protection. A government’s most fundamental duty, after all, is to protect its people. But who are its people? Who are the people the government should care for and consider its own? Australia’s government has chosen to define that narrowly – as citizens and permanent residents. It has consciously decided that those in Australia on temporary visas are undeserving of support.
These are extraordinary times. The world faces a global pandemic the likes of which has not been seen for a century. There exists an obligation to offer some measure of assistance to people in this country in a time of unprecedented crisis.
Telling people they should “make their way home” is simplistic and impractical. Many simply cannot: they cannot afford flights home; the borders of their country have been sealed shut – even to citizens; transit countries will not allow them to pass through; or they have come to Australia seeking protection and cannot safely go back. Others have lived in Australia for years and have built families and lives and communities here, there is no other “home” to go back to.
Portugal has temporarily granted all migrants in the country the rights of its citizens.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/23/australias-coronavirus-relief-exclusions-prove-we-are-not-all-in-this-together
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