Poverty is no excuse not to help asylum seekers

On Tuesday the Salvation Army released its latest report on poverty in Australia: Perceptions of Poverty, an Insight into the Nature and Impact of Poverty in Australia. The statistics are alarming.

– Over two million Australians, or 1 in 10, do not have an acceptable standard of living and go without the bare necessities.

– 12% of Australian children live in poverty, the 14^th highest child poverty rate of OECD countries.

– 1 in 4 of those aged over 65 live in poverty, ranking Australia 4^th last amongst OECD countries.

– 55% of people who visit the Salvation Army are worse off because of the Global Financial Crisis.

The report highlights a host of problems that contribute to poverty; including housing shortages, increases in the cost of living, a deficient social security system, discrimination and the lack of a national response.

For asylum seekers, however, these problems are only magnified.

Take the issue of housing shortages. The Salvation Army reveals that the lack of public housing has resulted in unaffordable rental prices for many of Australia’s poor. They recall that some of their clients contribute over 60% of their income in rent.

Yet as documented in the ASRC’s  position paper: Locked Out: Position Paper on Homelessness of Asylum Seekers living in the community, asylum seekers receiving ASAS payments (Asylum Seeker Assistance Scheme – emergency funding administered by the Red Cross) spend up to 91% of their income on rental expenses. Housing agencies often deny emergency and transit accommodation services to asylum seekers because of a lack of understanding surrounding their status in Australia.

The Salvation Army also attributes the “unfair and outdated” Social Security System as one of the factors contributing to Australia’s large numbers of working poor. Quoting the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), the Salvation Army declares that “the Social Security System is not working for jobless Australians. It leaves people in poverty: for example, the Newstart Allowance for a single adult is just $231 per week.”

Asylum seekers living in the community have no access to Centrelink benefits. The only welfare benefits they are entitled to fall under the ASAS program mentioned above – but strict conditions for entitlement apply – and the payments are only equivalent to 89% of the Centrelink Newstart Allowance.  Only a small percentage of asylum seekers receive the ASAS.

Discrimination is another problem identified by the Salvation Army as a contributing factor to poverty. The report specifically identifies refugees as a “particularly vulnerable group” who often face discrimination “trying to get a job, find a house or even walking down the street.” Indeed, the ASRC’s Locked Out report reveals that asylum seekers face systemic discrimination in the housing market. For example, one asylum seeker reveals how “real estate agents just laugh at me.”

The Salvation Army calls for a national response to the issue of poverty.  The Federal Government’s White Paper the Road to Home (2008) promised to halve homelessness by 2020.  This paper failed to mention asylum seekers despite their well-documented housing challenges.

Unfortunately one of the most prevalent myths about asylum seekers is that they receive privileged support from the government compared to ordinary Australians.  Stories like this one about asylum seekers living in “four star accommodation” are circulated by the media inflaming and distorting public opinion.  This misinformation creates another common rebuke to a more compassionate refugee policy which goes something like “Australia should be helping our own first,” particularly the homeless and disadvantaged.

Asylum seekers constitute one of the most alienated and persecuted disadvantaged groups in Australia. Furthermore, it is those who work tirelessly to face the horrors of poverty everyday that hold the most compassionate views on the plight of asylum seekers. Organisations like the Salvation Army – who work endlessly to eradicate poverty – are advocates for a more humane refugee policy.

It would seem that those who call upon Australia to “help our own first” are not the ones who are doing the helping.

Instead, we should listen to what those people who are dedicated to helping Australia’s poor actually have to say; and they are not pointing the finger at asylum seekers. The problems are structural and they require a sustained national response. The founder of the Salvation Army gives some indication as to where responsibility may lie:

All of the excuses by which those who stand on firm ground salve their conscience when they let their brother sink … often enough are responsible for his disaster.

William Booth 1890