Boat people in Melbourne’s west have been pushed into homelessness and are sleeping on bare boards in unfurnished houses, according to a volunteer group helping asylum seekers on bridging visas.
Ann Morrow, from the Hobsons Bay Refugee Network (HBRN), said ‘irregular maritime arrivals’ living on 89 per cent of Australia’s lowest dole payment – as little as $56 a day for a couple – were also living in a climate of fear.
“A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to one who said, ‘Do you think we’re going to be sent to Papua New Guinea?’
“I mean, they’re terrified of what’s going to happen to them, particularly in light of the [federal] election result. We said, ‘How would you feel about that if it happened?’
“And he said, ‘Very bad, but better than the country we came from. There, we could be picked up in the middle of the night, pulled out of our beds, taken and tortured – anything is better than that’.’’
They don’t want to be carted off in the middle of the night from out of their beds and hanged on building cranes in the middle of the football ground.”
AMES media adviser Laurie Nowell said there were about 30,000 people nationwide on a bridging visa many of whom had been living in the community but denied the right to work since August 13 last year.
A family on bridging visa receives a maximum of $770 a fortnight.
Pamela Curr, of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said that in order to get people into private rental the government paid the first month’s rent and bond, but this amount had to be repaid within 22 weeks.
“That takes it down to between $60 and $100 that they’re living on when they first move into the community and these are people who’ve come off a boat with nothing.’’“They’ve often arrived in Melbourne in a T-shirt and tracksuit pants and thongs because they’ve come from Christmas Island.”
Ms Morrow, who founded the HBRN with fellow Williamstown resident Dorothy Page, said asylum seekers were surviving on handouts.
“We’re trying to house [them] in low-cost rental accommodation in the western region. We’re overwhelmed with people’s offers of furniture … and that’s causing a lag and we’ve got all our garages and sheds chockablock.”“People are just so moved and touched by these people’s stories.
“The other day we had to put out an SOS on behalf of a family that we discovered: a two-month-old baby, seven-year-old little girl, and mother and father who’d come on a boat.
“She was seven months pregnant when she came on the boat.
“While she was on the boat she delivered another woman’s baby so they’re very gutsy and courageous, but they said on the boat we were all crying, everybody was because we were so terrified.”
Ms Page said the majority of asylum seekers she had seen were from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and “soon from Syria, I suspect”.
Ms Page said the community had been so generous with furniture donations that the group was now desperate for temporary storage space and transportation.
» Email morrowann8@gmail.com or call 9397 6000.
