Jenan Taylor
29 April 2024
Advocates want the Australian government to grant Palestinian refugees visas that allow them to work and access Medicare and Centrelink supports, because they face additional hardship otherwise.
Challenges the refugees face include increased trauma, anxiety and the chance of developing mental illness from having no accommodation, work rights, or access to financial help.
The Australian government offered 2273 visitor visas to Palestinian refugees and 2415 to Israeli citizens who met all visa requirements, between 7 October and 6 February this year.
The visitor visas allow people to visit Australia for up to 12 months as a tourist, to visit family and friends or to go on cruises.
Advocates, including the Refugee Council of Australia, said the visas were inadequate for people fleeing conflict, and provided no work rights or access to Medicare or Centrelink support.
The council said tourist visas could be cancelled at any time because the refugees could fail visa criteria assessments, in a recent letter to the government.
Read more: More refugees, more hunger: What we missed in 2023
Palestinian Christians in Australia said the refugees needed a better class of visa such as a good bridging visa, that would allow them to work, access support and feel more secure.
PCiA president Suzan Wahhab said the refugees her organisation helped had lost everything and arrived with barely any money.
Ms Wahhab said families were displaying signs of additional anxiety and hopelessness because they had no work rights, and couldn’t afford shelter without government support.
“They are being granted a visitor visa when they are not tourists who are here to see the Opera House. They are real refugees who have lost everything,” Ms Wahhab said.
She said some on 12-month visitor visas were in rented homes and depended on the charity for money for rent and food from month to month.
The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network said the government initially encouraged Palestinians to apply for visitor visas to enable them to quickly leave Gaza.
Network president Nasser Mashni said APAN was alarmed when the Australian government then rejected many visa applications from Palestinians because it didn’t accept they intended to stay temporarily in Australia.
Mr Mashni said Palestinian refugees should receive the same urgent support and care levels the Australian government extended to Ukraine refugees.
But Amnesty International said the context in which the Palestinian refugees were arriving in Australia was more complicated than during the previous situation with Ukraine and even Afghanistan.
Refugee Rights advisor Dr Graham Thom said after the government’s initial intake of refugees from those crises, thousands more were funnelled into humanitarian programs with limited places.
He said many people endured long waits to reunite with family, or eventually were transferred on to visa classes with no access to support.
Read more: Melbourne pilgrims to walk, pray for peace in Gaza as Lent begins
Dr Thom said the speed with which the Gaza-Israel conflict developed led the Australian government to develop arrangements in a short time frame.
Some arrangements were constrained because people trying to leave Gaza also had to get the Israeli government and, in some instances, the Egyptian government to sign off on papers.
He said it created a bottle neck for thousands of refugees and a context that was different to what had happened in Afghanistan and Ukraine.
“We sent planes into Kabul to do an emergency rescue out of the airport for people, but Australia can’t do that in Gaza. The Israelis won’t let them even if Australia wanted to do that. Similarly, in Ukraine, people could cross the border into Poland or any neighbouring country because those borders were open. They could then apply for a visa to Australia and get on a plane to get here,” Dr Thom said.
“That’s not the situation for people wanting to get out of Gaza. There’s a whole different layer and a situation we’ve never seen before.”
Ms Wahhab said the PCiA had become a settlement service for Palestinian refugees since October because it could not find organisations who were funded to help them.
She said it was focused on helping refugee families find places to live and get their children to school, and planned to get them help for post-traumatic stress.
Ms Wahhab said the Orthodox and Uniting churches, along with people in the wider community were helping with donations, but they needed government support for the refugees.
In early April the immigration minister Andrew Giles announced the government would provide $2 million in emergency financial relief for visa holders from significantly affected areas in Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories.
For more faith news, follow The Melbourne Anglican on Facebook, Twitter, or subscribe to our weekly emails.
