Thousands of people seeking asylum live in deep poverty in our communities

Rebecca Eckard

May 2023

Up to 15,000 people seeking asylum living in desperate conditions – chronic food shortages, destitution, dire health issues – need immediate support in order to survive in Australia. An urgent overhaul to the Australian Government’s approach to people seeking our protection is required to prevent further homelessness, malnutrition, and isolation. 

There are over 70,000 people who have sought refugee protection in Australia and are waiting for a decision. Australia’s messy visa system means that people will wait between two and 12 years for a decision. There are 27,000 people still awaiting their first decision on their onshore protection visa application, and an additional 1,000 people who arrived in 2012 or 2013 by sea still waiting on a first decision under the temporary protection arrangements set up in 2014. There are also 39,000 people who are waiting in the backlog for a review of an initial negative decision and more than 8,000 people who are waiting on a decision from the courts.  

The vast majority of people who have sought protection want to and can support themselves if they have the right to work. As the Australian Government unravels the ideas to address the backlog of protection applications, people who have been waiting years for a decision have become vulnerable while living here. This includes children, the elderly, and people with injuries and disabilities. We estimate there are 15,000 people living in our communities in Australia – from Cannington to Campsie, Reservoir to Rockhampton – who are struggling to survive because they do not have access to a basic safety net. 

Without a safety net, thousands of people who are living with trauma from persecution in their home countries are struggling to survive, reliant on under-resourced charities. Many of these people have been subject to immigration detention, unsure if or when they would be released. Many have faced the torture and abuse of offshore processing and an uncertain future. Many have caring responsibilities, have escaped domestic violence, or have health needs that require treatment so that they can support themselves again.

The Federal program to support people seeking asylum during their protection application process, the Status Resolution Support Service (SRSS), offers minimal but vital assistance of just $45 a day. The program provides a basic living allowance that is capped at 89% of the JobSeeker allowance.

The narrow eligibility criteria mean very few people qualify for financial assistance and other support. Over the past several years, SRSS has been cut by 95% or over $285 million. The cuts began in 2017, with the then Coalition Government radically shifting from a program providing casework and financial support to one with restrictive eligibility geared toward compliance.  The SRSS Program went from a budget of $300 million in 2015-16 to just $15 million now, and the number of people assisted has dropped from more than 29,000 in 2015 to just 1,600 now. Of these, only 1,200 people receive direct financial assistance.

SRSS is the latest iteration of a program first developed under the Howard Coalition Government in 2006. The Howard Government first introduced its support program because the destitution among people seeking asylum left many people so locked in a battle for day-to-day survival that they could not engage effectively to apply for a visa or to leave the country. Today, with much of the safety net removed, we are seeing the same issue again: few people transitioning smoothly after a visa grant or voluntarily departing when their visa applications are rejected and finalised. The SRSS Program is not achieving its intended goal to help people “resolve their immigration status”.

We know from the frontline charities helping people that the situation is dire. More people are living without incomes, moving from couch to couch or sleeping on the streets. Charities have disclosed that they are seeing children whose families have no means to buy food, and doctors are now treating these children for malnutrition and associated developmental delays. They do not know if or when relief will come.

This is a system designed to break people, and it is working.

Members of the Labor Government previously publicly condemned the cuts to support when they first began, and Labor’s National Platform commits a Labor government to means-tested access to social services for people seeking protection. We urgently need the Australian Government to update the guidelines for the SRSS Program to focus on the needs and vulnerabilities of people seeking safety rather than focusing on how someone arrived or where they are in the application process. Changing the eligibility and access to the program would mean that people can pay their rent, source enough food for their families, and be in a better state of mind to make decisions about their lives. These changes do not require new laws; it just requires empathy, political will and adjustments to existing guidelines.

Without urgent intervention, we will see more people – our neighbours, our friends – homeless, hungry, and desperate. It is time for the Albanese Government to act.

Rebecca Eckard is the Director of Policy and Research at the Refugee Council of Australia, the national peak body for people from refugee, humanitarian, and asylum-seeking backgrounds, and the organisations and individuals who support them.