Sydney
23 March 2003
Home
Archive
Subscribe
Links
Contact
Helping the world’s kids to a new start
One in five kids living in poverty
ACU model for rest to follow: Beattie
Transsexual ‘marriage’
Refugees ‘destitute’
Curtain falls on Woomera
Expo peek aids hospital
Call for inquiry into needs of low-paid staff
Catholic Weekly takes a holiday over Easter
Pope’s 25 years in stamps
New mysteries on pocket cards
CD to help East Timorese kids
New Vinnies head wants to ensure best deal for needy
Conference celebrates the faith
Medicare principles ‘must be safeguarded’
Bougainville - after the war is over
Fast and feast in lent
Editorial: The poverty line
Letters: Tabernacle
Conversation: Dr Henry Pang, GP and aid volunteer - Dead people all around ‘changes your life’
Voice of Youth: ‘O’ - what a feeling! We’re Catholics
Plea from the bush: Come and see us
Waverley’s 100 years of ‘bright stars’
Young train as catechists
Lay ministry great, says jubilee priest
Refugees ‘destitute’
Many East Timorese asylum seekers and their families are becoming destitute while they wait for a final decision on their applications for visas to live and work in Australia.
The Melbourne-based Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace says this is because they lose their government assistance if their application is officially refused.
These funds dry up while they await the result of individual appeals to Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock.
The executive officer of the Catholic commission, Mark Purcell, says: “Many of these people have been on Asylum Seeker Assistance Scheme payments, administered by the Red Cross, of about $150 per week while they wait for the decision on their visa application.
“Once the decision comes through to refuse their application, they lose this payment and become destitute while they appeal to the minister to assess their individual cases.
“Many are renting their accommodation and cannot pay the rent.”
Five Melbourne mayors have visited Canberra to lobby Mr Ruddock on behalf of the East Timorese. Part of the reason is that the East Timorese people in their municipality are suffering from poverty and becoming dependent on the community, Mr Purcell said.
Victoria’s East Timorese community has welcomed a grant of $50,000 from the State Government to assist with legal representation for asylum seekers facing deportation.
The grant will fund a program run by the state Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre to provide refugee and immigration advice, prepare refugee applications, attend departmental interviews and represent people at the Refugee Review Tribunal and the Migration Review Tribunal.
About 1800 East Timorese asylum seekers, many of them children who have lived their whole lives in Australia, are facing deportation. Many are Catholics.