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TRANSCRIPT
On the first of April, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addressed the country in a prerecorded national address, as economic uncertainty intensified with Iran's blocking of the Strait of Hormuz.
He said the economic shocks from the war in the Middle East would last for months, describing it as uncertain times.
Advocates and representatives for multicultural communities are voicing concern the needs of migrant and refugee communities are extending beyond only the economic however, and are worried gaps in communication could lead to misinformation.
Tahera Nassrat is the CEO for the Afghan Peace Foundation, a non-for-profit supporting refugees and immigrants who have particularly experienced war and persecution, and is a tax agent.
She says communities personally affected by the war in the Middle East, are facing stresses beyond only the cost of living, and non-citizen tax payers are being forgotten.
“The first problem at the moment is trauma because half of their family are back in overseas, and they don't have any focus at the moment on their businesses or on their normal lifestyle. They are stressed about their families because they don't have connection or they don't have access to their families through the war because of the war overseas.”
She says she has provided support and advice for immigrants and refugees across the country. Tuning into the national address, she hoped there would be new long term solutions she could share with clients resorting to short-term relief.
She says the impact on refugee and migrant communities especially, has led to some using savings to cover basic costs such as groceries, placing them in sudden tax debt without guidance on where to seek advice.
“When I'm servicing clients coming to the office, they are losing track of their normal life because of the mental stress, because of the living costs quite going high and they are actually struggling asking for help. The temporary solution would be for three months, but if the local residents, immigrants, people, they're using their savings to cover the cost, what will happen after that? It's a long-term impact on everyone in Australia.”
A government spokesperson responded to SBS News regarding the national address, distributed and broadcasted across Australia including to SBS's language outlets. The statements were in response to these concerns voiced by advocates and representatives for migrant and refugee communities.
“The Albanese Government’s number one priority is helping people with the cost of living. This conflict is on the other side of the world, but is having a real impact here for Australians. The Albanese Government is taking every practical measure required to shield our nation and household budgets from the worst of this global uncertainty.”
When asked further about specific comments regarding migrant and refugee communities, SBS News was told these comments would suffice.
Beyond the economic impact, Ms Nassrat says she is worried a lack of clear long term solutions will also translate into migrant and refugee communities facing an increase in discrimination.
“Unfortunately, refugee communit[ies] has always been looked at as a political error or political mistakes. Australia is a multicultural country and we are having a multicultural society, and a big contribution across all the businesses across the country is made by multicultural communities”
In October 2024, an independent enquiry into the national response to the COVID 19 pandemic, was completed with the delivery of the panel’s findings, aimed at better informing future health emergency responses.
In that report, the panel detailed that a delay in addressing the needs of people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, led to poorer outcomes, especially earlier on in the pandemic.
The panel found culturally diverse communities experienced increased racism and heightened challenges relating to economic and mental health during the pandemic.
Its findings exposed gaps in engagement with multicultural communities, and evidence that when communities were engaged, outcomes improved.
Dr Surjeet Dhanji is an academic fellow at the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne, working with Indian diasporic communities in Australia, and says the pandemic demonstrated the risk for misinformation increases when communication is missing.
“Led to misconceptions that the migrants were not obeying the rules and the regulations stipulated by the government during the pandemic, and that is why the COVID virus was spreading at a greater pace amongst the migrant communities. The messages were not even being communicated until the government took efforts to have these messages translated. That's a simple understanding of what can go wrong.”
Dr Dhanji says the responsibility for representation in political discussions can fall on migrant communities to advocate for themselves, but these voices are sometimes not be encompassing of all issues within communities, and taking on extra volunteer work has become less realistic, given the cost of living crisis.
“Very often the people who are in the leadership are doing voluntary jobs, they have other jobs as well. Everybody's a taxpayer and everybody needs to feel a sense of belonging and being a contributing member of the society and the community. People who might be on permanent residency or who are refugees who are working every single day to do the best that they can, having come from very hard backgrounds, who are trying to make a life. So yes, the messaging needs to be couched to be more inclusive even of those who are not yet our citizens.”
Jacquie Ewart is a Professor of Communications at Griffith University, with research in the involvement of politicians during extreme climate change events, and media representations of marginalised groups.
She says politicians play an important role in moments of uncertainty.
“There definitely needs to be a lot more reassurance offered by people in government roles. I'm talking about politicians in particular because they are the people that the general public looks to for leadership in these times of crises.”
She shares concerns that some political conversations and discussions can have negative impacts on marginalised communities, and easily dominate public discussion, placing communities under a microscope.
“And for refugee and immigrant communities, as well as people who might be second or third generation Australians, but who have those cultural contacts and cultural backgrounds that are not white Anglo Celtic in origin, politicians really need to reassure them at this time that they are not the problem.”
As the war in the Middle East continues, impacting the cost of living crisis, communities across Australia continue to face growing challenges, amidst uncertainty.
“It's important to address the concerns that everyone who is being impacted by the cost of living is experiencing, whether it be farmers and they're doing it tough, whether it be truckies, they're doing it tough. Even people who previously considered they had a good income are probably now thinking about, well, how am I going to pay my mortgage with the increasing interest rates? So it's a general impact on people. But when we think about groups who are marginalized, they are probably doing it even tougher than other people are.”
