LONGER wait times for welfare being forced on new residents is a backwards step whicih will have harmful effects, migrant advocates say.
The four-year wait for certain types of government benefits for migrants granted residency was announced in the federal budget last week.
The cost-cutting measures will apply to family tax benefit B immediately (as of January, 2022); carers allowance and family tax benefit A after one year; and paid parental leave and carers payments after two years. There is already a four-year wait for jobseeker unemployment benefits and youth allowance.
The measures are forecast to save $45.7m in 2022-23, and increasing to $415.2m in 2024-25.
Settlement Services International chief executive officer Violet Roumeliotis said the retrograde step will affect 13,200 future migrants and 45,000 families, with carers and parents to be hit the hardest.
The changes would exacerbate inequality for people who are starting out and already contributing tax to the Australian economy, and undermine the efforts of new arrivals to find suitable long-term employment. "The lower tax benefit supports young parents, most of whom are working but on lower incomes, to provide adequate care and support for their children," she said.
"Withholding family tax benefit from migrant families will mean that they pay a higher rate of taxation on their income than other Australians."
In a report published earlier this year the Committee for Economic Development of Australia recommended the wait time be reduced to six months. Current policy forces migrants to accept the first job they can get, rather than lining up with Australia's chronic skill shortages, the report said.
"Along with rectifying an issue of equity, this shows that there is also an economic imperative for reducing wait times ... so that we harness the full benefits of skilled migration," Ms Roumeliotis said.
Settlement and Communities Manager at Northern Settlement Services in Newcastle, Debbie Carstens, said the Family Tax Benefit has been an important resource for families.
"These will not be available to families who gain access to permanent residency next year," she said. For vulnerable people, such as migrant women escaping domestic violence with their children, that meant real hardship, she said. "We were advocating for a reduction of the four-year wait, not an increase."
