Alan Tudge has questioned whether the Covid-19 health crisis has hit multicultural communities harder, but conceded the economic impact has been “tougher for some families” due to their exclusion from welfare.
The population, acting immigration and multicultural affairs minister made the comments at the National Press Club on Friday, after a speech claiming more free English classes and testing prospective citizens on Australian values would boost “social cohesion”.
Tudge also made the case for a return to population growth through migration to boost the economy and added his voice to a chorus of government ministers urging states to ease border restrictions.
Asked if the federal government takes any responsibility for the differential impact of Covid-19 and the recession on culturally and linguistically diverse (Cald) communities, Tudge replied: “You’re putting forward a position to me that it’s greatly different.
“And, you’re right, in Melbourne the highest case numbers are in the north and west [but] there are lower case numbers over in the east, and south-east where I live, and I live in a very multicultural community.”
Tudge noted that case numbers were “very small” in Sydney despite a “very multicultural community”.
“The reason why the infection rate is higher in Victoria is not because of any particular demographic, it’s because there were failures in the quarantining system and failures in the tracing system.”
The second-wave outbreak of coronavirus in Melbourne is concentrated in the north and west, which have a higher proportion of people from lower socio-economic and Cald backgrounds.
The Victorian chief health officer, Brett Sutton, has said the state is not doing enough to reach Cald communities.
The Covid-19 Health and Research Advisory Committee has noted that members of multicultural communities are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases and less likely to engage with public health messages.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners spokesperson Dr Kate Walker has said that GPs have found “Cald patients are bearing the brunt of the pandemic” – including from delaying healthcare.
“We are hearing of vulnerable patients who’ve lost work and are under a great deal of stress, GPs are seeing increased mental health symptoms, isolation and loneliness,” she said.
Due to a large outbreak at the St Basil’s aged care home, Greek Australians are overrepresented in the number of deaths of Covid-19.
Research commissioned by the Refugee Council of Australia has found unemployment among refugees and asylum seekers is expected to double from 19% to 42%.
Mohammad Al-Khafaji, the chief executive officer of the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia, told Guardian Australia it had called for a multicultural strategy to tackle Covid-19, which “wasn’t done” – resulting in delays in translating health materials.
“Migrant communities were being greatly affected,” he said. “There was a vacuum created for a few months, where many migrant communities sought coronavirus information in their language from outside media, from back home, from their WhatsApp channels.”
“[Temporary visa-holders] don’t have access to jobkeeper or jobseeker.
“We know they were the first ones to access their super, the first to go to food banks to get assistance.
“They had no means to pay for flights back home, or can’t go back because the borders are closed – it created a situation of people in limbo and potentially in destitution.”
Al-Khafaji said exclusion from economic supports had led to some continuing to work in crowded abattoirs, chicken factories and multiple aged care centres.
Tudge accepted exclusion from economic supports had a “differential impact” on “foreign nationals” who he said knew when they came to Australia “you don’t get access to welfare if you lose your job, and if you’re on an employer-sponsored visa, for example, unfortunately you have to leave the country”.
“It’s been tougher for some families, I really feel for some families, don’t get me wrong, [people who have] been here for three years out of four-year visas and may have been on a pathway to permanent residency.
“But we have to prioritise Australian citizens and residents in this pandemic … In terms of our welfare dollar, jobs that are available … and we make no apology for that.”
Tudge said the government would undertake a campaign to encourage permanent residents to take up citizenship, and announced it would update the citizenship test to “include new questions on Australian values”.
Limits on the existing English language courses for adult migrants will be reformed so migrants can access more than 510 hours.
Tudge said Australia’s migrant intake was “down 85% on what was initially anticipated”, but did not update figures estimating just 31,000 migrants would come to Australia in 2020-21.
He praised migration for adding to gross domestic product, both nationally and per capita, citing Treasury estimates that 20% of GDP per capita growth had come from a larger population.
“We’re bringing young skilled migrants, average age 26, they come here and they work – they help the participation rate, they help the productivity rate.
“So we’ll need to get back to being an immigrant country at some stage, but clearly we need to this carefully, we need to do this safely.”
Tudge also added to pressure on state premiers to ease border restrictions. He cited the case of a Ballina woman pregnant with twins forced to fly to Sydney rather than go to Brisbane for emergency treatment. One of the babies died.
Earlier, at the Daily Telegraph bush summit in Cooma, Scott Morrison called on premiers to set aside their differences and come up with workable solutions to allow movement without compromising health.
Morrison invoked federation, claiming Australia “was not built to have internal borders”.
“That was the point of Australia,” he said. “That was plan A – I’m for plan A.”
He clarified that he wasn’t calling for “no restrictions” but that restrictions shouldn’t impinge on people moving from one Covid-free area of the country to another.
Morrison reiterated plans to develop a national cabinet definition of hotspot, warning the commonwealth is prepared to go it alone if agreement is not reached, which would force premiers to defend their own policies in the face of contrary health advice.
Queensland has declared jurisdictions with no community transmission hotspots, and, in the case of the Australian Capital Territory, no active cases.
Western Australia has maintained its border ban despite the federal court finding the risk from the ACT, Northern Territory and South Australia is “low” and “very low” from Tasmania.
