For asylum seekers the situation before the Covid19 pandemic was bleak. Now it’s disastrous.
Before Covid19, many had work rights and of those, a proportion had been lucky enough to find jobs. They could put a roof over their heads and food on the table. And they paid taxes. But once the pandemic struck, those jobs disappeared in the main, and these people have been totally excluded from access to the Government’s financial safety net. They are not eligible for JobSeeker or JobKeeper, and many do not even have access to Medicare.
Throughout Australia about 90,000 people are facing destitution, and about 30,000 of those live here in Victoria.