Significant Cost Threshold - discriminating against Autistic migrants
Significant Cost Threshold -
discriminating against Autistic migrants
By Helen Said
Neurodivergent Labor, an
organisation which I co-founded in 2017, proudly supports the Welcoming Disability
campaign. Welcoming Disability is a joint initiative of Australian Lawyers for
Human Rights and Down Syndrome Australia.
Welcoming Disability campaigns
to reform the Migration Health Requirement and the Significant Cost Threshold, legislation
which discriminates against migrants with disability. If non-permanent
residents give birth, in Australia, to a child with a disability, the whole
family can be deported under this draconian, outdated legislation, even if they
pledge to pay for all of their children’s disability care and have the means to
do so. They can even be refused entry to Australia because of the presumed cost
of the disability to Australian taxpayers, even when they have no entitlements
to use Medicare anyway.
Discriminatory laws under
review
Fortunately, the Department of
Home Affairs, under the current Albanese Labor government, initiated a review
of the Significant Cost Threshold. The call for submissions to the review of the
Significant Cost Threshold was very welcome, particularly since the terms of
reference for this government’s previous reviews, the Migration Review and the
Multicultural Framework Review, disallowed submissions on migration health
tests. According to news reports however, health economists examined the
Significant Cost Threshold for many months before disabled migrants were
invited to share their views. This runs counter to the principle of “nothing
about us without us” and elevates the views of experts above those of migrants
with disability, their care-givers and representative organisations.
According to Welcoming Disability,
“At a recent discussion with the Department, Welcoming Disability was advised
that the Review was complete and, by now will have been handed to the Minister
for approval. The Minister now has three months to make the Review public,
though that does not mean it will be implemented at that point.” So, it is
quite likely that reform of these discriminatory provisions is in the pipeline,
but how far this will go remains to be seen.
Taken from Welcoming Disability’s
submission to the Review:
“Australia’s current legal
framework can exclude otherwise fully eligible visa applicants (and their
family members) based on their disability or health status. This approach
reinforces the stigma and discrimination that people with disabilities and
health conditions already face. It is archaic, degrading and takes no account
of the applicant’s or their family’s ability to contribute socially and
economically to the Australian community.
“Australia claims to be a nation
that is committed to valuing inclusion, diversity and equality. To live up to
this commitment the Australian Government must reform Australia's migration
health laws to remove their discriminatory impact on people with disabilities
and health conditions.
“Australia’s Migration Health
Requirements are inconsistent with both the United Nations Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Australia is a
party to both of these treaties and bound to uphold all of the rights and
obligations contained within them.
“The right to live free from
discrimination on the basis of disability or health status is a fundamental
human right belonging to every person.
The Migration Act 1958 should
not be exempt from the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.”
Are we a burden on
Australia?
In 1962, as an undiagnosed
Autistic and little girl of colour, my family and I sailed into Port Melbourne
and disembarked at Station Pier, under the radar of both the White Australia
Policy and the Migration Health Requirement. My younger daughter and I are now
both diagnosed Autistics. Are we a burden on Australia? Should my parents have
been deported for bringing me as an Autistic to Australia? Obviously, my Autism is hereditary. Did my
family damage Australia by bringing our Autistic genes to its shores?
62 years later, I am now one of
few Autistic migrant self-advocates, contributing my lived experience to
research co-production to better understand Autism service provision to our non-Anglo
Celtic population. I have also initiated Australia’s only Neurodivergent group
which seeks to harness the political mechanisms to advance policy to serve the
Autistic and Autism communities. I am a maths and English tuition centre
teacher and, with my logical and original thinking style and strong
persistence, I have had great success in teaching students of all abilities. As
a migrant, I am grateful for the opportunities that Australia has given me and
my Autistic daughter. I do my best to repay the community every day, and I
believe this is emblematic of what migrant parents of Autistic children have to
offer this country.
In the midst of a skills
shortages, particularly in the medical and STEM fields, Australia regularly
threatens valuable professionals with deportation if their children are
diagnosed with Autism, on the pretext that their children’s care will exceed
the Significant Cost Threshold. This happens even if the child was born in
Australia. We can't afford to lose these skilled migrants and the services they
provide. In fact, it is possible that these skilled migrants themselves are
undiagnosed Autistics, since Autism is hereditary.
Australia almost lost the
wonderful contributions of Bangladeshi-born Monash Academic Dr Biswajit Banik
and his wife, Dr Sarmin Sayeed, when they were threatened with deportation by
Home Affairs in 2016, because their son Arkojeet is Autistic. This was despite
the fact that this professional couple had pledged to cover all the costs of
Arkojeet’s therapies and education. The couple were forced to run an online
petitioning campaign, and collect tens of thousands of signatures, to reverse
the Minister’s decision. This is but one example of where Australia has turned
against valued and respected professionals because they produced an Autistic or
disabled child, threatening them with deportation even if they have the means
to pay for their child’s services and pledge to do so.
7-year-old Australian-born
Autistic Seongjai Lim and his Korean-born family also had to petition and
campaign to be allowed to remain in Australia, before being granted a visa last
year. Isn’t it stressful enough for parents to go through the diagnosis process
and obtain services for disabled children without having to publicly fight
stigmatising assumptions that their child is a burden? Isn’t it enough to have
to deal with the uncertainty of raising a disabled child without the added
insecurity of having to defend your family’s right to remain in its adopted
homeland?
We now have a government which
is, on the one hand, committed to producing a National Autism Strategy yet, on
the other hand, still committed to labelling Autistics as an economic burden on
Australia, people who would be rejected if they are not anchored to this
country by way of citizenship or permanent residence. While members of our
government loudly criticise those who accuse migrant workers of competing for
Australian jobs or housing, they are not above accusing migrants’ disabled
children of competing with Australians for disability services. We need to
value the services which all migrants provide to Australians, including those
migrants who have disabled children. We also need to stop scapegoating disabled
migrants for our own over-stretched services and meaningfully address
Australia’s skilled worker shortfalls.
The Autism-STEM skill link
It has long been noted that there
is a higher incidence of Autism amongst engineers, scientists, mathematicians
and IT experts. Encouraging such expertise to our shores should necessitate the
acceptance of the genes that give many people the edge in such fields; in fact,
world renowned Autism experts believe that Autistic genes have been pivotal to
scientific discovery and innovation.
Autistic Animal Scientist Dr
Temple Grandin and Australian Professor Tony Attwood are adamant that Autistic
individuals helped kick-start the development of religion and science which
underpin all of human advancement. Dr Grandin declares that without Autistic
genes, we would still be socialising around the campfire. Cambridge professor
Simon Baren-Cohen takes this a step further in his latest publication “The
Pattern Seekers”, where he expounds the idea that Autistic genes are linked to
the uniquely human ability to invent, to further refine and build upon these
inventions and to advance as a species.
How can we lure people to our
shores for their Autistic capabilities, yet throw them out when they pass on
their genes to their children? With acceptance and support, it is quite
possible that newly diagnosed Autistic children will make a significant
contribution to Australia's economy and quality of life, not in spite of their
Autism, but because of it. Dr Temple Grandin herself, made famous in the movie
“Thinking in Pictures”, was thought to be a profoundly disabled child, who rose
to become a world-famous expert in both animal science and Autism advocacy when
she was given opportunities to learn. So too was child prodigy Jacob Barnett,
the Autistic boy with an IQ higher than Einstein’s, whose parents were told he
would never learn to tie his shoelaces. Jacob went to university to study
physics, at age 11, with his shoelaces untied.
Let’s not forget that past
Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, is also Autistic. Her Autism enhances her
audacity and brilliance as an advocate-survivor of child abuse and she is an
inspiration to Australian women. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, who
leads a worldwide movement of millions and has propelled climate change into
the centre of public discourse, credits her Autism for her successes. Another past Australian of the Year, retired Paralympic tennis star Dylan
Alcott, is adamant that people with disabilities are invaluable in the
workplace, but his message is only just beginning to cut through.
Sadly, I hear anecdotally, that
Australia's refusal to accept Autistic children born to migrant parents
encourages some parents to delay diagnosis until they gain permanent residency.
Their children thus miss out on early intervention services, which wastes
Autistic children's unique potential to contribute to our society and economy.
The Autistic children of our
much-loved New Zealander neighbours, such as 3-year-old Jariah Tino, born in
Australia, were also deprived of speech and occupational therapy and other NDIS
services, a bureaucratic over-sight which would have consigned Jariah, and
others like him, to a lifetime of completely preventable disadvantage.
Thankfully, the current government saw the light and created easier pathways
for New Zealanders to gain citizenship and access services for their disabled
children.
Let’s extend some of these
benefits to all migrants, by following the lead of Canada, which has a much
higher Significant Cost Threshold for prospective migrants and new Citizens. By
classifying Autism as a burden to Australian society, and Autistics as people
we get rid of when we have a chance to, the Australian immigration system
currently maligns, enrages and alienates its own Autistic population, estimated
to be some half a million strong. The assumption that Autistics are a burden
perpetuates stereotypes which cause our talented, young, highly qualified
Australian Autistic graduates to experience some of the highest levels of
unemployment in this country. We, the Australian population, miss out on
everything young Autistics have to offer us and our economy when Australian
Autistics get stereotyped and rejected. Our immigration system’s depiction of
Autism has a lot to answer for. Let’s take the advice of the Disability Royal
Commission and reform the way we treat disabled immigrants!
Albert Einstein was an
Autistic Immigrant
If Albert Einstein had been born
in Australia to non-permanent resident parents today, he and his family would
have been deported for being a burden on the taxpayer and Australia’s services.
Einstein couldn’t speak until he was 4 and spoke in repetitive phrases until he
was 7, and in today’s society would likely be diagnosed as Autistic and
deported.
Because of Autistic intellectual
potential, Hans Asperger saved most of his “little professors” from being sent
to Nazi “hospitals”. What is it going to take for us to save Australian-born
Autistic children from being deported to countries where they will never
receive education, acceptance, therapies or health services, where they will be
locked in their homes for fear of shaming their families, where their mothers
are rejected by friends and family for producing an Autistic child and remain
locked in the home along with their child and disowned by in-laws? Australia
needs to take responsibility for the fate that they consign migrant women and
their Autistic children to, when they issue these deportation orders. Surely
these are grounds for compassionate permanent residency!
By accepting these families and
their Autistic children, Australia benefits from the skills and capabilities of
the parents, skills often acquired at their home country’s expense,
professional parents who are Australians by choice, not by accident, and who
value the home and opportunities that Australia offers. Australia also benefits
from the uniqueness and capabilities of such families’ misunderstood, but
valuable, Autistic children, whose health and education needs are often covered
by their devoted and highly skilled professional parents.
Where to from here?
Welcoming Disability’s submission
to the Significant Cost Threshold Review received a large number of endorsements
from key civil society allies and stakeholders, including Neurodivergent Labor.
The Department of Home Affairs now recognises Welcoming Disability as a key
spokesperson on this area. Once the Review is public, Welcoming Disability will
organise an online event to provide feedback on changes to the Significant Cost
Threshold and the Migration Health Requirement, and their impact.
While positive changes are expected, some of which will be along the lines
suggested by Welcoming Disability’s Submission, it is unlikely the Review will
implement all of these recommendations. Consequently, the work of the
Welcoming Disability campaign will continue.
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