A MOVE by the Federal Government to settle migrants in regional areas for up to five years after their arrival is hoping to combat congestion in major cities, and is a current hot topic that is attracting both positive and negative discussion.
The Adviser sat down with Ethnic Council of Shepparton manager, Chris Hazelman on the matter, who said that there could be some great benefits for the Greater Shepparton region among others.
Chris said, “Shepparton’s history has never seen any issues with attracting migrants as we have always had opportunities here.
“We’ve only had two relatively minor government programs sending people to Shepparton. There has been a Congolese pilot project run by the Federal Government, which was an initiative that saw 13 families settled over an 18 month period in Shepparton and in 2018-2019 the Federal Government is looking at settling 200 Syrians in Shepparton.
“The only other scheme is the south pacific short term visa scheme where people are contracted to come in from south pacific islands on a short term visa specifically to pick fruit and some have come to the Goulburn Valley for that.
“This regional migrant push may look positive on the one hand and in broad terms it will be, particularly for a place like Shepparton where there is capacity and employment opportunities, but that might not be a case for all regional areas. There needs to be a skill shortage where the migrant’s skills can be matched to those areas for this to work.
“The seasonal employment opportunities in Shepparton have been the attraction to the area for migrants for many years.
“95 percent of people who have come to Shepparton have come through secondary migration. They’ve lived elsewhere and have heard about Shepparton and the opportunities and so they move here.
“Places like Shepparton, Mildura, Griffith or anywhere with intensive agriculture are always going to be the target location for something like this. I am already hearing government mentioning Shepparton because of a labour shortage issue around harvest time.
“Employment is a massive part of successful settlement and makes a huge amount of difference so this is a positive step.”
