Costs and issues specific to Shepparton

7.3 Costs and issues specific to Shepparton

All groups agreed that the social benefits far outweighed the costs of migration to Shepparton. Nevertheless, the focus groups identified two short-term social costs as having a particular impact on the Shepparton community.

Generally, new arrivals in Shepparton have been ‘extremely lucky’ in terms of the infrastructure support they receive in terms of accommodation, child care, family and resettlement services supplied by the Commonwealth but delivered through the local Migrant Adult Education Centre. This has been a critical factor in assisting families in their transition to an unfamiliar location. More recently, however, there are indications that available resources are not keeping up with demand. The most significant area in this respect is lack of childcare support. Without such support mothers are unable to look for work, to begin with, and to accept it if offered. It was also considered that availability of interpreter services could be greatly improved. Ultimately if this infrastructure is not sufficient to meet local demand its specialist provision imposes a substantial economic cost on the community as a whole. Such costs are immediately evident in the shortage of interpreters where qualified people must frequently be brought from Melbourne (at about $600 per visit) to translate languages such as Swahili.

Understaffing in the Shepparton area, moreover, appears to be taking its toll on multicultural networks. One salaried officer went so far as to state that:

This community is very caring and very kind [but] it is exhausted in many areas. There is compassion fatigue going on here.

Inevitably, individuals have been affected at a personal level:

Attempting to settle new migrants without the back-up of an existing community that can provide essential support in the absence of an established ethnic community can result in substantial additional economic costs. This point was made in contrast to recently arrived skilled workers from Albania who have a strong local Albanian community network in Shepparton.

In bringing out those sort of people, we can accommodate them. There is no costs. We provide the accommodation; we provide the transport; we take care of them. But if you’re going to bring people from everywhere else, you’ve got all the headaches – you’re going to have to find accommodation, find someone to manage them, and someone to take them to and from to the job….you’ve got to look at the actual benefits as to why and how they will fit into a particular industry, which is very, very, important.