Communities like Walla are on the right track to bolster their workforce and populations through migrant resettlement, a report shows.
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The Regional Australia Institute’s latest policy paper aims for an additional 2000 to 3000 migrants to be moving to priority rural areas annually, and for them to be linked to employers through a “match-making” system.
The Missing Workers report includes Greater Hume in one of 113 rural local government areas where the arrival of overseas-born residents helped alleviate the loss of Australian-born residents.
It outlines “only with a locally-led, ground-up approach – that values both migrant and community perspectives – can settlement outside of major cities be truly successful”.
The community-led push within Walla to enable secondary resettlement in the town fits that bill, said Murray Valley Sanctuary Refugee Group president Penny Vine.
“It’s happening around Wagga and Griffith, and Wangaratta are seriously looking into it, because they can see it will work,” she said.
“In Mingoola (one of the towns named in the report), the school was going to close – now it’s open and people are moving to the area.
“The economical return will impress the figures people but it’s the social gains that will be what the community will grow from.
“If a community is doing it because they want to, rather than because they’re being told to, it’s more likely to work well, but work well means they need to be well-supported with funding for support personnel and infrastructure.”
Greater Hume Council, with a number of Walla community members, have developed a terms of reference for a committee to investigate secondary resettlement in Walla.
Local agencies that could support the committee include the Albury-Wodonga Volunteer Resource Bureau, which receives funding to support new residents.
Multicultural settlement officer Frank Johnson said the committee had been in touch and the AWVRB could provide support for a potential program.
“I’ve been working closely with them; our role would be to offer support services once people are on the ground,” he said.
“We look after people in their general settlement journey for the first five years … helping them understand Australia’s systems.
“We also speak to people in the community, and other groups like government departments, about the new residents.”
The Walla Refugee Resettlement Committee, led by community members and business people including Andrew Kotzur, has outlined current employment opportunities in the town.
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