Queensland Plan_Migrant Stories

Casey Brown is General Manager for Agri Labour Australia, a large rural-sector labour-hire company with a strong track record in supporting new arrivals into rural employment.

In 2009, Agri Labour Australia worked in partnership with Warwick TAFE to set up a skills-training and employment pipeline for recently arrived migrants and refugees to explore employment opportunities in the bush. The program brought together accredited Jackaroo/Jillaroo training with ‘work readiness’ support, then Casey linked program graduates to employment opportunities.

“The resource boom has taken a lot of skills out of these regions, and the rural sector has dwindled away. There are generational farmers…where the younger generation don’t want to farm anymore.”

He believes that new arrivals offer the perfect solution to reinvigorate regional communities while allowing generational farmers to hold onto their businesses. “For newly arrived Australians, getting into work is the best thing. In regional Australia, there are still so many opportunities,” he said.

Casey says the success of programs like the Warwick TAFE partnership offer important insights into ‘what works’. For Casey, success isn’t just putting someone into a job. “The pre-employment training is really important, just helping recent arrivals build a basic understanding of what’s expected and how to act when you’re employed [in Australia].” Casey also says that settlement support is a vital ingredient for sustainable outcomes for new arrivals and host communities alike.

“…the best thing for the communities that refugee workers have brought…is to try and integrate as much as possible, and by integrate I mean getting their children to go to the local schools, playing the local sports, attending local churches. Millmerran is a prime example where they have done that. In the afternoon, you’ll see all the young Karen children in their school uniforms walking alongside local Millmerran kids…and it’s great sight, it’s a great thing to see,” he said.

Migrants and refugees the perfect solution to rural Queensland’s labour challenges

Multicultural Development Association

Saw Patrick Maw (Patrick), an ethic Karen from Burma, was an active leader in a Sydney-based partnership that brought together Centrelink, a Job Services Australia (JSA) provider, the TAFE sector, farms and fruit and vegetable wholesalers to create an accredited training and employment pathway program for former refugees from Sydney’s Karen community.

Farmer involvement came in the form of land lease agreements, allowing the Karen community to sublet small portions of land to newly trained farmers. Farmers could then sell their produce directly to fruit and vegetable shops for fair market prices.

Patrick says that programs like this come as a huge benefit to the community, especially older people who struggle to acquire English and have few employment alternatives, contributing to negative mental health and welfare dependency. “It is very hard for them with the English and the age. If projects like this happen to go ahead in Queensland, many of the older people would love to get into it,” said Patrick. “Not only this would benefit the people, it would benefit the government.” Now based in Brisbane, Patrick and the Queensland Karen community are already exploring ways to launch a similar program here, and believe Queensland provides the perfect environment in terms of climate and available employment opportunities.

“(We’ve) had discussions in Brisbane. They’re interested in having a whole farm that just grows chilli. Chilli is quite expensive. It’s productive and profitable. It’s a good place for it here, humid and warm like Thailand and Burma. If you farm them the right way, they really grow,” he said.

Innovative Partnerships with Refugee Communities for Profitable Farm Production


Bill Dargell is the owner and manager of Fitzroy Nursery, a Rockhampton-based business that cultivates and sells plants for domestic and commercial uses. The business has been in the Dargell family for more than fifty years.

“My father started this in the fifties. We’ve been around a long time and we’re second generation managers, me and my two brothers,” said Mr Dargell. With the natural resource industry having gained a stronghold throughout the neighbouring Bowen Basin and in nearby processing and port facilities at Gladstone, Bill has noticed a shift in the motivations and attitudes of local residents in terms of how they engage with the employment market.

“It certainly can be difficult hiring people from the local community,” said Bill. “Our local people are used to hearing about people going out to the mines, and getting key places in the building game and that sort of thing. Now they’re all expecting way more money.”

Bill turned his attention to the possibility of engaging migrants and refugees as employees after noticing increasing numbers of new arrivals living in the community. He contacted the Multicultural Development Association in Rockhampton and has been working with MDA since to fill his labour shortage.

“We came to MDA and had a quick chat, they found us what we wanted, and we had three or four guys lined up who we employed,” Bill said.

Bill has been impressed by the attitude and eagerness of his new migrant and refugee employees.

“They’re very good, very keen, obviously the language can be an issue, but once we get our message across, [it’s] no problem,” he said.

New arrivals fill regional job gaps as long-term locals turn to the resource industry


Eddy Iles is an employment case worker with the Multicultural Development Association’s Toowoomba office. A long-term Toowoomba local, Eddy has also amassed a lot of experience over the years assisting different groups of disadvantaged job seekers into employment in Toowoomba and surrounding areas.

As Toowoomba continues to grow in its cultural diversity, Eddy sees a formidable set of skills which he believes will gain increasing traction with local employers. “There’s a really broad range of skills (amongst the refugee clients I support)…there’s primary school teachers, secondary school teachers, we have business people, we’ve had general labourers, we’ve had people from civil engineering backgrounds, so there’s a whole range of different skill sets,” Eddy said.

“Very often what we also find is that people are multi-skilled, because they’ve had to maintain 4 or 5 different jobs to maintain an income to survive in other countries. So they’re not just an agricultural labourer, they’re also a construction worker or retail operator,” he said.

But Eddy believes that there is another set of ‘soft skills’ which adds further value to migrants and refugees as job candidates.

“I think when employers experience the enthusiasm and motivational side of things, that’s going to make or break refugee and asylum seekers getting into the labour market. Their preparedness to just get down, do the work they need to do, get paid, go home and that’s it…is going to appeal to a lot of employers.”

Eddy also believes that refugees and migrants are a perfect labour pool to address labour shortages in the rural sector if they are supported to access these opportunities. But to make rural work placements sustainable, there needs to be strategic engagement with rural communities so they are prepared to host refugee and migrant workers, and to welcome them into the community.

“The community has to be ready to accept them,” Eddy said. “It’s about saying to the community, ‘If these fifteen people say they want to relocate to your community, what sort of resources will they be able to access? What sort of reception are they likely to come across? How can we make that process of transition the best for [the local community] and for the group? What do both sides need to make this work?’” he said.

New arrivals bring diverse skills and strong work ethic


“You get the best people, you get the best business.”

This is the business philosophy of Paul Kahlert, General Manager of Queensland logistics company All Purpose Transport.

Paul recognised the potential benefits of employing refugees and migrants after attending a youth employment forum hosted by Multicultural Development Association (MDA) in 2012.

“The thing that struck me is that I’ve never seen the enthusiasm or the willingness to work that I saw among the young people I met at the forum,” he said.

“Once I saw that, I knew where I was going to get my productivity from, and that’s going to ensure the survival of the business.”

He has since hired two former refugees from Afghanistan and is delighted by their talent and commitment to their work.

Paul also sees young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds as one potential solution to labour shortages resulting from Australia’s ageing population.

“We need to have a new workforce coming through. The Australian population is ageing so quickly, if we don’t get ourselves prepared for this, we won’t have anyone to drive our trucks or to move stuff in our warehouses,” he said. “I’m doing this [recruiting workers from migrant and refugee backgrounds] because we want a good solid workforce and at the moment there’s very much a shrinkage going on.”

Moving forward, Paul hopes to build on his relationship with MDA to source talented job candidates. “I’d like to think that MDA can serve as a pipeline for talent to come into the business.”

Refugees – an untapped labour force


Vivienne McDonald is General Manager of Diversicare, an aged care service currently providing culturally competent, in-home aged care across forty-nine different cultural and linguistic groups between the Gold and Sunshine Coasts.

Wherever possible, Diversicare strives to directly match its services with clients’ language and cultural needs through its pool of around 300 bicultural workers. Culturally-competent care is important and helps identify needs and issues such as sourcing culturally-appropriate food and ways for elderly people to connect with their cultural communities.

“A lot of people can get up and about and do things, and want to get out in ways that allow them to connect to their communities. They want to dance or go to festivals, so there’s a gap there,” Vivienne says. “There’s [also] a gap for people sourcing certain types of cultural foods…They don’t want ‘Meals on Wheels - meat and three veg’-type meals. They’re simple gaps, but that’s the feedback we’re getting.”

Vivienne sees a correlation between the emergence of new cultural groups and the difficulties in sourcing appropriate carers. This difficulty is exacerbated by financial barriers as many new arrivals are under financial strain, and course fees are deterring some people from aged care as a vocational pathway.

Vivienne’s organisation has responded by supporting new carers to gain their Certificate 3 in aged care while they work.

Vivienne says, “We have home care workers (from culturally diverse backgrounds) who have been working with us for 25 years... The retention is good because people work with their communities and live in their communities. But they get paid by us. That’s a good thing.”

But Vivienne also believes that funded accredited training options for vulnerable new job seekers is on the decline, and that this should be reconsidered given the rapidly expanding depth and breadth of needs for older people.

Bringing affordable and quality care to Queensland’s ageing population


“In our culture, you don’t put elderly people into aged care. It’s a cultural thing where your parents look after you and then later on, vice versa.”

This is the context for aged care, Liberian style, according to former Liberian refugee and MDA Community Development worker, Joyce Taylor.

In Liberian culture, “…once you’re above the age of 30, everyone calls you ‘auntie’ or ‘uncle’. We all share care,” Joyce said.

With Queensland’s ageing population emerging as an issue that poses a challenge for our whole community, Joyce says that caring for African Queenslanders in their old age adds a new dimension due to the cultural obligation of the younger generation to continue to look after their elders as they age.

Joyce says many younger African people are already exercising their care responsibilities informally, which makes it difficult for the younger generation to further their education or to earn a full-time living outside the home.

But Joyce says many of these same informal carers are already experienced carers in their native countries.

“A way to look at it is that we’re aged care workers anyway, in our own ways. A lot of people do that in their homes. They don’t put their parents into aged care. So in thirty years time, we’ll have a lot of Liberian and [other] African elderly people living in the community. Since they won’t be in aged care, it means the next generation will be doing aged care and continuing to struggle to pay the bills. So why don’t we give them those skills. You know, so they can earn an income from fulfilling this important duty,” Joyce said.

Joyce not only believes the solution rests in improving the accessibility of accredited aged-care training pathways for younger African people, but says that multicultural perspectives are needed to develop new models of care, with a particular focus on in-home care arrangements.

“If someone from my own cultural background opens an aged care home or can visit my family, I’d rather put my own Mum in there with the understanding she’ll be well looked after according to her cultural values,” Joyce said.

Aged care dreaming with an African twist


Leaving the safety and familiarity of high school to find a place in world is a time of trepidation for many students, but even more so for students who have migrated to Australia from overseas.

Jessica Walker, Head of ESL at Yeronga State High School, knows the challenges migrant and refugee young people face in education and thinks educators can play an important role by supporting them to prepare for and transition into the Australian workforce.

“Students who are born in Australia have this huge network of people who have lots of different jobs, so they can go and draw on some of those connections to get work experience or even just to know what sort of work is out there, whereas our students don’t have that,” Jessica says.

Developing school-based programs to support culturally and linguistically diverse students to build the networks and connections that Australian-born students already have, is crucial to creating an inclusive labour market for Queensland’s next generation of bright minds.

“There was a boy last year who did some work experience with a mechanic and they offered him a full-time apprenticeship. There was another boy who did [an automotive work experience placement], and someone, like a friend who was a plumber, saw him and how hard he was working and offered him a full-time plumbing apprenticeship,” says Jessica.

“It’s always when they have those links with people and people see them in action, that’s what leads to work. It’s about the connections, where people feel they need these people and have a relationship with them. That’s what leads to jobs.”

Jessica also says school-based vocational pathways need to account for other barriers to employment experienced by some CALD students, including work opportunities that do not rely on advanced numeracy and literacy skills.

“We’ve got automotive pathways and construction, but it’s the students who don’t have the skills to do that, they’re the students who may be looking at things like painting, perhaps bricklaying, labouring, warehouse work, where they’re not required to have the same numeracy and literacy skills that you need to have for things like construction and automotive. …there are some students who just don’t have the level of (numeracy and literacy) skills to be able to do those jobs. So that’s the group we’re most concerned about. Because after high school, what is there for them?”

Bringing education and employment together for a brighter future


Brisbane’s Afghan Community & A Local School Benefit from Hazaragi Language ClassesInter-generational conflict is a common issue in migrant families, because children typically pick up English language and Australian cultural norms faster than their parents, while the development of their mother tongue stalls.

Ali Karimi is a former refugee from Afghanistan, President of the Hazara Association of Australia, a small business owner-operator, as well as Community Development Worker at the Multicultural Development Association. Noticing this issue emerging in his community prompted Mr Karimi and the Brisbane Hazara community to start a Hazara school, to help children to learn Hazaragi language and culture, alongside their Australian schooling.

Mr Karimi explains that misunderstandings based on a language barrier between parent and child are interpreted differently by children, with children feeling their parents don’t care.

“Within 2 or 3 years of our community starting to arrive here, the kids started to experience a lot of problems with their parents. They would ask their mum, ‘Mum, bring me some salt please’. The mum, might be looking for something else and bring a glass of water. The kid says ‘no, no, salt’. This causes problems…”

“This is when we started Sunday schooling. It means that as the younger children grow up, they will have an understanding of their mother language, what is the word for salt, what is the word for water.”

Mr Karimi approached a local State school for support and they provided a space for the Hazara children’s school. “I went to the Education Department and the Department asked me if I could highlight locations that give good access to the community. They then referred me to the school principal at Junction Park, and they kindly offered two or three rooms [for the Hazara school],” says Mr Karimi.

The school has now been running on Sundays for eight years, teaching Hazaragi language levels one, two and three, as well as some cultural and religious values. It continues to thrive due to strong community support. Teachers are volunteers from the community, and parents support by ensuring their children attend and by paying for stationary.

Mr Karimi says it is leading to better relationships between children and their parents, because they can speak Hazaragi at home.

“If the kids can’t communicate with their parents, they lose interest in the household. Without it, there needs to be an interpreter for each family. [But with the school] there is better understanding,” Mr Karimi says.


Seventeen-year-old Frozan Sadat arrived in Australia three years ago as a refugee from Afghanistan.

Frozan, like many other young former refugees, has endured experiences during her childhood and adolescence far beyond those normally encountered by young people. This difficult past has left its scars but it has also equipped Frozan, and other young people like her, with a world view and vision well beyond her years. This makes Frozan a natural leader.

Frozan believes that building a strong and inclusive Queensland community requires building bridges between smaller, disconnected communities so that dialogue and mutual understanding are allowed to grow. “By moving away from thinking always in terms of ‘me’ and ‘you’, we will work it out. It’s not the thought of ‘me’ and ‘you’. It’s the thought of ‘us’, or ‘we’. If we all think only in terms of ‘me’ and ‘you’, Australia’s gone,” Frozan says.

She has the goal of developing school-based programs that encourage stronger connections between young people from different cultural backgrounds in the school-yard context.

“We all have strengths and weaknesses. Maybe the strengths I have are different to those from someone else born and raised here, and the strengths and skills that they have, having been raised in this country, are strengths I don’t have,” Frozan says.

“If I interact with them somehow and get to know them and recognise their problems, and how their problems exist according to their experiences, and if they understand why we are here – which is their main question, ‘why are you here?’ – maybe we can give a hand to each other somehow. Not just this divide where they think, ‘oh, they’re new arrivals’, or we think, ‘oh, they have problems I don’t have’.”

Getting the unity back into community in a multicultural Queensland


Queensland Plan_Migrant Stories

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