Speaker 1: It's Sydney Airport on a Muggie November night. The arrivals
Speaker 1: hall is packed.
Speaker 2: Could I ask you, actually, what do you know about
Speaker 2: this family that are arriving?
Speaker 3: Not too much, not too much, so I think they
Speaker 3: keep so many things confidential that this family comes.
Speaker 1: Producer Shane Anderson is with a group who have traveled
Speaker 1: in from Sydney's Northern Beaches. The family they're waiting for
Speaker 1: has traveled much further.
Speaker 3: There are city and family. They were living in an
Speaker 3: account for ten years and we did foundraising for them
Speaker 3: before they came here, and we are coming.
Speaker 4: Here to I con them.
Speaker 1: A little girl holds up a post as she made.
Speaker 5: So that's the lot more open to Australia. And that's
Speaker 5: in their language and those there's some Australian animals. That's
Speaker 5: in flat and that's the world that that's aheadshot.
Speaker 1: As visitors streamed through the gates, they spot a family
Speaker 1: looking a little lost. Turns out to be a false alarm.
Speaker 1: When they finally arrive, it's close to midnight. They've been
Speaker 1: waiting for over three hours. The names are Alan Zabier,
Speaker 1: Al Muhammad and Narriman Sulfate and Al Yusuf along with
Speaker 1: their two boys, Muhammed and Mammo, and their daughter Heavy.
Speaker 1: They are from this moment on permanent residents of Australia
Speaker 1: and the welcome party have a job to do. Over
Speaker 1: the next twelve months. These volunteers are tasked with helping
Speaker 1: the family find their feet as they settle into their
Speaker 1: new world. That was nearly two years ago. From Schwartz Media,
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM. For decades now,
Speaker 1: Australia policies towards refugees has been marked by cruelty, detention
Speaker 1: and punishment. So when CRISP, the Community Refugee Integration and
Speaker 1: Settlement Pilot, started in twenty twenty two, it was seen
Speaker 1: as a turning point. Based on a model used in Canada.
Speaker 1: Under CRISP beats the community rather than the state, who
Speaker 1: worked as support services for new arrivals assigned to the program.
Speaker 1: In many ways, CRISP is an experiment. The team behind
Speaker 1: the pilot had until twenty twenty six to resettle fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred refugees, and in doing so, they're out to prove
Speaker 1: that Australia wants and can support a more humane approach
Speaker 1: to settlement than our politics suggest Today producer Shane Anderson
Speaker 1: on two years of CRISP and whether the experiment is working.
Speaker 1: It's Friday August two. Shan, you first met the al
Speaker 1: Muhammed family two years ago when they arrived in Australia
Speaker 1: for the first time. Tell me about their journey through CRISP.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the al Muhammed family were the third batch
Speaker 2: of arrivals under CRISP. And basically to get into the program,
Speaker 2: you get recommended by the UNHCR and then you get
Speaker 2: matched with a sponsoring group, which in this case was
Speaker 2: a sprawling network of volunteers from Sydney's northern beaches. They
Speaker 2: call themselves the Manly G's after Manly, one of the
Speaker 2: beachside suburbs. And so the manly Gs go through training
Speaker 2: and preparation and then they're required to commit to twelve
Speaker 2: months of support. They're responsible for putting the family up
Speaker 2: until they can find a long term place to live,
Speaker 2: helping to buy essentials until they can get income support
Speaker 2: from Centerlink. Kind of like anything and everything a new
Speaker 2: arrival needs to start their new life. So I next
Speaker 2: saw the family a few months later on jan twenty six,
Speaker 2: when I was very graciously invited along to a barbecue
Speaker 2: in Manly, right.
Speaker 6: I've met you before, how are you.
Speaker 2: I was really curious to see how the family was
Speaker 2: settling in. But at the same time, crisp is about
Speaker 2: more than settling. It's also about integration. So I was
Speaker 2: keen to see for myself what that actually means and
Speaker 2: what it looks like. So I went along to the barbecue.
Speaker 2: It was in a house owned by a young family.
Speaker 2: It had a big backyard, a pool, and it had
Speaker 2: a granny flat which was where Narraman, Allen and the
Speaker 2: kids had been staying.
Speaker 7: Okay, so this is barbecue Syrian style, so the Gafts
Speaker 7: barbecue has been found warm.
Speaker 2: A good chunk of the many geese were at this barbecue.
Speaker 2: But I also noticed that outside of the family, there
Speaker 2: weren't any Arabic or Kurdish speakers there. They were talking
Speaker 2: to each other through this app where you speak in
Speaker 2: English and it's bits out Arabic and vice versa. It
Speaker 2: had varying degrees of accuracy, which I learned when Narraman
Speaker 2: and I sat down and tried it out.
Speaker 3: This well, that one's Batic.
Speaker 4: It's very nice to meet, Thank you us me nasty
Speaker 4: Vikim excellent okay, So.
Speaker 1: There was an obvious language Sparrey, you were speaking through
Speaker 1: an app the spot that what did you learn about
Speaker 1: the family?
Speaker 2: Yeah, in spite of the language barrier, it was a
Speaker 2: very warm conversation and I asked her, you know, now
Speaker 2: she'd arrived in Australia, what her hopes were for her
Speaker 2: and her kids.
Speaker 4: At the manor anyodrosu Ouladi maderes let you kuntu at.
Speaker 2: She told me that, you know, she just wanted her
Speaker 2: kids to study and do well in school and for
Speaker 2: Alan to find a job. I also learned that Naraman
Speaker 2: herself is a teacher and that one of her big
Speaker 2: goals in Australia was that she really wanted to improve
Speaker 2: her English so that she could get her teaching qualification
Speaker 2: here and become a teacher again. So even though conversation
Speaker 2: was a little bit stilted, there still was a lot
Speaker 2: of communication happening. But it was happening through the food.
Speaker 2: So Narriman and Alan had prepared a banquet of foods
Speaker 2: that was enough to feed the twenty plus people that
Speaker 2: were there, and she went out of her way to
Speaker 2: make sure I took some home with me. Are you
Speaker 2: sure sure some of it for.
Speaker 1: You food the greatest barrier breaker of all. So it
Speaker 1: sounds like things were good from their perspective. What about
Speaker 1: the mainly ges, their sponsors, How are they feeling?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I had a chat to to hear who
Speaker 2: I met at the airport, and she told me about
Speaker 2: some of the kind of fun stuff of the first
Speaker 2: few weeks.
Speaker 6: We took them to Christmas Carols at the beach, which
Speaker 6: was an experience, and they found Santa hilarious.
Speaker 2: She told me what it was like for her to
Speaker 2: watch the kids witness Santa Claus for the first time,
Speaker 2: which I imagine would be quite a trip.
Speaker 6: He's like this big guy in a suit with a
Speaker 6: white beard, like on stage, yelling at kids like whoa,
Speaker 6: and they were like, what is going on?
Speaker 2: But the other side of crisp is that it's also
Speaker 2: the sponsor group's responsibility to navigate all of the things
Speaker 2: that a case worker would normally navigate to help a
Speaker 2: family settle in. And one of the manly g sponsors,
Speaker 2: his name's Paul Hobkirk. He explained to me that there
Speaker 2: were some things that they really struggled with.
Speaker 7: Sometimes the bureaucracy just seems just so needlessly complicated you
Speaker 7: hit these computer says no moments and you just have
Speaker 7: to work around and figure it out.
Speaker 2: And the big challenge for him was simply dealing with Centerlink.
Speaker 7: I think none of us had had terribly much interaction
Speaker 7: with the support services, so that was a journey for
Speaker 7: us as well.
Speaker 2: All of that took a lot of time as well.
Speaker 2: So Paul estimates that it was about ten to fifteen
Speaker 2: hours a week that the group was spending helping Narraman
Speaker 2: and Allen. And of course, especially in an area like Manly,
Speaker 2: another advantage of that is you get access to a
Speaker 2: wide network in one of the more affluent areas of Sydney.
Speaker 2: So they were able to get a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: donated for free. The granny flat, all the furniture in it,
Speaker 2: they had pro bono dental. They even had a car
Speaker 2: gifted by an extended supporter.
Speaker 1: So they're getting a tremendous amount of support. They tapped
Speaker 1: into some really well connected networks. They're living in a
Speaker 1: wealthy community, but on the other hand, that's an expensive
Speaker 1: community as well.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, and that is the reality of living in
Speaker 2: those parts of Sydney. And I didn't actually know this
Speaker 2: before the barbecue, but Narraman and Allen had already made
Speaker 2: plans to leave Manly.
Speaker 1: Why is that? Was it cost of living pressures, feeling
Speaker 1: more connected to a community elsewhere? Why did they decide
Speaker 1: to leave Manly?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was partly the cost of living pressures.
Speaker 2: But they found a place to live in a suburb
Speaker 2: in Western Sydney, about an hour's drive away from Manly,
Speaker 2: and you know, on a surface level, it offered a
Speaker 2: lot of things to them that Manly didn't, primarily an
Speaker 2: Arabic and Kurdish speaking community. You know, the kids were
Speaker 2: in school in the Northern Beaches where they were the
Speaker 2: only kids in their class who spoke the same first
Speaker 2: languages as them, And the manly Ges told me that
Speaker 2: they'd had trouble finding Hellual meat, for example. So Western
Speaker 2: Sydney offered those things.
Speaker 6: The house that are getting it's so good for the
Speaker 6: same price as what you probably get like a two
Speaker 6: bedroom apartment here, So yeah, it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2: The manly Ges were really supportive of the move, and
Speaker 2: they were really excited. They were really stoked to see
Speaker 2: how independent and empowered the family felt to make these
Speaker 2: decisions for themselves so early. But there was a little
Speaker 2: undercurrent of other emotions.
Speaker 6: As well, be like and I think it's going to
Speaker 6: completely change the dynamic because we won't be able to
Speaker 6: see them as much and help them as much. But
Speaker 6: they're going to have a much stronger like Arabic community
Speaker 6: around them who will probably take over those roles anyway.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So after.
Speaker 2: Everyone had eaten, they all gathered around to take a
Speaker 2: group photo.
Speaker 3: I need you're in a bit closer.
Speaker 2: And while all of that was happening at the individual
Speaker 2: level with the ol Muhammad family and the Manly Gees,
Speaker 2: as the CRISP trial progressed, there were obstacles starting to
Speaker 2: emerge at the political level too.
Speaker 1: Just so, what are the obstacles to the CRISP trial success.
Speaker 1: That's after the break, Shane, it'sween twos of CRISP. We're
Speaker 1: about halfway through the pilot. How's it going? Is it
Speaker 1: working well?
Speaker 2: We actually do have a bit of data on how
Speaker 2: CRISP was doing. The University of Queensland were funded to
Speaker 2: study the outcomes for people in CRISP. So while CHRISP
Speaker 2: participants hit all the same milestones as people settled by
Speaker 2: the state, there's a little bit of data emerging to
Speaker 2: show that, you know, they find work a little bit faster,
Speaker 2: and they generally have a stronger sense of belonging and
Speaker 2: community participation. But I do think there are some interesting
Speaker 2: questions around the way CRISP was designed. I spoke to
Speaker 2: refugee policy experts and advocates, and I found that while
Speaker 2: everyone was really supportive of CRISP and the ideas driving it,
Speaker 2: and really kind of any refugee policy that treats people
Speaker 2: as humans, some advocates also felt a bit ambivalent. And
Speaker 2: the reason for that is something called additionality, which, if
Speaker 2: you look at the model for community sponsorship overseas, every
Speaker 2: person who is settled by the community is an addition
Speaker 2: to the government's own humanitarian quota. However, when the Morrison
Speaker 2: government adopted the program back in twenty twenty one, they
Speaker 2: decided to change this. So basically, for every person the
Speaker 2: community settles, it's one less that the government has to
Speaker 2: and so as a result, experts are cynical, not so
Speaker 2: much about CRISP itself, but the government decision surrounding it,
Speaker 2: and they question whether CRISP is a cost shifting activity.
Speaker 8: Is I I'm Lisa Button, I'm the CEO of Community
Speaker 8: refugee sponsorship Australia. So when I spoke to Lisa Button,
Speaker 8: who runs CRISP, I asked her about this. You know,
Speaker 8: it is very easy to be cynical about things, but
Speaker 8: I would remind people that the Avin Easy government did
Speaker 8: lift the refugee intake from thirteen thousand, seven fifty to
Speaker 8: twenty thousand places last year, so we're not seeing a
Speaker 8: retreat in government commitment to refugees. We've actually seen government
Speaker 8: government's putting more in as well.
Speaker 2: Lisa said that they still aspire for CRISP to be
Speaker 2: additional and this matches Labour's own promises. But if we
Speaker 2: fast forward the clock, it's been two years and this
Speaker 2: still hasn't happened. The next big question is around whether
Speaker 2: CRISP can reach their goals. I mean, currently the pilot
Speaker 2: is funded to mid twenty twenty six and they have
Speaker 2: this goal of resettling fifteen hundred refugees. At the moment,
Speaker 2: we're halfway through the pilot and they say around five
Speaker 2: hundred refugees have been settled. So the reality is that
Speaker 2: they need a lot more sponsor groups to volunteer for
Speaker 2: the program. But then you can see how things like
Speaker 2: cost of living might get in the way of that.
Speaker 2: When you combine these criticisms and you look at the
Speaker 2: photo opposite the then Minister of Immigration attended alongside CRISP refugees,
Speaker 2: and if you zoom out and look at the hardline
Speaker 2: policies like Operation Sovereign Borders and offshot Attention that are
Speaker 2: still being pursued by Labor, I think it's fair to
Speaker 2: question where CRISP sits in that whole landscape. But there
Speaker 2: is a whole other way of looking at CRISP, which
Speaker 2: Lisa Button explained to me.
Speaker 9: I like to think that in the longer term, programs
Speaker 9: like the CRISP will take some of that toxicity out
Speaker 9: of debates around refugee numbers and have refugees seen and
Speaker 9: understood as not a burden but in fact a huge
Speaker 9: asset to Australia.
Speaker 1: So the family is now established in Western Sydney. How
Speaker 1: are they going? Are they still in touch with the
Speaker 1: manly ges?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I visited them a few weeks ago in July,
Speaker 2: and they've been living in Western Sydney for nearly a
Speaker 2: year and a half at that point. When I visited,
Speaker 2: Norman pulled out this huge laptop bag that was filled
Speaker 2: with folders and forms.
Speaker 8: Can you tell me what's in here?
Speaker 5: This bag all that for Australia?
Speaker 7: Good much.
Speaker 6: Much email? Too much message.
Speaker 2: Basically, this bag comprised of their administrative life in Australia
Speaker 2: to that point, and it was a heavy bag.
Speaker 5: Sorry, it's okay.
Speaker 4: You can go to the GP and get them to
Speaker 4: fill okay, and then if you email that to me.
Speaker 2: I visited that day along with one of the mainly g's.
Speaker 2: Her name is Beck and she still dropped by regularly,
Speaker 2: and this time she'd come over to help with some
Speaker 2: medical paperwork.
Speaker 9: Yes, so if you not that one for me.
Speaker 2: But not all the mainly g's were able to make
Speaker 2: the journey out. The requirements of crisps say that the
Speaker 2: sponsor group has to help for twelve months. At this point,
Speaker 2: we were out twenty months since their arrival, so it's
Speaker 2: pretty incredible to see that they were still in contact
Speaker 2: and still helping. Norman's English had improved a lot, although
Speaker 2: she wasn't quite ready to do her qualifications yet, but
Speaker 2: you could see that all the kids picked up the
Speaker 2: language really fast. Their eldest son was preparing to do
Speaker 2: his school certificate exams in English and I asked him
Speaker 2: what his favorite subject was, and he said it was English.
Speaker 1: So what did Merriman and Alan have to say about
Speaker 1: their experiences of the Crisp overall.
Speaker 2: Really positive things?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: She said that when you come to a new country,
Speaker 2: it's really hard. She described it as you have eyes,
Speaker 2: but you can't see.
Speaker 4: When you come new country, it's very hard, very bad,
Speaker 4: very sad. No family, no language, not anything. I have eyes,
Speaker 4: but I don't see.
Speaker 2: She really felt that CRISP gave her an immediate sense
Speaker 2: of belonging in friendship that she just wouldn't have had otherwise.
Speaker 2: Narriman told me about when one of them intervened when
Speaker 2: one of their kids was having an issue at school
Speaker 2: and actually called the school and advocated on their behalf. Also,
Speaker 2: when one of them had to go to hospital with
Speaker 2: ear pain, one of the sponsors sat with her in
Speaker 2: the waiting room all day. I mean, those are the
Speaker 2: kinds of things that you don't forget. I point out
Speaker 2: as well that when you're sitting in Norraman's living room
Speaker 2: and you're looking around at the house and the life
Speaker 2: that they've built for each other, I have to admit
Speaker 2: a lot of your cynicism does start to kind of
Speaker 2: melt away when I ask Narraman why she thinks the
Speaker 2: manly ges go out of their way to help her.
Speaker 4: Because good, because the nice people, because the heart very clean.
Speaker 2: She reached across the table and held Beck's hand and
Speaker 2: they both began to tear up. It was a very
Speaker 2: emotional moment.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 2: And Norman told me that, you know, in spite of
Speaker 2: their choices to leave, they they did love Manly.
Speaker 4: I love money, I love I love, I love every day.
Speaker 2: I'm so which She said that whenever she is driving
Speaker 2: around in a car and she catches the scent of
Speaker 2: the ocean air, she thinks about Manly.
Speaker 4: I hope every refugees coming to Australia is monadistic.
Speaker 1: Shane, thanks for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Read more of this report in tomorrow's edition of the
Speaker 1: Saturday Paper. Also in the news today, Foreign Minister Pennywong
Speaker 1: has issued a video message urging Austrains in Lebanon to
Speaker 1: leave immediately following the killing of a top Hesbala commander
Speaker 1: in the country. Fair intentions could escalate between Israel and
Speaker 1: Hesbella and Alexis Wright has won the sixty thousand dollar
Speaker 1: Miles Franklin Award for her novel Praiseworthy. This is the
Speaker 1: second time Wright has won the award after a two
Speaker 1: thousand and six novel. Carpenteria also took out the prize.
Speaker 1: You can hear Alexus right on a special edition I'd
Speaker 1: read this out today. Seven Am is a daily show
Speaker 1: from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper. If you like
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Speaker 1: and me Daniel James. It's produced by Shane Anderson, Sultan Fecho,
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Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James. This is seven Am. See you next week.