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This report examines how organisations working with diverse communities use digital communication and online platforms to bridge social cohesion and inclusion during crisis events. Amid the COVID-19 lockdown periods in Australia, researchers from the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre interviewed 23 key stakeholders who work directly with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities in Victoria. These included NGOs, educational institutions, community stakeholders and leaders, advocacy groups, multicultural organisations, local government representatives, and peak bodies. The interviews with these stakeholders provided deeper understandings of how programand service delivery modes shifted, how technology was harnessed, the strategies employed to connect with diverse groups, and the opportunities and challenges that emerged when transitioning services into the online sphere.This report presents these results followed by a discussion of immediately relevant and applicable next steps for stakeholders who work with diverse communities.

Encouraging migrants to move to regional Australia is frequently viewed as a ‘win-win’ for receiving communities, local economies, and migrants themselves. New arrivals—including skilled workers, temporary migrants, refugees and other permanent migrants—have the potential to revitalise regional towns and bring new life to local economies. Migration to Australia’s regions also adds cultural richness and diversity while easing pressure on urban infrastructure and services. In turn, settling in regional contexts can speed up the integration process for migrants, providing them with unique settings in which to establish a new life. However, Australia’s regional areas differ greatly in terms of their socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Many of the potential benefits of regional migrant settlement may be offset by the challenges of existing disadvantage, limited employment and career opportunities, and gaps in service provision, housing and affordable transport. Moreover, not all communities in regional towns have experience in supporting new arrivals or a shared commitment to celebrating cultural diversity. Migrants themselves may be wary of the limited opportunities for employment and cultural safety in regional towns and may choose to relocate only temporarily, sometimes to meet visa requirements. These risk factors can combine to compromise the sustainability of regional settlement initiatives before they have even begun. Realising the benefits of regional settlement requires careful planning, knowledge of what works, and close collaboration between key stakeholders. Funded by the Queensland Government through Multicultural Affairs Queensland, Welcoming Cities has partnered with the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre to conduct a review of existing evidence on regional migrant settlement in Australia and propose scenarios for the design of potential migrant resettlement initiatives.

The growth in Australia’s population from increased immigration is changing the ethnic, socio-structural and physical landscapes of urban neighbourhoods and significantly altering relationships within these areas (Australian Government, 2013; Hugo, 2008). These changes can be enormously positive, but can also pose a challenge for the development and maintenance of neighbourhood networks and social inclusion. With a sizeable number of Australians viewing immigration as a strain on economic resources and a threat to Australian identity and values (Dunn, Forrest, Burnley, & McDonald, 2004; Kamp, Alam, Blair, & Dunn, 2017), there is an urgent need to better understand the contextual dynamics that shape interethnic relationships.Despite a long history of largely successful multicultural policies and programs, recent surveys in Australia reveal that approximately 30 per cent of Australians do not believe that immigration from diverse countries makes us stronger and, further, they consider the current intake of immigrants as ‘too high’ (Markus, 2018). Negative attitudes against Muslims are also increasing (Markus, 2018) and native-born Australians are more likely to report high levels of social disorder and withdrawal from some aspects of community life in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods (Wickes, Hipp, Zahnow, & Mazerolle, 2013; Wickes, Zahnow, White, & Mazerolle, 2013). These findings suggest that although immigration brings national economic, social and cultural benefits, there is growing endorsement of exclusivist attitudes towards migrants.Countering exclusivist discourses can only succeed if initiatives address the underlying factors that allow these narratives to resonate with individuals. Evidence from other countries suggests that socially harmful exclusivism concentrates in neighbourhoods, especially segregated neighbourhoods and those with large proportions of non-White/European residents (Ramalingam, Glennie and Feve, 2012). In Australia, and specifically Victoria, we know little about the spatial concentration of socially harmful exclusivism as no large-scale Australian study examines whether these attitudes cluster in particular neighbourhoods. Furthermore, we do not know how and under what conditions these attitudes may lead to potentially harmful actions.This report examines the individual-level drivers of social exclusivism while also considering the role of the neighbourhood context and neighbourhood cohesion. A key goal of this research was to better understand the ways in which the local context encourages or prevents the development of exclusivist sentiments, attitudes and endorsement of actions that seek to exclude migrants, especially in areas experiencing significant changes in the ethnic composition. Linked to this goal was a focus on identifying the specific characteristics of the local context that distinguish areas with higher levels of socially harmful exclusivism from those with lower levels.

The growth in Australia’s population from increased immigration is changing the ethnic, socio-structural and physical landscapes of urban neighbourhoods and significantly altering relationships within these areas (Australian Government, 2013; Hugo, 2008). These changes can be enormously positive, but can also pose a challenge for the development and maintenance of neighbourhood networks and social inclusion. With a sizeable number of Australians viewing immigration as a strain on economic resources and a threat to Australian identity and values (Dunn, Forrest, Burnley, & McDonald, 2004; Kamp, Alam, Blair, & Dunn, 2017), there is an urgent need to better understand the contextual dynamics that shape interethnic relationships.Despite a long history of largely successful multicultural policies and programs, recent surveys in Australia reveal that approximately 30 per cent of Australians do not believe that immigration from diverse countries makes us stronger and, further, they consider the current intake of immigrants as ‘too high’ (Markus, 2018). Negative attitudes against Muslims are also increasing (Markus, 2018) and native-born Australians are more likely to report high levels of social disorder and withdrawal from some aspects of community life in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods (Wickes, Hipp, Zahnow, & Mazerolle, 2013; Wickes, Zahnow, White, & Mazerolle, 2013). These findings suggest that although immigration brings national economic, social and cultural benefits, there is growing endorsement of exclusivist attitudes towards migrants.Countering exclusivist discourses can only succeed if initiatives address the underlying factors that allow these narratives to resonate with individuals. Evidence from other countries suggests that socially harmful exclusivism concentrates in neighbourhoods, especially segregated neighbourhoods and those with large proportions of non-White/European residents (Ramalingam, Glennie and Feve, 2012). In Australia, and specifically Victoria, we know little about the spatial concentration of socially harmful exclusivism as no large-scale Australian study examines whether these attitudes cluster in particular neighbourhoods. Furthermore, we do not know how and under what conditions these attitudes may lead to potentially harmful actions.This report examines the individual-level drivers of social exclusivism while also considering the role of the neighbourhood context and neighbourhood cohesion. A key goal of this research was to better understand the ways in which the local context encourages or prevents the development of exclusivist sentiments, attitudes and endorsement of actions that seek to exclude migrants, especially in areas experiencing significant changes in the ethnic composition. Linked to this goal was a focus on identifying the specific characteristics of the local context that distinguish areas with higher levels of socially harmful exclusivism from those with lower levels.

Australia, and the rest of the world, is experiencing one of the most significant social, economic and health crises in history with the coronavirus. And there are signs that racial and ethnic discrimination is on the rise. Given the current challenges that Australia and other countries will face in the aftermath of COVID-19, creating and sustaining a welcoming culture is ever more pressing.The Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre, in collaboration with the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Australian Catholic University, and Australia Multicultural Foundation, sought to better understand the contextual dynamics that shape inter-ethnic relationships across 140 neighbourhoods in Melbourne. The report Understanding the context of racial and cultural exclusivism: A study of Melbourne neighbourhoods led by Associate Professor Rebecca Wickes, provides a critical look into the processes that include or exclude migrants in Australia’s most multicultural city.On 21 April 2020, the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre hosted a webinar where we discussed the main findings of this report within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our panelists considered the impact of this crisis for inclusion and discussed how we might mitigate the social distance that may occur as a result of the physical distancing underway in our workplaces and communities. Professor Sharon Pickering, Dean of Arts, Monash University hosted this online event. Dean Pickering was joined by our discussant, Professor Alex Piquero, and panelists Associate Professor Rebecca Wickes (Monash University), Professor Karen Farquharson (University of Melbourne) and Aleem Ali (Welcoming Australia). These slides are from the presentation by Associate Professor Rebecca Wickes (Monash University) during the webinar.

These guidelines are designed to help regional and remote communities—in partnership with service providers, development authorities and the three tiers of government—to attract, retain and support migrants so that they may flourish in Australia.1Regional migration can stimulate economic growth and revitalise communities, while offering new migrants opportunities to integrate into Australian society. However, not all regional destinations are the same. Like cities, regional areas have diverse community, social and economic profiles. This is why a place-based, community driven approach to migration and settlement – that considers the unique characteristics of each regional location – is critical. This will give local communities and migrants every chance to enjoy economic development and social cohesion. The Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre (MMIC) and Welcoming Cities have developed this resource to help communities assess the readiness of local stakeholders to welcome new arrivals to the community and to inform the design of regional migrant settlement initiatives. This project has been supported by the Queensland Government through the Department of Local Government, Racing and Multicultural Affairs.1. We broadly adopt the ABS definitions of ‘regional’ and ‘remote’ for this publication, which is based on ‘the calculated road distances to the nearest service centres.’ We acknowledge the importance of allowing communities to self-define their classification as regions.

This brief provides an overview of academic and grey literature on the role of technology to facilitate intercultural engagement. We focus on the practices undertaken by three key sectors – NGOs and local government, education, and community organisations – that seek to strengthen communication among diverse groups. Much of this research has highlighted that intercultural digital engagement remains more informative than interactive. There is also a need to integrate such engagement collaboratively with diverse groups to ensure there is a transfer of technological knowledge and skills.

Understanding community perceptions of crime and safety is important to policy makers, legislators, and subsequently communities themselves. However, such community perceptions are complex and have generally been poorly researched and assessed in the Australian context. This project sought to develop better tools to research perceptions of crime and deploy these in a large-scale study of Victorian communities. The project was undertaken throughout 2019. It deployed a stratified and randomised sample survey of n=2,862 respondents across 70 communities in Victoria. It also comprised qualitative focus group interviews with a total samp le group of n=69 respondents across 15 focus groups. These focus groups targeted harder to reach groups less likely to be represented in the survey, but more likely to express concerns about crime. While the project was interested in levels, frequency and intensity of people’s worry about crime, we also sought to highlight how people respond to their fears, and what impact these responses had on their lives. We also mapped out a range of risk and protective factors likely to impact negatively and positively on people’s worries. This mixed methods approach gives us unique insights into both the concerns people have about crime, the actions they take based on these concerns, and the way in which they discuss and describe their worries.

Understanding community perceptions of crime and safety is important to policy makers, legislators, and subsequently communities themselves. However, such community perceptions are complex and have generally been poorly researched and assessed in the Australian context. This project had two samples. A statewide sample of communities in Victoria, and a smaller scale sample of the project in Liverpool City, NSW. This report focuses on the Liverpool NSW component of the project. The Liverpool (NSW) component of the project was undertaken with a randomised and stratified survey sample of n=320 and 5 focus groups of n=24. These focus groups were selected largely from harder to reach groups less likely to be well represented in the survey, but more likely to express concerns about crime. While the project was interested in overall levels, frequency and intensity of people’s worry about crime, we also sought to understand how people respond to their fears, and what impact these responses had on their lives. We also mapped out a range of risk and protective factors likely to impact negatively and positively on people’s worries. This mixed methods approach gives us unique insights into the concerns people have about crime, the actions they take based on these concerns, and the way in which they discuss and describe their worries.

Family reunion is an important component of successful migrant settlement. Yet in Australia, some humanitarian migrants are at a disadvantage when applying for family reunification visas. Emerging evidence reveals that family separation can have negative effects on an individual’s well-being and compromise the settlement process for new migrants.The aim of this report is to examine the relationship between family reunion and successful settlement for refugees. Conducted by the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre and supported by the Oxfam-Monash Partnership, this report provides foundational evidence to inform policy on family reunion in Australia, with a specific focus on the impact of family separation and resettlement on social inclusion outcomes for refugees.This report comprises three data analysis methods: a systematic review of available scholarly and grey literature; an analysis of the ‘Building a New Life in Australia’ (BNLA) survey of humanitarian migrants; and two in-depth, case studies with refugees in Australia.A number of barriers to refugee migrant settlement and the impacts of family separation on individuals and families were identified in this report. Costs and lengthy processing timeframes associated with family reunification visas hindered refugee settlement opportunities and potential. Prolonged family separation was associated with longer term difficulties achieving settlement milestones. Mental health concerns were related to family separation and employment and educational variables.

This submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Migration inquiry into migration in regional Australia brings together the perspectives of a partnership between academics, researchers and policy stakeholders from the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre (MMIC), The Scanlon Foundation, and Welcoming Cities.The submission contains an overview of our shared perspectives on the opportunities and risks associated with regional migration, including a definition of ‘successful settlement’ which underpins our submission.It then summarises the key success factors of regional settlement based on the findings of our on-going research. This section responds to the Committee’s Terms of Reference concerning national and international best practice strategies to encourage people to settle and stay in regional areas.Lastly, the submission outlines our policy recommendations, which emphasise strategic investment and institutional mechanisms to support settlement programs. This section addresses the Committee’s Terms of Reference concerning strategies to develop regional skilled/humanitarian migration, and relevant migration policy, including administration and state specific migration mechanisms.Five policy recommendations are then offered.

Family reunion is an important component of successful migrant settlement. Yet in Australia, some humanitarian migrants are at a disadvantage when applying for family reunification visas. Emerging evidence reveals that family separation can have negative effects on an individual’s well-being and compromise the settlement process for new migrants.The aim of this report is to examine the relationship between family reunion and successful settlement for refugees. Conducted by the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre and supported by the Oxfam-Monash Partnership, this report provides foundational evidence to inform policy on family reunion in Australia, with a specific focus on the impact of family separation and resettlement on social inclusion outcomes for refugees.This report comprises three data analysis methods: a systematic review of available scholarly and grey literature; an analysis of the ‘Building a New Life in Australia’ (BNLA) survey of humanitarian migrants; and two in-depth, case studies with refugees in Australia.A number of barriers to refugee migrant settlement and the impacts of family separation on individuals and families were identified in this report. Costs and lengthy processing timeframes associated with family reunification visas hindered refugee settlement opportunities and potential. Prolonged family separation was associated with longer term difficulties achieving settlement milestones. Mental health concerns were related to family separation and employment and educational variables.

This submission brings together the views of scholars from across the School of Social Sciences at Monash University, specifically the Monash Population, Migration, Social Inclusion Focus Program, the Border Crossing Observatory and the Monash Gender and Family Violence Focus Program whose past and current research informs some of the concerns and issues raised in this submission.We wish to address, with reference to the outline of amendments to the Australian Citizenship Act and the Migration Act 1958 to strengthen the requirements to become an Australian citizen and other key provisions provided by the Explanatory Statement, this particular point: To strengthen the requirements to become an Australian citizen, the Bill amends the Act to:• require most applicants to provide evidence of competent English language proficiency before they can make a valid application for citizenship;This submission has a particular focus on the gendered impacts of strengthening the English language proficiency test.

This submission has been prepared by members of the Monash Family Violence Prevention Centre (MFVPC), the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre (MMIC) and Monash Gender, Peace and Security (GPS). More details about these three research programs and our current related research are provided in the introduction and as an appendix to this submission. Please find our submission attached to this letter. In our submission, we have drawn on our extensive research findings across multiple projects to focus specifically on the intersections of family violence, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, migration and criminal law.

We respond to the Terms of Reference in turn. We are mindful that the Committee is giving “particular consideration to social engagement of youth migrants, including involvement of youth migrants in anti-social behaviour such as gang activity, and the adequacy of the Migration Act 1958 character test provisions as a means to address issues arising from this behaviour”. Our submission reflects this focus, but also points to broader areas of concern which we believe are pressing. .

The form and function of social relationships have a long history in both criminology and sociology. Classical and contemporary scholars from both disciplines view social bonds as the foundation of social organization and necessary in developing and maintaining a collective conscious, preventing crime and delinquency and generating positive outcomes for group members. More recently, however, present day Chicago School scholars suggest that neighborhoods can prevent deleterious outcomes without the existence of strong social bonds and call for a shift in emphasis to the shared norms for action. Robert Sampson and his colleagues suggest a community’s collective efficacy not only mediates the relationship between structural disadvantage and crime, but better explains the variation of violence across urban communities. This new wave of social theory questions the importance of systemic approaches, and, more specifically, of social relationships, in attempting to understand a community’s ability to prescind serious crime. In theory, collective efficacy places a greater emphasis on agency and active engagement and resonates with the changing role of communities in contemporary society. Yet, in practice it may not provide a substantively different picture of the social processes that lead to crime reduction or other important collective outcomes. Despite the recent uptake of collective efficacy in criminology, a systematic examination of its fundamental theoretical tenets and its empirical conceptualization is notably absent. Drawing on social disorganization and social capital theory, this dissertation examines the unique theoretical and empirical contribution of collective efficacy theory in explaining crime and disorder across urban communities. This thesis comprises two studies and combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques. Study 1 draws on the results of a large-scale survey of 2,859 residents located in S.E. Queensland. Using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and multi-level modelling it explores the empirical relationship between multidimensional indicators of systemic and social capital theories and collective efficacy and assesses the relative importance of collective efficacy using a more refined operationalization of this construct. The results from the CFA suggest that the present conceptualization of collective efficacy does not significantly advance our understanding of social processes as the overlap among various indicators of community organization is substantial. Using a reconceptualized measure of collective efficacy, the multi-level models reveal that a belief in the collective's ability to deal with particular issues is associated with lower perceptions of violence and disorder. However, contrary to the results from the Project of Human Development in Chicago Neighbourhoods, levels of collective efficacy are inextricably linked with social relationships networks across 82 statistical local areas in Brisbane. Through in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and local residents in two communities, Study 2 examines particular collective processes or norms that promote or constrain responses to various challenges or threats. In support of collective efficacy theory, the results from the interviews suggest that strong social bonds are not necessarily associated with a belief in the collective. Yet, in line with social capital theory and systemic models of community organization, the interviews reveal a strong reliance on key institutions and organizations to manage and respond to problems of a civic and criminal nature. Although both communities reported high levels of collective efficacy, the task specific processes were primarily generated by structures not residents. Moreover, the interviews point to an important component of community organization, specifically, the ‘imagined community’, which is not readily captured by collective efficacy theory, social capital or systemic approaches. In the absence of repeated interactions and strong social bonds, collective representations or symbols of community life provided important cues to residents and were central in providing a sense of cohesion, a working trust among neighbors and a perceived willingness to intervene in pro-social ways. My research suggests that the unique theoretical, conceptual and empirical contribution of collective efficacy theory to criminology is limited. In an Australian context, collective efficacy does not represent a task specific process nor does not elucidate the activation of ties from the ties themselves. The findings from my two studies lead me to conclude that collective efficacy, as it stands, can only be understood as a nominal concept not a casual process as it is heralded in the literature.