By CASEY NEILL
ENERGY bills, fines and shonky landlords are bringing many new arrivals to Australia unstuck.
CatholicCare in Dandenong is helping them to find their feet and break down barriers with authorities.
For the third time the organisation is joining with Dandenong Magistrates’ Court to offer a justice education program for newly arrived refugees.
CatholicCare Dandenong Refugee and Settlement Program team leader Tomasa Morales said this year’s seven-week course kicked off on 29 October with an introduction to the Australian law and court system.
Sessions on consumer affairs, police, fines and infringements, parenting and family relationships, and family violence and child protection will follow until the program wraps up on 9 December.
“When people arrive here they make simple mistakes and they don’t realise they could be in big trouble,” she said.
Ms Morales said people trying to flee to Australia focused all their energy and resources on getting here.
“When they arrive here, they face the reality,” she said.
“People are faced with a lot of uncertainty about their new life.
“The reality is sometimes different to what they expected. They bring a lot of expectations.
“People bring to us a number of issues that are common to newly-arrived families, regardless of where they’re coming from.”
Ms Morales said many issues stemmed from a lack of understanding of the legal system.
“Sometimes they get in a lot of trouble for not knowing,” she said.
They don’t use their Myki ticket correctly, don’t understand how to pay road tolls, and have trouble understanding parking signs.
“People get into debt because they don’t understand simple things like putting their bills into direct debit instalments through Centrelink,” Ms Morales said.
“Or, for example, they don’t know that using the electric heater is going to get their electricity bill high during winter.
“We get people coming in and saying ‘I don’t understand, my last bill was $200 and this one is $900’.
“We contact the providers of those services and we realised that those people haven’t claimed concession because they don’t know.”
Ms Morales said other new arrivals received fines for driving as a learner’s permit without a fully-licenced driver beside them.
“Or even putting rubbish outside because they see their neighbour is putting out their hard waste,” she said.
“They don’t know they have to pre-book their hard waste collections.
“When people brought these issues to us we identified that they could be prevented.”
Speakers will include psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg.
“The participants love his presentation about parenting and how you should be disciplining your children within the Australian way of life,” Ms Morales said.
“What is acceptable in your country is not necessarily legal in Australia.
“We’ve got issues around family violence because people keep doing things that they did in their country and they think they are normal.”
Tito Pal from Consumer Affairs will focus on renters’ rights, and Dandenong police representatives will speak about situations where people could encounter officers.
A magistrate will explain that there are times where people have to go to court and situations where they can choose to.
“If they understand that the court system is there to support them – not just to punish them as it was probably in their countries – people will have a better access to the court system,” she said.
Ms Morales said many attendees get so much from the sessions that they brought their partner or friends along, and people often returned to CatholicCare in control of their lives.
“That’s the most rewarding thing – when they tell us they’re contacting Centrelink on their own or dealing with Consumer Affairs,” she said.
“This program is really to link people with mainstream services.”
