Kayleighs thoughts on Immigration

Kayleigh's Thoughts: Immigration

Somedays when you talk to you kids, you realise that they have thoughts and understanding about all sorts of issues that you probably think that they don't. A week before Kayleigh passed away, I was driving down to the shops with just Kayleigh when she told me she had been thinking about the 'boat people' and immigration of people to Australia. I don't know if they had been doing work on this at school, but it was a big topic on the news at the time. It was one of those moments where I thought to myself that Kayleigh really was growing up and that she was socially aware of the 'big issue' topics and not just concerned about her own issues.

Kayleigh told me that she knew why people wanted to leave their own countries and move to Australia due to wars and persecution, and she  could understand the risks involved in getting on a boat and trying to get here. The thing that Kayleigh said she had trouble with was what they did when they got here. Kayleigh stated that immigrants should probably be segregated from Australia society until we knew who they were (just in case they were terrorists) but not just the boat people but all people that claimed refuggee status when here (the people that arrive on plane) but while in detention they should be doing mandatory English lessons and the dentention should be set up in a way to mirror australian life, with schools and shops and workplaces, so that the people could gain an understanding, basic english skills and life skills, familiarity with the currency etc so when they were granted refugee status and were out in society they already had some basic skills to assist them.

Kayleigh also did not like that when immigrants were given Australian residency, then they were allowed to bring their family to Australia. This attitude was due to someone we knew who married a chinese girl, who within 1 year of getting married (and therefore gaining Australian residency) had brought her parents, her brothers and sisters and her Aunt and uncle to Australia through the immigration policy of keeping families together. Kayleigh thought that each person should be considered on their merits of what they could bring to Australia, not just because they were related to someone who lived here.

It really was a eye-opening conversation to have with Kayleigh and we had a great discussion on the pros and cons of mandatory detention and why the immigration policies are the way they are.