Yesterday's Sunday papers reported that a well regarded midwife recruited from the UK is being required to leave Australia because her child with Down syndrome is considered a burden on the taxpayer.
The woman works at Perth's Joondalup Hospital, where staff describe her as 'one of the hospital's best'. Her permanent residency application was rejected six years ago because the Federal Government saw her child as needing health or community services that would constitute a 'significant cost to the Australian community'. After a long succession of appeals, it is understood that the unnamed midwife has only weeks before she must leave Australia.
The reporting of her case follows community outrage recently when German doctor Bernhard Moeller, who works in rural Victoria, was denied permanent residence because his son Lukas has Down syndrome.
Dr Moeller had been hoping to live permanently in Horsham after serving the community for more than two years. However the Department of Immigration notified him recently that it had rejected his application for permanent residency.
A Department official assured The Australian that it is not a case of discrimination, but rather a weighing up of the costs and benefits to the Australian taxpayer.
'This is not discrimination. A disability in itself is not grounds for failing the health requirement — it is a question of the cost implications to the community.'
Other politicians weighed in on the argument, insisting that the service Dr Moeller was providing in Horsham represented value for money in the context of the rural health skills shortage. Premier John Brumby said Moeller was making a valuable contribution to the region. Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said she would be talking to Immigration Minister Chris Evans about the case, as it is difficult to attract quality medical professionals to the bush.
The argument about the costs and benefits of allowing such individuals to remain in Australia appears to be narrowly focused on economics. The Immigration official applies a general principle that the dollar cost of admitting immigrants with Down syndrome makes it unjustified. The counter-arguments of Roxon and Brumby would be based on considerations such as the prohibitive monetary cost of transporting patients needing specialist attention to Melbourne.
Such decisions appear to embody the vices that led to the economic collapse — restricting prosperity to a matter of economic costs and benefits. Maintaining rigid economic criteria for immigration denies officials the power to exercise discretion to judge the contribution individuals are