AN English policeman and his family
are devastated after being told they cannot move to South Australia
because his stepdaughter, Sarah, is autistic.
London Metropolitan Police sergeant Peter Threlfall is outraged at
the decision, which was made despite his daughter Sarah, 25, having two
jobs and volunteering with the Scout and Guide movement. She had planned
to study hairdressing when they arrived here.
Mr Threlfall was
preparing to move his wife and family to South Australia, but was told
in December they had been denied visas under the Regional Sponsored
Migration services Scheme.
He had been offered a job as a constable at
Ceduna, on the state's West Coast, and was due to start work as soon as
his visa was approved.
Mr Threlfall has spent the past few months trying to reverse the decision but his family is now resigned to staying in the UK.
The refusal to let the Threlfalls into the country was based on the
presumption his step-daughter Sarah's condition would place a burden on
healthcare and community services in Australia.
Mr Threlfall said
Sarah worked part-time as both a cleaner and a store assistant. His
family was not seeking any assistance for Sarah and were shattered that
they could no longer move to Australia.
He said he had spent about
six months and $8000 going through the international recruitment process and had
missed out on career advancement in London because he had been focused
on the move.
"Sarah is not a drain on UK resources and would not have been on Australia," he said.
An
Immigration Department spokesman confirmed Mr Threlfall and his family
had applied for visas. His daughter had not met the legislated health
requirement, which was partly to restrict public expenditure on
healthcare and community services.
There were no legal grounds for
a health waiver and had the family been in Australia they may have had
grounds to appeal, the spokesman said.
It is one of a several decisions disability advocates have branded "discriminatory".
Two
months ago, Filipino doctor Edwin Lapidario avoided deportation only
after directors at his Hackham Medical Centre workplace agreed to pay
$52,000 towards his autistic son's medical costs.
In 2008, a migrant doctor working in Victoria was threatened with deportation because his son had Down syndrome.
It
took an international outcry and the intervention of then Immigration
Minister Chris Evans to overturn the decision to deport German doctor
Bernhard Moeller and his family.
Intellectual Disability
Association of SA chairman David Holst and Dignity for Disability MP
Kelly Vincent have both called for an immediate overhaul of the
"discriminatory" policies.
"A decision made on some sort of
disability shouldn't be grounds for someone being in the country - it is
discrimination," Mr Holst said.
Ms Vincent said making
black-and-white decisions based someone's disability was unacceptable.
"It is very concerning and I think insulting to put all people with
disabilities in the same basket," she said.
"We need to stop pretending that people with disabilities and their families don't pay taxes too."
Autism
SA chief executive Jon Martin said people with Autism Spectrum Disorder
could make "excellent social and economic contributions".
SAPOL
said it did not comment on individual recruitments. It did confirm it
had no immediate plans to recruit more officers from the UK. The latest
round of 93 UK recruitments has just ended.
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