“I think before coming to Australia I never fit in any bucket. I could never find any pathway, process, policy, law, that includes me or talks about people in my situation. And all of that changed the minute I landed in Australia, so it was a complete change. And so it’s almost as if I was born the day I landed here, legally speaking… As someone who grew up (stateless in Lebanon), and lived for the majority of their life there, coming to Australia and seeing a different approach was absolutely amazing. I couldn’t describe the happiness I felt, the security I felt. I felt welcomed, I felt seen, and I felt respected as a human being, for the first time in my life, from a legal perspective, of course.” — Fadi Fadi credits his positive experience to the dedicated non-government program that supported him to come to Australia, Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB). Beyond that, he was keen to stress that his experience is not the norm, and that even with programs like that offered by TBB, his resettlement in Australia through the skilled migration visa program as a stateless person involved a combination of being linked with ‘good’ people willing to support him, a committed and creative legal team (willing to look at various ways to address identity documentation challenges) and ‘sheer luck’. “But again—and you find that this is a very recurring theme in my story—there is a good person, a good Samaritan, who just looked at my situation and made an exception to include me, or help me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. So that’s, I think, why my story is so unique: it’s not about me, as a person, it’s about me coming across exceptional people who are willing to make an effort and actually try to find a solution to my problem… I think it happened by sheer luck. So there was a bit of luck and a lot of—again—good people involved.” — Fadi Even with the support of his employer and TBB the resettlement process in Australia was challenging, indicating the importance of ensuring stateless people without these supports are adequately provided for as they establish themselves within the Australian community. “Well, I think from my perspective, I would say it (resettlement in Australia) was very, very smooth and seamless. I mean, there were challenges… Some of the challenges were English. I’ve spoken English professionally before, and I was fluent, but I’ve never used English from dusk till dawn, 24/7 at work and at home, and everywhere. So, that really took a toll on me in the first couple of months. I really struggled with that. I was getting really drained, just trying to translate everything and then speak it. So, that was a big struggle. And where the key struggle for me, as a stateless person, came with all the things I never had access to—so applying for a driver’s licence, learning how to drive. I drove maybe once or twice with a couple of friends—illegally—in Lebanon, but I was a 27-year-old on his Ls, because I never drove before. So just getting through all of that was—I’ve never used a train before, I’ve never used a train ticket or a bus ticket... Bank accounts: I’ve never had a bank account before… I kept forgetting my wallet everywhere, because I never carried a wallet before. I never had a driver’s licence or a bank account… I never had cards with my name on it, so I wasn’t used to holding them, so I’ll just forget them everywhere. I’ve went through maybe two debit cards in the first year, because I just misplaced them and lost them. I wasn’t used to carrying all of that. So on top of learning all of that, and the English, I had a job as a consultant. And so I hit the ground running, I was facing the clients, so trying to cope with that as well. On top of all of that, trying to find a place to live—well, I had a place to live… So trying to work all of that at the same time, I think, was a bit overwhelming. Looking back, the first six/seven months were very challenging.” — Fadi 4.3.2 Statelessness is a secondary consideration after refugee protection “We have a young man we are assisting who is stateless. He is the victim of child trafficking. I say stateless because the country he comes from has no record of him and we’ve confirmed that with the relevant authorities. So now we have to find these creative legal mechanisms to try and get his case in front of the Minister to say, “he is stateless, he can’t be returned anywhere….” So it (the legal system) causes significant issues for people who stateless but aren’t refugees. If you are just stateless….it’s a square peg in a round hole.’ — Alison Battison, Australian Legal Practitioner Where a person has access to a protection visa under Australian law, statelessness is often treated as a secondary consideration to refugee protection. This is largely because addressing a person’s statelessness under the existing domestic migration framework does not provide any additional immediate support to a visa applicant. To date, the perception of statelessness as a secondary issue to refugee status has made it difficult for advocates to meaningfully engage the Government in law reform on the issue. Understanding Statelessness in Australia | Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness 47