Thousands of asylum seekers on bridging visas are being forced off the meagre assistance provided by the government and told to “support themselves”.

The Status Resolution Support Service (SRSS), which provides a small allowance and casework, residence and counselling support to 12,500 asylum seekers, is being slashed by Peter Dutton’s Home Affairs Department. 

Individuals on the SRSS receive 89 percent of the Newstart allowance, or $247 per week, which is itself criminally low and 40 percent below the poverty line. Now Dutton is grinding refugees further into penury.

The department is expected to “save” $90 million a year – 2 percent of the cost of running the offshore detention regime. 

Those on the SRSS deemed to be “work ready” are to be stripped of their payments even if they are studying for work. It is expected that 7,000 people seeking asylum will be denied all support by June. 

These are people who have fled war, torture and trauma, and survived dangerous sea voyages and months and years in Australian detention centres, suffering significant mental and physical health issues. The move will make finding work extremely difficult. 

Ninety-five organisations, including the Refugee Council of Australia (RCA), are calling on the government to urgently reverse this decision.

“We are already hearing of people self-harming; we’re hearing of people losing housing, of huge levels of depression and anxiety”, Joyce Chia from the RCA told the Guardian. “This is a crisis in the making and of the government’s own making. They are going to punish these people – and some will be driven over the edge.”

In a cruel Kafkaesque turn, asylum seekers studying English will be denied support just as Peter Dutton is renewing plans to make the English component of the citizenship test more difficult. 

Some have labelled this plan “short sighted”. But it is clear the Liberal government has no commitment to settling asylum seekers permanently, and instead plans to drive people to return to danger or force them to take low paid work with terrible conditions, exposing them to super-exploitation at the hands of employers. 

As Sarah Dale, principal solicitor with the Refugee Advice and Casework Service, reported to the Guardian, “It’s just further perpetuating this second class of refugees in this country”.