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By Stephen Johnson, Economics Reporter For Daily Mail Australia 15:19 29 Mar 2023, updated 01:16 30 Mar 2023

Concerns are growing over how Australia will cope with a record level of permanent migrants entering the country as the nation continues to battle a housing and rental crisis.

The Albanese Government is reportedly planning for a total of 650,000 new migrants to settle here by mid-2024.

Combined with estimates for next year, this means a total of 1.2million extra people will be living Australia in June next year compared to five years earlier.

The floodgates are being opened to skilled migrants, international students and those coming for family or humanitarian reasons, even though Sydney and Melbourne - home to more than half of those who have come to Australia in the last 20 years - have ultra-low one per cent rental vacancy rates.

SQM Research managing director Louis Christopher said surging immigration would make it even harder for people looking for a home to find accommodation, with weekly rents in Sydney soaring by 25 per cent during the past year compared with 22 per cent in Melbourne.

'We still remain very concerned for the situation in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane where most international arrivals first land,' he said.

'The surge in net overseas longer term and permanent arrivals relative to new residential property supply is ensuring extremely tight rental conditions remain with our two largest capital cities.'

Australia's rental crisis is so critical that some families are being forced to live in tents because there is a severe shortage of long-term accommodation.

Kailaeb Vescio-Stanley, who has been sleeping in a Brisbane park with his dad for more than two weeks, told Sunrise host David Koch about the impact it was having on his life.

'I see a lot of people doing it rough, and the majority of the people I see doing it rough in parks are actually teenagers,' he said on Wednesday.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was so fed up she tweeted her disgust at plans to see net overseas migration surge to 650,000 - which is the amount coming during 2022-23 and 2023-24 combined.

Australia's two biggest cities settled 56 per cent of new migrants between 2000 and 2021.

Sydney became home to 29.3 per cent of new migrants, compared with Melbourne's 26.6 per cent share.

Perth took 12.1 per cent of migrants, compared with Brisbane's 9.7 per cent and Adelaide's 5.6 per cent share.

Regional Queensland, which includes the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, took in 5.8 per cent of migrants.

This includes 350,000 for this financial year, following an influx since Australia reopened in December 2021.

'Labor's record high immigration is literally forcing Australian families to live on the streets and winter is coming,' she said.

'We have an unprecedented housing and rental crisis. We dont have enough homes for everyone in Australia.

'Australia is in serious trouble.'

The accommodation shortage problem is widespread with Sydney having a rental vacancy rate of just 1.3 per cent compared with 1.1 per cent in Melbourne, 0.4 per cent in Perth and 0.5 per cent in Adelaide.

Brisbane's rental vacancy rate stands at just 0.8 per cent, SQM Research data showed.

Sydney and Melbourne housed 56 per cent of Australia's new migrants between January 2000 and August 2021, new Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed.

Australia's net annual immigration in the year up to September 2022 stood at 303,700 people - a 15-year high - taking the overall population above 26.1 million.

This was the biggest overseas increase since late 2008, and included skilled migrants, family reunions and international students.

The number of immigrants was also significantly higher than the October budget forecast of 180,000 for 2022-23, and the 235,000 level projected for 2024-25.

1881: 2.3 million

1918: 5 million

1959: 10 million

1981: 15 million

1991: 17.4 million

2004: 20 million

2013: 23 million

2016: 24 million

2018: 25 million

2022: 26 million

Australia's population surpassed the 25million mark in August 2018, 24 years earlier than predicted in Treasury's 2002 Intergenerational Report.

The 26million milestone was passed in 2022, even though Australia remained closed to immigration in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic.

The immigration surge is also coinciding with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese facing obstacles to his plan to build 30,000 homes under its Housing Future Fund.

Labor's plan to build new social and affordable homes during the next five years has met opposition from the Greens, whose support the government needs in the Senate to get the legislation passed.

A bill to establish the $10billion fund is being put to a parliamentary vote this week but Brisbane-based Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather, who holds the minor party's housing portfolio, is opposed to the program investing money in shares.

'Our point is for the millions of people in this country who need an affordable home, for the hundreds of thousands on the wait list for social housing; their lives shouldn't be dependent on whether or not a gamble on the stock market goes well - imagine doing that for schools or hospitals?' he said.

Migrants to Australia who have already moved their lives Down Under fear the latest massive surge in immigration will throw the current housing crisis into fresh chaos.

Estimates show that 950,000 people will be added to Australia's population from overseas in the five years leading up to June 2024, with 350,000 in this financial year alone.

It will be the biggest-ever surge in net population growth over two years at 650,000 people, overshadowing the previous record of 577,000 in 2008 and 2009 under Kevin Rudd.

But even recent migrants to Australia are questioning where the newcomers will live.

Colombian Alejandro Atehortua, 27, spent two months looking for a home until she was forced to share a single room with her friend in a unit with four other people in Redfern in inner-city Sydney.

'I still have to pay $250 a week for that - we're paying $1,400 a week for the three-bedroom unit with bills on top - and we all share one bathroom,' she said.

'Everything is old and the kitchen and toilet are all old-fashioned and unrenovated. It's just a ridiculous situation - but you don't have any choice.'

MsAtehortua is a fully-qualified dentist in her native Colombia but can only work as a dental assistant in Australia because of strict local medical standards.

Australia's two biggest cities settled 56 per cent of new migrants between 2000 and 2021.

Sydney became home to 29.3 per cent of new migrants, compared with Melbourne's 26.6 per cent share, the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed.

Perth took 12.1 per cent of migrants, compared with Brisbane's 9.7 per cent and Adelaide's 5.6 per cent share.

Regional Queensland, which includes the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, took in 5.8 per cent of those new migrants.

She combines that with a job as a disability carer to make ends meet while living in Sydney, recently named the second most expensive city in the world for property.

But she said her South American accent has proved a magnet for racists, which she encounters almost every day.

'When people hear my accent and see my skin, or even when they hear my name, it happens' she said. 'My English is not good and sometimes people are just rude.'

But despite the drawbacks, there's still nowhere else in the world she'd rather be after living in Australia for the past four years.

'I really like it,' she admitted. 'It's really safe here compared to my country. I love it. I'd really love to stay here.

'I want to become a dentist here, but it's really hard and really expensive and so is getting permanent residency.'

Cousins Gagan Malhotra, 23, and Amid Bhadia, 27, are international students working as concierges at an apartment block in Pyrmont near the CBD which is packed every weekend with people hoping to rent one of the units.

And they discovered a darker side to the housing crisis on Tuesday when they saw council staff clear away desperate homeless people from a small parkland area opposite their work.

'They were normal people - not down-and-outs - who were living in tents because they couldn't find anywhere to rent,' said Mr Malhotra. 'They can't find a house.

'We need people coming in to Australia because there are jobs to fill - but we can't afford the people. There's nowhere for them to live.

'Even the properties that are available are so expensive - people are paying $900 a week for two rooms because there's nothing else available.

'The number of homeless people is rising in the country as a result.'

But they had nothing but praise for Australia and said they'd never personally suffered any racism since arriving in the country four years ago.

'The only racism I've ever seen is towards Aboriginal people,' said Mr Malhotra.

'We were in a bar once and the white people there were discriminating against the Aboriginal people there, telling them it was not their country.

'They were very angry. It didn't make me feel good because in our country we don't do that racism thing.

'In India we have multicultural people: all caste, creeds everywhere.'

The pair said when they first arrived before the Covid pandemic, they struggled to find work.

'We had to search a lot and they were paying a lot less money,' said Mr Malhotra.

'The bosses were exploiting people and paying under the minimum wage because new migrants didn't know any better.

'Now though companies like UberEats and Menulog are very good for new arrivals. They support them very well and they can live a decent reliable life thanks to them.

'This is a regular job for people now and it pays well enough - but not for rent. These people are still having to share maybe three people to a room to get by.'

For chai caf waitress Prerana Thapa, 19, the hardest part of moving from Australia has been leaving her parents behind in Nepal, and cleaning up after herself as a result.

'Moving here hasn't been that easy,' she told Daily Mail Australia at the chai caf where she works in Harris Park in western Sydney.

'It's sometimes been tough for me without having my parents doing everything for me.

'I didn't do housework at home - my parents would do it for me, so that's been hard.

'But otherwise everything here is good. The Australian boys are adventurous, which I like - with their surfing and watersports and things like that.

Girlboss Meryanne Sammak, 32, may have Lebanese heritage through her parents - but even just a visit to her family's homeland has little appeal.

'My mum came here when she was two or three and my dad was born overseas,' revealed the beauty business boss with a upmarket salon in Belmore in Sydney's west.

'Because we're born here, we don't feel like migrants. In my mind we're fully Australian.

'But we keep in touch with our heritage through food and religion - all the kind of stuff that brings us together.

'I've never been to Lebanon. It would be beautiful, I'm sure - but life just gets ahead of you.'

She said she would welcome the coming influx of migrants to the country.

'Everyone started somewhere,' she said. 'Everyone's come from somewhere.

'So I'm very accepting of it.'

'It's not as exciting as Nepal though. Everyone is so busy and not as free as they are in Nepal - but I like it here.

'People are very welcoming and it's very multicultural so you can try different foods and meet different people...and the beach lifestyle here is amazing.'

Three generations of Greek migrants admitted they still feel like they don't belong, more than 50 years after their family first arrived in Australia.

'In Greece, we're the Australians and in Australia, we're the Greeks,' admitted new mum Sabrina Mantzios, 27, from Belmore in Sydney's west.

'I see myself as more Australian and can barely speak Greek. I think with each generation the cultural contact gets a little bit more lost and left behind.'

Her motherNatasha Halias, 53, grew up on a tobacco farm near the Victorian border where her migrant parents worked before a brief return to Greece until they settled in Sydney.

'They came her for the opportunity to make some money and originally intended to return to Greece for good - but the life here was so good and Greece was so tough, they decided to stay in Australia,' she revealed.

'There was just so many more opportunities here compared to Greece in the 60s and 70s.'

She said the sudden rise in migration would put pressures on the the new arrivals as well as the nation's housing stock - but she said the first generation of migrants were always a tough bunch.

'They don't have anyone to fall back on - my daughter here knows she will always have a roof over her head with us if she ever needs it,' said Ms Halias.

'But new migrants don't have that. They work very, very hard to make lives for themselves when they arrive - and that's good for the economy.

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Sydney and Melbourne taking the most migrants as immigration set to surge by 650,000 - Daily Mail

EXCLUSIVE Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley says in the wake of this weeks deadly school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, the focus needs to be on combating the mental health crisis rather than on new legislation banning assault weapons.

"My heart fell like everybody elses when we heard about Nashville," the former ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina governor said at a town hall on the campaign trail in Salem, New Hampshire on Tuesday, as she referenced the attack at a Christian school in Nashville, where a shooter armed with two assault-style rifles and a handgun killed three students and three staff members.

Pointing to a 2015 mass shooting at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, during her tenure as governor, Haley told the audience "Ive been through my share of tragedies in South Carolina when I was governor. We dont want to see that happen. How much longer is this country going to ignore mental health. It is a cancer, and it is killing our kids."

"We need to focus on what really matters. Mental health is the cancer that no one is talking about. One in four people have a mental health issue," Haley emphasized minutes later, in a national exclusive interview with Fox News Digital. "But if treated they live a perfectly normal life. It is horrific what happened in Nashville. Its clear that that woman needed help. And so, weve got to make sure were doing that."

HALEY TARGETS DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS - INCLUDING TRUMP - OVER EXPLODING DEBT CRISIS

Former ambassador to the United Nations and former two-term South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, holds a town hall in Salem, New Hampshire, on March 28, 2023. (Fox News)

Following Mondays shooting, President Biden renewed his calls for Congress to pass an assault weapons ban.

"We have to do more to stop gun violence. Its ripping our communities apart," the president urged in a statement from the White House. "I call on Congress again to pass my assault weapons ban."

However, Haley disagrees.

"To sit there and say that its just a gun issue is the lazy way out," Haley said. "We need to acknowledge the whole issue. And the whole issue is she [the shooter in Nashville] was struggling and there was nobody there to help her."

When asked by Fox News if she would consider an assault weapons ban if she were in the White House right now, Haley quickly answered: "I dont deal with hypotheticals. Im not going to deal with hypotheticals. Were not going to go down that route. What I will tell you is were going to deal with mental health once and for all."

WHO'S IN AND WHO'S ON THE SIDELINES YOUR GUIDE TO THE 2024 GOP PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION RACE

Haley also highlighted that "we also need to talk about changing what we do with school safety. We need to have one entrance in and out. We need to have a law enforcement officer on every campus. And if we have to have metal detectors, we should do it. Our kids see them in airports. Its OK if they see them in schools if thats what it takes."

"We need to have one specialized mental health professional that does nothing but look for these issues. After COVID, weve got a lot of people with stress, anxiety, depression. They cant even find a therapist now," Haley added. "We need to make sure we have treatment out there for them. Whether its doing it by telehealth. Whether its doing it by seeing someone, weve got to start getting people the help they need."

Former ambassador to the United Nations and former two-term South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who's running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, holds a town hall in Salem, New Hampshire, on March 28, 2023. (Fox News Paul Steinhauser)

Democrats are criticizing Haley's stance on an assault weapons ban.

"Its appalling that in the aftermath of another school shooting, Nikki Haley is, once again, standing in opposition to meaningful gun safety laws," longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley told Fox News in a statement.

Buckely argued that "Haley has proven that while shes more interested in scoring political points with the MAGA base, Granite Staters cant count on her to keep our children safe."

Haley, who launched her presidential bid early last month at a kick-off event in South Carolina, was making her second campaign swing through New Hampshire, the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest in the GOP presidential nominating calendar. The jam-packed two-day trip included a fundraiser, closed door meetings with prominent Granite State Republican leaders and activists, and two town halls.

FIRST ON FOX: HALEY HEADED TO U.S.-MEXICO BORDER

During her town halls, she highlighted her solutions to combat the nations border security crisis, which is now into its third year. As Fox News first reported on Monday, Haley is headed to south Texas on April 3, when shell become the first Republican White House candidate to visit the U.S.-Mexico border.

Haley, who is unveiling her plan to handle the ongoing migrant crisis, explained that "Im going to the border because I think illegal immigration should be a priority in this country. Its horrific whats happening."

"Ive got an illegal immigration plan that basically says were going to do what I did in South Carolina and pass a mandatory e-verify plan so that no business can hire anyone thats in this country illegally."

Haley, whose parents immigrated legally to the United States from India, received some of her biggest applause during the town hall when she highlighted that her immigration and border security plan would scrap the recent funding for up to 87,000 IRS staff in favor of 25,000 new Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Additionally, she told Fox News that "were going to make sure we stop giving taxpayer handouts to illegal immigrants. Were going to make sure we defund sanctuary cities like Lawrence, [New Hampshire] and stop all the crime thats coming from there. Were going to make sure we got back to remain in Mexico. Were not going to stop Title 42. And were going to stop catch and release and go to catch and depart. When we do that, well be serious about illegal immigration."

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Haley is the only well-known Republican so far to challenge her one-time boss former President Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination. Trump, who the polling front-runner at this early point in the 2024 cycle, launched his campaign in mid-November, but has not visited the southern border.

When asked if Trump should head to the U.S.-Mexico border, Haley said, "Im not dealing with anybody elses campaign. Im dealing with mine. Illegal immigration should be a top priority for anybody whos running for president. Its top priority for me because its a top priority for all Americans."

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Nikki Haley says treating shootings as only a gun issue is the lazy way out after Nashville school tragedy - Fox News

FIRST ON FOX: Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley will visit the southern border in Texas next week, Fox News Digital has learned -- as the former governor is unveiling her plan to handle the ongoing migrant crisis now into its third year.

Haley will become the first presidential candidate to visit the border when she travels to Texas on April 3. She will be accompanied by Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, and will make several stops between San Antonio and Eagle Pass. The area has seen some of the heaviest migrant traffic along the border in recent years as authorities have been besieged by the historic crisis.

There were over 1.7 million encounters at the southern border in FY 2021, and more than 2.3 million in FY 2022. FY 2023 has been on pace to eclipse those numbers, although numbers have dipped in January and February.

NIKKI HALEY UNLOADS ON BIDEN PROJECTING AMERICAN WEAKNESS ON WORLD STAGE: WE HAVE TO WAKE UP

Republicans have attributed the crisis to the policies of the Biden administration -- specifically the rolling back of Trump-era border protections, and an increase in "catch-and-release" of migrants into the U.S. The White House has attributed the crisis to a hemisphere-wide challenge and has called on Republicans to provide additional funding.

Haley, who is a daughter of legal immigrants, has been rolling out her plan to secure the border and tackle illegal immigration. That plan would see the recent funding for up to 87,000 IRS staff scrapped in favor of 25,000 new Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The plan would also mandate that businesses use E-Verify -- which verifies a workers citizenship and immigration status -- in their hiring processes. As governor of South Carolina, Haley had signed a bill requiring all businesses in the state to use the tool.

Additionally, a Haley administration would cut funding to states that have been used to give money to illegal immigrants -- such as the billions used by New York to cut checks to illegal immigrant workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic.

Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the United Nations, during an event in Charleston, South Carolina, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (Sam Wolfe/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Her plan would also restore the Trump-era "Remain-in-Mexico" policy -- which kept migrants in Mexico while their immigration hearings proceeded, instead of releasing them into the U.S. Republicans have credited that policy with reducing the pull factors which drew migrants north. Haley is also promising to end the "catch-and-release" practices of the Biden administration.

"We fix [the border crisis] by going back to Remain-in-Mexico, we fix it by stopping catch and release, we fix it by putting up an actual wall and closing our border," she said earlier this month on "One Nation with Brian Kilmeade."

"But we do it by doing what I did in South Carolina as governor," she said. "We did a mandatory E-Verify program that said none of our businesses could hire anyone that was in this country illegally. That is what got them out of South Carolina because there were no jobs for them to come to, that's what will get them out of this country, we've got to make sure none of our businesses hire anyone that is here in the country illegally, and we've got to start taking this seriously. Every state is a border state."

BIDEN ANNOUNCES NEW NORTHERN BORDER DEAL, FENTANYL COALITION WITH CANADA AS IMMIGRATION CRISIS RAGES

In addition to mandating E-Verify, the legislation she signed as governor alsorequired police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop who they suspected may be in the U.S. illegally -- following similar legislation in states like Arizona.

That bill also created an illegal immigration enforcement unit, made it illegal to transport or harbor illegal immigrants, made it a felony to sell fake IDs to illegal immigrants and barred illegal immigrants from state or local benefits. The bill faced significant pushback from immigration activists.

"Illegal immigration is not welcome in South Carolina," Haley said in 2011 when she signed the bill.

As governor, she also declined to accept Syrian refugees over concerns about vetting, and in 2014 said that South Carolina would not be accepting illegal immigrant minors in order to focus on children already in the state. When she served as U.N. ambassador during the Trump administration, the U.S. withdrew from the global compact on migration in part due to concerns that it would have restricted U.S. policy and impinged on U.S. sovereignty.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Illegal immigration and border security are likely to remain top topics in both the Republican primary season and the 2024 general election.

Former President Trump, who has announced his own 2024 bid, made tackling illegal immigration a key part of his administration. Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis -- who has not announced a bid but is widely expected to run -- sparked outrage from Democrats last year when he flew illegal immigrants into Marthas Vineyard.

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Nikki Haley to visit southern border in Texas after unveiling plan to tackle migrant crisis - Fox News

A former travel agent who won government contracts to house migrants in hotels during the UK's migrant crisis is now making millions from the taxpayer - and enjoying a luxury globetrotting lifestyle, MailOnline can reveal.

Debbie Hoban, boss of Leeds-based Calder Conferences, was paid 2.19m last year alone, up nearly tenfold from just 230,000 in 2021, and is now one of the most prominent private firm bosses making huge sums of money out of the UK's crippling asylum seeker crisis.

She now lives in this magnificent 3m country farmhouse and enjoys a string of exotic trips to events like the Abu Dhabi grand prix after her company landed a government asylum seeker contract.

And the main reason for the tripling in profits to more than 6m last year for Calder Conferences has been the lucrative Home Office contracts awarded to it and other companies now costing the taxpayer 6m a day.

Calder is among a host of firms now being paid to house small-boat arrivals and other asylum seekers in almost 400 hotels around Britain.

The news came as Home Office data uncovered by the BBC showed the sheer scale of the migrant accommodation crisis, with a total of 395 hotels all over the country are being used to house 51,000 asylum seekers due to a severe shortage of official accommodation.

The total bill for taxpayers comes in at more than 6.8m a day.

At least 42 of the 48 English counties now have hotels accommodating migrants, according to recent reports.

The number has risen by more than 10,000 in less than three months after the Home Office emptied the Manston processing centre in Kent and dispersed thousands of Channel migrants to hotels across the country.

In November, Manston, a former RAF base, became dangerously overcrowded with 4,000 migrants - more than double its capacity - after more than 30,000 migrants made the Channel crossing in the last five months of 2022.

Official documents show that Mrs Hoban's company received 20.6m from the Home Office in 2021, increasing to 97m in 2022. Turnover for the year ending February 2022 rose from 5.98m to 23.66m and pre-tax profits trebled to 6.3m.

The contract represents a bumper payday for Mrs Hoban, a mother-of-three who previously to building up this business in recent years ran a low-profile independent travel agency.

Mrs Hoban, 63, now lives with her husband, Peter, 60, in a sprawling converted grain mill in West Yorkshire.

The vast and spectacular home - with a triple garage and screened off with extravagant wrought iron gates - was transformed by the couple, with four bedrooms, a swimming pool and jacuzzi and a basement wine cellar.

The couple also linked an adjoining mill owner's cottage to the house via a glass spiral staircase - with the finished project bagging an award at the 2018 ICF Builder Awards.

Steve Bailey, of contractor Landmarks (UK) Ltd, said of the development in 2018: 'A once damp, cold, drafty and structurally unstable building of the past is now a safe, warm, cozy magnificent home, and will be for many generations in the future.'

Social media shows Mrs Hoban enjoying lavish trips, including feasting on oysters and Champagne, and placing her at the F1 Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi.

She also jetted to Dubai, Bhutan and India's Taj Mahal on family jaunts.

She and her husband jointly own Calder Conferences Ltd through another firm called Depho Estates Ltd, which as well as the couple themselves, lists their sale executive son Freddy, 26, and daughter Harriet, a 24-year-old paralegal, as co-directors.

Elder son Jack, 28, resigned as a director in 2019, according to Companies House records.

A Home Office spokesperson said: 'The number of people arriving in the UK who require accommodation has reached record levels and has put our asylum system under incredible strain.

'The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable there are currently more than 51,000 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer 6 million a day.

'The Home Office is committed to making every effort to reduce hotel use and limit the burden on the taxpayer.'

Home Office sources suggested the revenues earned by Calder were mainly from finding bridging hotels for Afghan refugees who arrived following the Taliban takeover in 2021.

It comes as Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, visited Rwanda on the weekend as she tried to restart her stalled plan to send Channel migrants to the country.

It's not the first time that Calder has been involved in government business.

In 2020, they were reported to have had secret talks on behalf of the Ministry of Justice to help house up to 2,000 prisoners in a Butlin's holiday camp in Skegness to ease the jails crisis during the pandemic.

Acting on the MoJ's behalf, representatives from Calders met with Butlin's bosses and discussed a 10m scheme to place the low-risk prisoners in the leisure accommodation.

But senior government officials scrapped the plan before it got much further.

MailOnline approached Calder Conferences, but were told 'We decline to comment.'

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The former travel agent making millions from the UK's migrant crisis - Daily Mail

The mismanagement of the Covid-19 lockdown and the suffering of the underpaid migrant labourers are the central themes of actor Dia Mirzas latest film, Bheed. Though the memories and visual from that time still affect the actor, she remembers how the films narrative profoundly took a toll on her when she first heard it. I was deeply moved by it. I was sobbing while reading the script. I thought this is the film that has to be made as its a film for ages. Stories like this are necessary for generations to reflect, internalize and understand how flawed we as humans can be.

Bheed also focuses on the migrants and tackles the delicate subject of social inequality with heartbreaking visuals and soul-stirring stories. Mirza says that makes the film all the more relevant in todays time, We need more films like these to understand the social inequalities that we have lived with. We need to recognise they exist to be able to change it .

In the film, Mirza plays a single mother from the privileged class of society, who amid the lockdown, is desperately trying to get to her daughter. The actor talks about delving deep into the psyche of her character and also points out how the film throws light on the treatment that privileged tend to give to other sections of society. There are people who are uncaring of anybody elses predicament in a moment, where they are so consumed by their problems but thats natural. Thats also human. This character helped me understand that as an actor, I do not have to judge the character I am playing. I just have to become the character, she says and goes on, There are moments in the film, where you will see the grey side of my character, and by extension, the grey side of our society. However, despite the fact that my character in the movie is flawed and serves as a mirror to society, it sends out the message that being flawed is okay.

A mother herself, Mirza shares that it was hard for her to relate to the character, thereby making the process of seeping into the character, understanding the conflict and bringing it out on the screen, a tad bit challenging . She says, Her actions were difficult to fathom because she is very different from who I am as a person..as a mother. I have never perceived myself as non-empathetic. Thats why, I decided to understand and internalize the reality of society, the thought-process of her character, and just go with the flow of it. I had to shut everybody out and think as a mother, who is trying to reach her daughter.

She adds, Having said that, I do not know how I would react in a situation like this. If that ever happens, it might help discover a side of me, which I do not know about yet.

But Mirza is happy to learn a lesson from her character, no matter how flawed it is. Every character teaches you something and this one taught me to let go and be....just to become that person you are meant to be in that moment. And its very interesting that none of us, including me, judged the characters or their actions, she explains. Mirza calls it the power of strong storytelling that not just her but everyone who saw the film at the preview, came out and said that they did not hate any character despite all their flaws being so evident.

Since the film focusses on social inequality, was there ever the pressure of offending any class or section of the society? And the actors says,I think, intentions matter. Jab kuch acchi niyat se karo, toh kuch bura nahi ho skta. The intention of the film and the filmmaker were honest. I never felt unsettled or concerned about any area of the film.

March 22 this year marked the third anniversary of lockdown - the dreadful time that shocked everyone to the core. Recalling her worst memories from that phase, Mirza shares, When lockdown happened, there were images of hundreds of families on the road trying to go to their homes, daughter cycling the father, images of people coming out of the cement mixer...all these were so powerful (and found way into the narratives of Bheed). While all this happened, we were in the comfort of our home and the first thing that we would say to ourselves every single day was that we are grateful. Not everyone was as lucky as we are.

The Sanju actor recalls how there were so many residents in her building, who were single and above the age of 80. They were rendered helpless because their house help could not come. Our efforts were directed towards making things better for them. For the first few days, all we were trying to do was help them in whatever way possible. I sometimes even went to clean peoples home, she tells us

During this time, the biggest discovery for me was less is best. All that we really need is things that makes us safe, secure and healthy, Mirza ends.

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Dia Mirza on her character in Anubhav Sinhas Bheed: I was sobbing while reading the script based on migrant crisis - Hindustan Times