With a new government formed and the frenzy of the election period over, the community debates on immigration and our treatment of asylum seekers must become more thoughtful.

In the midst of the often acidic debate on population growth, the focus of attention has been on the deficiencies of Australia's physical infrastructure in accommodating a larger population. But this narrow focus has failed to address certain important challenges that arise in a country that is growing and changing.

Australia's cultural tapestry is changing hue; our community is growing ever more complex and culturally diverse. Australia is now home to a constellation of diaspora communities, from Greeks and Assyrians to more recently arrived Somali refugees. Each community brings with it a new set of identities and associations.

Michael Fullilove of the Lowy Institute, in his research on the place of diasporas in a globalised world, has argued that the growth of diasporas represents an increasingly complex phenomenon. Fullilove asserts that the world is covered with criss-crossing webs of relationships and interactions. Diaspora communities continually interact with their homelands, maintaining economic, cultural and personal links. This is certainly true of the Melbourne Somali community who maintain links to family and wider friendship networks in Somalia. (They are currently planning to collect and send clothing back to their local communities in Somalia which have been ravaged by civil conflict.) Monetary remittances, dual citizenship and other such phenomena are part and parcel of the world today. Immigration and the growth of diasporas represent new challenges to governments, including in Australia.

So what are these challenges? Much of the population debate in Australia has been centered on the issue of the physical infrastructure needed to accommodate more people. And that is certainly a key challenge that will have to be addressed by government. But there is another important question: how do we provide the right support for newly arrived communities to help them find work, good education and opportunities?

Take the Melbourne Somali community as a case study. This community is concentrated at the Flemington housing commission flats, with most of the resident families arriving in the early 2000s or the late 1990s. Many of the parents do not speak English, particularly the mothers. Their children have more advanced language skills due to their learning English at school and also through after school homework support programs. However, children still face difficulties at school as their language comprehension is less developed than that of their class-mates. This requires personal support from teachers or tutors, support which many of the Somali students say is lacking.

Teachers are often unaware of the Somali student's particular needs or because of large class sizes, have not got the time to devote to one-on-one tutoring. This can lead Somali students to feel isolated and unconfident. One Somali student I talked to said she felt dumb, that people told her she was dumb and that she couldn't see how she would improve. Come VCE, Somali students are often at a distinct disadvantage with less developed English comprehension skills and, without parents who speak fluent English, fewer resources to draw upon for support.

For Somali children living in the housing commission flats, studying is not made any easier by the physical reality of their surroundings. Most of the apartments at the housing commission flats are small with three rooms. The result is overcrowding, with families of seven or eight people living in apartments meant for two or three. In one instance, the mother of a family of seven has had to sleep on the floor of her apartment because of a lack of space.

Yet the difficulties these families face do not end there. Without English language proficiency, or knowledge of Australian job application practices, employment can be hard to come by. Many of the mothers at the Flemington flats are unable to find employment which in turn can lead to their being house-bound and socially isolated. The absence of affordable and conveniently located child-care services also means that Somali mothers can find it difficult to pursue further language or skills training themselves. While some of these difficulties are specific to the Melbourne Somali community, social isolation, lack of educational and employment support are hurdles faced by many immigrant communities.

Diasporas and immigrants are a part of Australia's future, with all the complexities and cultural richness that they bring with them. Public debate on Australia's growing population needs to move beyond focusing purely on the need for physical infrastructure. We must also think hard about the human support our community provides for newly arrived immigrants or refugees.

Supporting immigrant communities will of course require more spending on infrastructure - more resources for schools and teachers as well as affordable housing are vital. But it will also require that we support immigrants, and refugees in particular, in other ways, through community led programs, skills training, education support and employment opportunities.

It is easy to assume that this is the task of government. But this support is often best provided by community members through volunteer programs or through private businesses (the National Australia Bank, for example, has provided employment positions for a number of Somalis through a community outreach program). It requires that the community become involved in ensuring that the more diverse Australia of the future is a just society, where immigrant and refugee communities have the same opportunities as anyone else.