There’s only one Vietnamese restaurant in Bathurst. Its head chef, Thi Huê Dao, moved to Australia with her family in 2015 to take up the job and residents of the central west New South Wales city responded enthusiastically, filling tables at Anam and leaving five-star ratings.
“My mum wanted a career and we had family here so we decided to come to Australia,” says her son Thanh Duc Nguyên. “It’s the only Vietnamese restaurant in town and contributes to the diversity and cuisine of Bathurst.”
The family of four were sponsored to move to Australia on a temporary skilled work 457 visa, on which Dao was the main applicant. But in March 2019 they discovered that their visa sponsor had allegedly employed a staff member whose visa had expired, in breach of immigration regulations.
As a result of this mistake, they were no longer able to act as an employer sponsor. And Nguyên and his family, who now own the restaurant, face the risk of being deported.
Chris Wright, a University of Sydney associate professor who made a joint submission to the Department of Home Affairs for a migration system review, says the case is a reflection of a “badly designed visa” that leaves immigrants at the mercy of their employer-sponsor.
In some cases, as for Nguyên’s family, sponsors become ineligible. But Wright says there have been hundreds of cases over the past 20 years where sponsored individuals were found to have been exploited, or had to take their situations to court. “It’s fair to say that most people don’t try to resolve it,” he says. “They just put up with it.”
The 457 visa was abolished in 2017, replaced with a temporary skill shortage visa. In December 2023 the Albanese government announced the temporary work visa would be overhauled again with the introduction of the skills in demand visa, which would provide migrant workers with flexibility to move between sponsors, more time to source another sponsor, and clearer pathways towards permanent residency. That new visa is to become available at the end of 2024.
“Currently, if you’re on the 457 and your employee relationship ends, you have another 60 days to find another sponsor and that’s just not enough time,” Wright says. “The new visa will extend that to 180 days which is quite significant.”
According to a 2023 Migrant Justice Institute survey of more than 15,000 migrant workers, three-quarters earned below the casual minimum wage in Australia, and a quarter earned less than half that. Nine out of 10 underpaid workers did not report the underpayment for fear of jeopardising their visa or ability to stay in Australia.
Wright says his own research indicated many employers did not sponsor migrants to address skill shortages but to exert greater control over their employees or to exploit them.
“These cases happen far too often,” Wright says. “[Migrants] are seeking to build a home here and it’s really important they are given the mechanism to be included in society.
“Cost of living is a massive problem at the moment and particularly challenging for people on temporary visas so, while extending the period people can find another sponsor is a good move, we also need to see changes around social inclusion and the type of support provided by the government.”
Nguyên says his family now hold a bridging visa A and will soon need to apply for a bridging visa E, which only permits them to stay in Australia while their immigration decision is finalised.
Those on a bridging visa E do not have rights to work, study or access Medicare. It is “the worst visa to have in Australia”, Nguyên says.
“We can stay here until a decision has been made but it is very difficult,” he says. “We have no help or assistance and it is very costly.
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“The thought of being sent back to Vietnam is very stressful. It will be devastating for us. We will lose everything we have worked hard for almost 10 years.”
The family wrote to the minister for immigration, Tony Burke, this month, requesting a ministerial intervention. Bathurst locals have rallied around them, with an online petition attracting more than 20,000 signatures. Local members of parliament and traditional owners have also written formal letters to Burke.
The Department of Home Affairs said it was unable to comment on individual cases.
As at 31 March, 9,892 people were on bridging visas E. These figures include asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat and were held in community detention.
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre’s head of systemic change, Jana Favero, says families in Australia were regularly deported from communities where they had spent years building their lives as a consequence of the visa system.
“We’ve also seen the Australian Government deport people back to countries such as Afghanistan and South Sudan where they face serious risk of harm, persecution and even death,” she says.
Nguyên says the Bathurst community has embraced his family.
“We’ve been engaged in community activities and charities and we are part of the Rotary Club,” he says. “Since we moved to Bathurst, the community has been very welcoming and given us so much and we have made a lot of friends.
“During this difficult time, the overwhelming support has been the only way to keep our hope alive and we are grateful to be a part of it.”
