Thousands of skilled
migrants with valid visas to come to Australia are stranded overseas, needing
government permission to travel back and reunite with their families and jobs.
Under measures to contain
the COVID-19 pandemic since March 20, foreign nationals have required a travel
exemption to enter Australia even if they already have a visa, though the
Department of Home Affairs has refused to disclose the legal basis for this
requirement. This includes both short-term visitors and long-term residents on visas.
A spokesperson for the
Australian Border Force said the agency had received 109,743 requests for a
travel exemption to enter Australia as of August 31. Of those, ABF granted
permission for 16,860 people to enter Australia, including 5142 cases associated
with critical skills or industry sectors and 3419 on compassionate grounds.
Soren and Ingri Madsen with
their children, Philip and William, in their Sydney home. Their eldest son,
Victor, has a visa to join them but has been refused a travel exemption to
enter the country.
A request can cover more
than one person and there can be multiple requests from the same person;
resubmitted applications counted as new requests until the system changed in mid-July.
There are thought to be
more than 40,000 skilled migrants on 457 and 482 visas currently outside the
country, based on figures from Home Affairs and the Bureau of Statistics. That
includes people who have left Australia permanently but still hold a valid visa
as well as those keen to return.
Chef Chris Farrell, who has
lived in Sydney for six years and has an Australian partner, returned to the UK
to visit his dying mother Janet.
Senators and MPs are
fielding hundreds of requests for help from temporary migrants who need
permission to return to Australia. The Sun-Herald has spoken to more
than half a dozen people in this situation, including couples living apart and
parents separated from children.
Chris Farrell, 33, is a
chef for acclaimed Sydney restaurant Three Blue Ducks on a sponsored 457 visa.
He has lived here for six years, recently qualified for permanent residency,
has an Australian girlfriend and a lease in Rosebery in the inner south.
In July, Mr Farrell
travelled to Britain to see his mother who is dying of cancer. He has applied
five times for approval to return, with support from his employer, but has been
refused every time. "I'm absolutely devastated," Mr Farrell said.
"Cancer has ruined my family and now I feel like I have been punished
because I wanted to say goodbye to my mum."
Soren Madsen from Denmark
is on a 482 visa running international logistics company Scan Global, which
helped import face masks during the pandemic. He lives in Manly with his wife
and 10-year-old twin boys, while his eldest son Victor, 22, has a visa and was
meant to rejoin his family after finishing university in Amsterdam.
But Victor was refused a
travel exemption and instead had to return to Denmark, a country where he has
not lived since he was 13, has no job and only two relatives. "He's a
strong young man but it's not like he's smiling," Mr Madsen said of his
son. "He is confident and he's just waiting, but it takes a little bit of
a toll."
Labor immigration
spokeswoman Kristina Keneally said employers waiting for critical staff to be
let back into the country were frustrated that Prime Minister Scott Morrison
had "one rule for his mates, and another for everyone else".
"British billionaire
Lord Sugar has been given an exemption by the Morrison government to travel
into the country to film a reality television show, but small and medium sized
businesses I talk to keep being told 'no, you can't have your staff
back'," she said.
Once foreign nationals
obtain a travel exemption, they would join the queue of Australians unable to
get flights because international arrivals are capped at 4000 a week and 30 per
plane. Australian citizens and permanent residents
require permission to leave the country under the Biosecurity Act
but not to return. All international arrivals must pay for a 14-day quarantine
stay in a hotel.
Prime Minister Scott
Morrison said on Friday a deal with the states to lift the arrivals cap to 6000
a week within the next few weeks would mean most people, if not everyone,
stranded overseas could return by Christmas. A spokesman said he was referring to
the 24,000 citizens and permanent residents who have registered their desire to
return to Australia with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Aradhya Ojha is trapped in
India with her mother and brother, separated from her father. The whole family
have valid visas and have lived in Sydney since February 2018.
Bineet Ojha, a risk analyst
on a 457 visa for one of the big four banks, works in Sydney while his wife
Vandana Mohanty, their son Arihant, 7, and baby daughter Aradhya are stranded
in India without permission to return. He only saw his newborn for a few days
in January before he had to go back to work, while the rest of the family was
meant to follow in April.
"My husband has not
been able to see our 8-month-old daughter for more than seven months now,"
Ms Mohanty said. "He is a complete stranger to her and missing all her
milestones. Our son is also hugely missing his father, who is his best
buddy."
Greens immigration
spokesman Nick McKim said the government needed to do more to help citizens but
this was "not mutually exclusive" with helping temporary migrants.
His office had 400 cases on its books of visa holders trapped overseas,
including 28 families where parents are separated from their children and 140
where couples are separated and this would "only be a fraction of the
total".
"Most of these people
have built lives in Australia - they work here, they run businesses here, their
kids go to school here, they pay taxes here, they've made their homes
here," Senator McKim said. "It's been six months, and the government
can't simply keep avoiding this issue."
Senator McKim said ABF's
decision making was "opaque". The criteria that ABF uses to decide a
travel exemption request was only published for the first time last week.
The ABF said between March
20 and August 31 it refused permission for 6100 foreign nationals to enter
Australia. It declined to provide detailed information about the remaining
86,783 requests, saying it included requests that did not contain sufficient
information, those that were withdrawn and those from people already exempt.
Abul Rizvi, the former
deputy secretary of immigration, said there was no good legal basis for
requiring someone with a valid visa to also obtain a travel exemption. There is
a public health clause in the Migration Act but Mr Rizvi said "legally it
would be a stretch" because you would have to prove the person actually
has COVID-19.
UPDATE: Vandana Mohanty and
her children received an exemption to travel back to Sydney, late on Saturday
night after publication.
www.samigration.com