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Immigration Daily News Consulate in Hong Kong grants visitor visa to Filipino nanny who's primary purpose is to work in AustraliaAustralian Immigration Daily News
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Consulate in Hong Kong grants visitor visa to Filipino nanny who's primary purpose is to work in Australia
By Liana Allan
The 2017 Global Estimate of Modern Slavery by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimated that at any one time in there are 24.9 million victims of forced labour, with 16 million people exploited in the private sector such as domestic work.
The granting of a subclass 600 visitor visa to a nanny being paid to work in a private home in Australia. Is this the tip if the iceberg?
It has come to our attention that the Australian Consulate General in Hong Kong has granted a subclass 600 visa to a Filipino nanny who has been working with an Australian family in Hong Kong. The nanny has now come to Australia with them to continue providing them with services as their paid, live-in nanny. The application form stated that she would be working and being paid. The visitor visa was granted.
This came to our attention as the family wanted to know if there was 'any other way around it than sending their nanny outside Australia' after the first 90 days due to the 8503 'no further stay' condition on the nanny's visa.
Is this modern-day slavery or servitude aided and abetted by the Consulate General in Hong Kong?
Could it be suggested that what is happening here is akin to modern day slavery, if not servitude? Anti-Slavery Australia has a fact sheet which clearly explains what a slave is: http://www.antislavery.org.au/resources/fact-sheets/100-fact-sheet-4-what-is-labour-trafficking.html
What is a business visitor application supposed to include? Did the nanny supply this documentation? Could she reasonably have supplied this information?
A business visitor visa requires the applicant to show:
- Evidence of why they need to visit Australia on business, such as:
- a letter of invitation from the host organisation in Australia
- conference registration details
- a letter from their (outside of Australia) employer stating the reasons for your visit
- their itinerary, with contact details of the business parties involved.
- Their educational or professional qualifications.
- Their current employment outside of Australia and their role during their visit to Australia.
- Details of previous contacts with Australian businesspeople or organisations.
- Documents to show that the company they work for is an actively operating business, such as a business registration certificate or annual report.
A paid nanny is not a genuine visitor due to the requirements a person must meet in order to be granted a visitor visa
The following are requirements for demonstrating you are a genuine visitor:
- Evidence of sufficient funds, such as personal bank statements, pay slips, audited accounts, taxation records or credit card limit.
- If the person is visiting relatives or friends, a letter of invitation from their relative or friend in Australia. If their relative or friend is paying for their visit, evidence that they have the necessary funds.
- Other information to show that they have an incentive and authority to return to their home country, such as:
- a letter from their employer stating their intention to return to your job
- evidence of enrolment at a school, college or university in their home country
- evidence of immediate family members in their home country
- evidence of their visa or residence status in their home country, and their right to return
- evidence of property or other significant assets owned in their home country.
Nowhere does it state that a nanny from the Philippines, who has been working in Hong Kong, can come to Australia and WORK as a paid nanny. A subclass 600 visa carries no work rights. It's purpose is to attend business meetings, conferences, or business related events.
Work is defined as an activity which would normally attract remuneration. The nanny is working. The nanny is being paid.
Red flags
A nanny from the Philippines who works in Australia on a subclass 600 visa raises the following red flags in my head:
1. What is the salary level being paid to this nanny?
2. Which tasks, duties and hours is this nanny expected to work?
3. Is the nanny being paid the award wage for the position of nanny/ au pair in Australia
4. Is the nanny aware of her rights in this country? Does she know how to join a union to ensure she has access to fair wages and working conditions? Does she know about Fair Work Australia?
5. Given that the Australian couple are effectively the nanny's sponsor whilst she is in Australia, what are their sponsorship obligations towards this nanny?
6. Does the nanny have health insurance such as overseas visitors cover whilst visiting and working in someone's home in Australia?
7. Does the nanny have access to workers compensation information if she injures herself whilst working on the visitor visa?
8. Is there an underground economy in Australia made up of Filipino nannies / au pairs who are in Australia, granted their 600 visitor visas out of Hong Hong?
9. Does the nanny know of and have access to Australia's National Employment Standards, the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Fair Work Commission?
10. Does the nanny ever get to go out? Socialise? Leave the house?
Slave labour comes to mind.
After all, why would a wealthy Australian couple employ a nanny from a foreign country and go to the time, trouble and expense of lodging a visa application on her behalf if they are easily able to find a qualified, skilled nanny inside Australia? And yes, there are plenty of nannies here. They just need to be paid the right amount of money for the work they do.
My answer is that the Australian nannies cost too much money and the Filipino nannies can be paid a lot less. Who really knows what they are being paid? Who really knows what their work conditions are?
This needs to be exposed. It now has been.
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Comments
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Monday, 20 November 2017I think the fact of the person being Filipino is CENTRAL to this issue! It is well known that Filipinos have been paid low wages in countries which don't have good labour laws, especially so in the Middle East. I can assure you that I work with those very Filipino women who have been abused both in terms of the number of hours required to work, at next to no money, up to and including physical and sexual abuse. They are caring and loving people on the most part and genuinely seek a better life with good opportunites abroad, only to be abused and taken advantage of. We don't see Australians being used en mass as nannies in Hong Kong now do we? The article is very real and whilst we might not like it we need to protect the Filipino women who are taken advantage of, and for that matter, any other person who originates in a country where their currency is of little value compared to other more powerful currencies. This is not about being so politically correct so as to bury our heads in the sand and ignore the issue.
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Tuesday, 21 November 2017
Or maybe, just maybe, the kids love their nanny and the family loves her. Why don't you go and ask them? You seem to assume everything is nefarious and any benevolence from the employers is impossible.
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Tuesday, 21 November 2017
Maybe just maybe the regulations for the grant of a visitor visa to Australia do not cover 'the kids love their nanny and the nanny loves their family'.
It not a skilled occupation on the occupations list which is why they didn't apply for a 457. Plenty of loving nannies in Australia. As Liana Allan said .... the family just have to pay the right wages for that.
Let's not kid ourselves.
People can't even get spouse visas these days without piles of documents to prove they love one another. And yet a nanny can come in on a visitor visa because the family love her? I give this the smell test and something aint smelling right. -
Tuesday, 21 November 2017
The posts by slave saver are extraordinarily racist, and their publication on this forum is particularly offensive. He is not saving Filipino women; he is defaming an entire ethnic group. I have asked the forum moderators for years to make the posters identify themselves. Individuals should not be permitted to hide in anonymity on a forum devoted to the professional ideals of the Alliance.
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Tuesday, 21 November 2017
Which bit is racist? I can't see it myself.
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Tuesday, 21 November 2017
Not sure if they still do, however, back in the day the London office would recommend nannies accompanying their employers on holiday to Australia to apply for Visitor visas..
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Tuesday, 21 November 2017
James AYFKM?
This is just getting worse. I have had to apply for entertainment visas for body guards and other personnel coming to Australia for 5 days for a major rock concert (famous star) because the singer LOVED THEM and ONLY WANTED THEM. If I had known that I could just tell them to get on visitor visas and work on those for 5 days then this would have been cheaper and easier than the BS rigmoral my clients went through. I can see a massive loop hole here. It seems to me DIBP is complicit in breaking their own regulations.
By the way there is nothing racist about this article. I feel sorry for the nanny. I bet she isn't getting paid much and she is probably on call 24/7 with no breaks. -
Tuesday, 21 November 2017
Hello Alfonso. Temporary Migrant labour is a social phenomenon that exists because of the international imbalance of wealth and intra-national disparities among social classes. The US is jam packed with Hispanic migrants, millions of which are undocumented, who work at wage levels far below the national average. The rich countries of the Middle East are packed with Pakistanis, Indians, Indonesians, and temporary migrants from African countries--mostly Islamic--who work under conditions that most Australians would find extremely distasteful. There are also other migrants, usually from Western countries who work there at higher wages in keeping with their skill sets. To say as slave saver does that "being Filipino is CENTRAL to this issue" is not merely being overly broad. It is focusing on one group as if that group were responsible for the suffering that it endures. The source of this particular migrant problem is widespread poverty in all of the migrants' countries. Just because slave saver's experience is broad among Filipinos does not mean that Filipinos are central to the problem. They are only one group of people who are suffering. As for 'slave saver,' I do not know whether he/she should be considered a saviour of slaves. I see no empathy in the remarks only shotgun anger and a mind to punish others rather than to help reform our laws. Again, I urge posters to announce themselves rather than to speak from behind a curtain. No one here is attempting to hurt anyone else. It is a professional forum and deserves more than anonymity except in those fairly rare circumstances where the poster is announcing something personal that may cause retribution.
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"And yes, there are plenty of nannies here. They just need to be paid the right amount of money for the work they do."
Last year my neighbour asked if the mechanism utilised by the Australian family above could be used by their own granddaughter. I referred them to an agent. They had already checked the local nanny services. The all inclusive salary package for Australian nannies was $54,000 per year (plus all usual leave and holidays) for direct hire or $6,000 per month for a person to be provided by the agency (which would act as the nanny's employer).
The problem is not only one of money. Ethnic groups with large or extended families often bring relatives over as guests who assist with child care. It makes sense because the relative is known to them, speaks their language, and knows their customs. White Australians with smaller families are excluded from the process. It's a problem area in the law. As for slavery, it can only be stamped out by people dobbing in the slave traders and slave masters and by the policing authority genuinely acting on the information.
The legislature needs to reconsider the nanny law. Nanny visas have been used with great success and very little abuse throughout Europe for over twenty years.
As an aside, I believe that the post might be interpreted as singling out Filipinos, and I see no reason for identifying the national background of the "nanny."