(Australia in the eyes of a migrant)
Sitting quietly and playing joyfully with my train of thoughts inside an almost pack train carriage as it takes me from the bit far west suburb towards the bustling city centre of Sydney. The train car where I used to sit and settle day in and day out is filled with the usual herds of people and workers like me, as each one of us tries our own way of eking out a living in the so-called “big smoke”. I am trying so hard to fight off my sleepiness as I watch the unfolding of the changing landscape from the dotted houses of the suburb as it gradually turns into a dense of houses and structures as my train approaches the main city centre. My thoughts are almost the same as the rapidly changing landscape. From something clear and well spaced into getting a bit cluttered and fast paced. I’m already used into taking this one hour early morning trip to my work destination at Darling Harbour where I work as a kitchen hand in an Italian restaurant. I told myself that this is just one of those early morning journeys that I’ve been taking for more than half a year now. But then something struck my mind somehow. Questions suddenly popped out and cut short my train of thoughts on its tracks. ‘Where am I really heading?’ ‘What is really my journey all about?”
My thoughts began to operate like a rolodex of events from my recent past. I, my partner and our two daughters aged thirteen (13) and fourteen (14) were all here in Sydney primarily due to circumstances of survival. Though, we all started out here in Australia in a rather personal and sleepy town north of New South Wales, called Bellingen. Settled in a very beautiful valley about six (6) hours drive from Sydney with its inhabitants of more than 12,000 people, it’s a place more than blissful and idyllic. Once you’ve experienced living there even for a few months, you would never like to trade living anywhere else. People who managed to experience what I’m describing call Bellingen a sort of a magical paradise.
Yet our awful experience in the said paradise is what I’m having a hard time to comprehend with even up to this day. My partner arrived there first on a 457 visa way back in February 2007 and five (5) months ahead of us. Though officially sponsored as a Marketing Specialist, she was made to work then in the restaurant owned by our sponsor/employers for more than two (2) months without any pay. She was told by our sponsor/employers that she can stay first in their house where their family also resides and then later on in one of the rooms of a flat on top of the said restaurant. She was once asked at one point by our sponsor/employer if she wants her partner and our daughters to join her here in Australia and she naturally answer in the affirmative. After five (5) months of paper works by our sponsor/employers, their hired migrant agent and us, we eventually landed into Sydney airport on the 27th of July 2007 and almost immediately took the train towards the north coast and into the loving arms of Bellingen.
After about two (2) days of acclimatizing ourselves in our new surroundings, I was told by our sponsor/employer that I will also work in their restaurant and that we can also stay in the same flat where my partner stays. Our two (2) daughters were able to enter and study at a very wonderful Rudolf Steiner school. My regular work at the said restaurant involves being a kitchen hand, dish washing, dining attendant (wait person), barista, polishing cutleries and drinking glasses, cleaning toilets, the garbage bins, the immediate surroundings and securing the property and premises of the said restaurant. My alternate work for our sponsor/employers is attending to the needs and customers of the gallery which they also owns, carrying and moving heavy things, joining and alternately driving with my sponsor/employer to his numerous out of town trade fairs, selling and promoting jewelleries in the said trade fairs, helping out carry heavy things and arranging them in their warehouse, being a handy person and running all sorts of errands for our sponsor/employers.
I worked hard and tried to give my best in the numerous tasks given to me by our said sponsor/employers. It is both a working and learning experience for me as I perform and fulfil the work given to me, despite me being subjected to occasional verbal abuses, shaming and harassments by our sponsor/employers. I worked for our sponsor/employers for an average of fifty four (54) hours and sometimes even more every week with a net pay of A$100 or A$1.85/hour or less and thereafter for the next eight (8) months until the 20th of March 2008, of which me and my partner started receiving in another bank account, supposedly as our savings, an additional A$288.58 for the same number of working hours in a week. This is after my partner had been working for more than a year in the said restaurant. One Sunday morning sometime on the first week of July 2008 and before I reach my one year of working, our sponsor/employer called me and my partner for a meeting at his gallery. In the said meeting he told us that he will now be giving us A$500 each every week. Our meeting that day ended on that note, but little did we realize that our sponsor/employer did not tell us the finer details of his new proposed pay scheme for us. When we started receiving his proposed pay amount in the bank starting on the 16th of July 2008, we were told that the A$500 that each of us will be receiving is but our gross pay and when our sponsor/employer made all the deductions against the said amount we were left with a net pay of A$90 each week.
When I reached my one (1) year of working with our sponsor/employers, I hopefully waited for them to initiate a talk to me and possibly make changes in our pay scheme. But my one (1) year of working for our sponsor/employers had passed without them mentioning anything, not even any of my due entitlements. So before another month passed, I have come to a conclusion that no change of our pay scheme is forthcoming and sometime on the 22nd of August 2008 I requested for an audience with our sponsor/employer. In the said discussion I open up to my sponsor/employer that he had seen both the quantity and quality of my work and since I have worked for them for more than a year, maybe I have finally paid whatever they supposedly said we owe them and if it’s possible that they start paying us a reasonable amount of money for our work. Since our sponsor/employer keeps on mentioning and complaining in many instances how hard and difficult it is for them to make a financial turnaround of their restaurant, I told him that we are not even requesting them for us to be paid on a standard rate but only a reasonable amount of pay that would just be enough to enable us to keep up with the rising cost of living and also to give us standard working time schedules that would make it possible for me to augment our earnings by doing some work elsewhere during my free time.
Our sponsor/employer, though irritated of me opening up our pay issue, suggested that we give them our proposed pay scheme and they’ll discuss it with their accountant. After we submitted our new proposed pay scheme, though not up to the Australian standard rate of pay, yet we think is reasonable enough for us to be able to survive, intense series of discussions and debates ensued between us and our sponsor/employer that lasted in a couple of weeks. Our sponsor/employers and their accountant eventually came up with a counter proposal pay scheme of A$753.36 (taxes and house rental deducted already) for both of us, that we think is reasonable enough for us to be able to survive and we agreed to it. We also followed through with a request that the agreed terms of our new pay scheme be retroactive from the 16th of July 2008 where our net pay went down to A$90 each per week. After all of our discussions have been concluded, our sponsor/employer told me not just once that he has these feelings that things will get worst between us and I told him that I believe otherwise and if what he thinks will eventually happen me or my partner will not be contributing anything to make it so.
After a week or so, the treatment of our sponsor/employers to me started to become even more nasty, harsh and rude. I really feel totally harassed and violated by their behaviour towards me. I have noticed that these are the same treatment our sponsor/employers do to their other employees if they want them out and if their employees could no longer handle their unacceptable treatments towards them, they would just simply resign. Despite these treatments, I still continue to dispense my work and duties as professionally as possible and besides, I simply don’t have the luxury of resigning because of our visa conditions. This kind of treatment towards me went on for about less than two (2) months and maybe when our sponsor/employers concluded that I intend to stay put in my work even in the face of their unacceptable behaviours, he decided to terminate my employment last 19th of October 2008. The next day, the 20th of October 2008, I handed to our sponsor/employer a letter requesting him to give me my Certificate of Service and other entitlements due me, but he simply kept on foot dragging on my said request. In addition to these unacceptable behaviours, our sponsor/employers handed us on the 21st of October 2008 a Notice of Eviction advising us to vacate the flat where we are staying within sixty (60) days. In the following day on the 23rd of October 2008, our sponsor/employers issued a letter of termination to my partner, advising her that her last day of work will be on the 21st of November 2008.
The day before our sponsor/employers gave the letter of termination to my partner we already filed the appropriate complaints to the Workplace Ombudsman (WO), who in turn patched us up to representatives of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) so we can notify them of our situation. We also made and filed the appropriate complaint letter to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). We also submitted a letter of request to the Minister of the DIAC, Senator Chris Evans to look into our case; since our sponsor/employer insinuated to us at one time ‘if we don’t think that the Australian government is not siding with businesses?’ We submitted all our complaints to the said government agencies with our corresponding evidentiary documents we’ve collected so far to back up our claims.
A great number of kind hearted individuals in Bellingen, our friends and friends of our daughters, both Australians and Filipinos alike tried to pull all of their meagre resources and whatever efforts to help us get by with our daily living in the town. Few of our friends even offered their houses for us to stay, but we accepted the offer of one of the parents of our daughters who stays near the town centre while they are away on a holiday. Our friends and especially the friends of our daughters were all reduced to tears when we finally said our goodbyes to them as we held a last get together gathering at Mylestom beach on the day before we left Bellingen. The situation is really heart breaking as each one of them even wrote letters or committed to write letters addressed to the Minister of the DIAC requesting us to be allowed to stay in Bellingen, if not in Australia. A number of our friends there even organised and launched last March 2009 a sort of fund raising concert to assist our family financially. These gestures really offset and far outweigh the tragic experiences we had in Bellingen.
My partner and I tried our very best in looking and finding for another sponsor/employer before our period of finding one lapsed. We made the little town library as our “office” for a couple of months in making the necessary letters of application and resumes. Sending these out through the post to almost five hundred people and entities all over Australia for any possibilities whatsoever of helping us find another sponsor/employer. Our daughters and their friends even put up a number of signages around town for people to help us find a possible sponsor/employer. Having little or no chances of being able to find another sponsor/employer in Bellingen and its surrounding area, we asked our case officer at the DIAC if it’s possible for us to look for possible sponsor/employer in the city like Sydney. Since, about five people we wrote to found our letters worth looking into are from Sydney, we arranged to hitch a ride from Bellingen to Sydney before the end of December 2008. Much as the people who responded to us wants to be of help in being our possible sponsor/employer, yet they think that the enormity of sponsoring us is just too much for them considering the current global financial crisis and the impending threat of recession. With the help of fellow Filipinos who sympathises with our plight, I was able to find work in the restaurant I mentioned beforehand. They also helped us find a modest place to stay somewhere in a bit far west side of the city. A Filipino priest also assisted us in finding a school to accommodate our two (2) daughters. Since with the type of visas we have, the Department of Education is requiring us to pay A$4,500.00 each for our daughters upfront before they can be accommodated at any State school.
When we finally made our move to Sydney, my daughters have yet to dry their tears and they already felt pitiful as we all slept on the floor of the rooms we rented. Since we don’t have any bed or beddings at the moment and the only things we brought are sleeping bags. They even asked me if I think our situation now is better than the one we left in Bellingen. I tried explaining to them that I apologize for our situation, but I assured them that we are trying our best as their parents to make things better for all of us and our situation on the surface may not be better than before, but at least we are no longer slaves.
Though deep inside, I also ask myself about my journey. ‘Is this really where I’m heading?’ I will never be able to see where I’m heading if I will not look back where my journey started. Looking back, our journey did not really start from Bellingen. It actually started more than twenty (20) years ago, when we first met our sponsor/employer back in the Philippines. We were both buying tribal handicrafts then somewhere in the mountainous northern part of the Philippines. He is selling the products he bought in his own country, which is Israel, while we sell ours in the city of Manila. The three (3) of us became friends right there and then and we even joined the bus ride going back to the city. Since then he visits the Philippines like an average of three (3) to four (4) times in a year to buy other handicrafts and he stays in our house whenever he’s in Manila. He would sometimes invite us to accompany him in his tour on some parts of the country or request us to go to some places where foreigners are not quite safe to go to. We even introduced him and got to know all our relatives in the passing of the years. Our relationship with our sponsor/employer could very well explain, that when some people would asks us about why we allowed or why the exploitation of our sponsor/employers took this long - because there is an element of trust in our relationship. A trust that he just betrayed and violated without circumspect, allowing even our friendship to be thrown out of the window. It is even rather ironic that deep inside me I cannot fathom the fact that knowing our sponsor/employers who were both Jews came from a race that were victimized by slavery for centuries and atrocities of Hitler would condone, let alone do such despicable things.
Honestly, I myself don’t know what lies ahead of us, especially that day when I talked to our sponsor/employer when I raised about the issue of our wages. But I definitely know what I’m doing or where I’m heading – I’m taking back the power and dignity that was taken away from us. I and my family are not victims here of the so-called global financial crisis or recession, but we are rather victim of systems long renounced, resented, rescinded and rebuked by human civilization – which are trafficking, exploitation and slavery.
Up to this day, the Workplace Inspector who handled our case and the WO have yet to fully resolved our case and the so-called ‘Finalisation of the Investigation to your Complaint/s’ that he released is totally lop sided in favour of all the things that our sponsor/employers have been claiming. It seems we are still very far from getting justice we rightfully deserve as the DIAC and the ATO have yet to notify us also about any update whatsoever on the complaints we filed in their respective offices. Now, as if being exploited by our so-called friend, worked like slaves with pauper salary, terminated without due cause, evicted from the house where we live, subjected to injustices and on top of not being eligible for any unemployment assistance and paying for our own health insurance are not enough, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) just cancelled our visas. We have now brought our visa issues with the Migration Review Tribunal (MRT) and with the help of our very sympathetic migration agent, we successfully applied to the DIAC a kind of bridging visas without working and studying restrictions.
I and my family are all highly and immensely grateful to the Australian government for giving us the chance to come here and prove our worth of being a productive member of the society. After living here for more than two (2) years we have already made this country our home and intend to continue doing so as lawfully as possible. Based on our stay in Australia though brief, we have come to see and realized that our sponsor/employers may have failed us in so many ways and that goes too to a couple of government entities, yet we honestly believe that the dynamic and vibrant society of Australia ensures not to fail its inhabitants, especially the exploited and downtrodden sectors of society whose only intention of coming here is to make an honest living. We have violated no laws, persons nor properties, but we are such in a quandary as to what are the possible and lawful recourse or assistance, available and accessible to us in relation to our status and our intentions of making Australia our home and further contribute in nation building and society.
Whatever will be the outcome with regard to our earnest effort in pursuit of justice, I do hope that lessons will eventually and ultimately be learned from our experiences even by those people who came before us and for those who’ll come after us. For the government and the Australian society in general shall be remembered for this and in the end I shall quote a phrase from the Australian national anthem explicitly mentioning people like us, ‘For those who’ve come across the seas We’ve boundless plains to share; With courage let us all combine To Advance Australia Fair’.
My thoughts began to operate like a rolodex of events from my recent past. I, my partner and our two daughters aged thirteen (13) and fourteen (14) were all here in Sydney primarily due to circumstances of survival. Though, we all started out here in Australia in a rather personal and sleepy town north of New South Wales, called Bellingen. Settled in a very beautiful valley about six (6) hours drive from Sydney with its inhabitants of more than 12,000 people, it’s a place more than blissful and idyllic. Once you’ve experienced living there even for a few months, you would never like to trade living anywhere else. People who managed to experience what I’m describing call Bellingen a sort of a magical paradise.
Yet our awful experience in the said paradise is what I’m having a hard time to comprehend with even up to this day. My partner arrived there first on a 457 visa way back in February 2007 and five (5) months ahead of us. Though officially sponsored as a Marketing Specialist, she was made to work then in the restaurant owned by our sponsor/employers for more than two (2) months without any pay. She was told by our sponsor/employers that she can stay first in their house where their family also resides and then later on in one of the rooms of a flat on top of the said restaurant. She was once asked at one point by our sponsor/employer if she wants her partner and our daughters to join her here in Australia and she naturally answer in the affirmative. After five (5) months of paper works by our sponsor/employers, their hired migrant agent and us, we eventually landed into Sydney airport on the 27th of July 2007 and almost immediately took the train towards the north coast and into the loving arms of Bellingen.
After about two (2) days of acclimatizing ourselves in our new surroundings, I was told by our sponsor/employer that I will also work in their restaurant and that we can also stay in the same flat where my partner stays. Our two (2) daughters were able to enter and study at a very wonderful Rudolf Steiner school. My regular work at the said restaurant involves being a kitchen hand, dish washing, dining attendant (wait person), barista, polishing cutleries and drinking glasses, cleaning toilets, the garbage bins, the immediate surroundings and securing the property and premises of the said restaurant. My alternate work for our sponsor/employers is attending to the needs and customers of the gallery which they also owns, carrying and moving heavy things, joining and alternately driving with my sponsor/employer to his numerous out of town trade fairs, selling and promoting jewelleries in the said trade fairs, helping out carry heavy things and arranging them in their warehouse, being a handy person and running all sorts of errands for our sponsor/employers.
I worked hard and tried to give my best in the numerous tasks given to me by our said sponsor/employers. It is both a working and learning experience for me as I perform and fulfil the work given to me, despite me being subjected to occasional verbal abuses, shaming and harassments by our sponsor/employers. I worked for our sponsor/employers for an average of fifty four (54) hours and sometimes even more every week with a net pay of A$100 or A$1.85/hour or less and thereafter for the next eight (8) months until the 20th of March 2008, of which me and my partner started receiving in another bank account, supposedly as our savings, an additional A$288.58 for the same number of working hours in a week. This is after my partner had been working for more than a year in the said restaurant. One Sunday morning sometime on the first week of July 2008 and before I reach my one year of working, our sponsor/employer called me and my partner for a meeting at his gallery. In the said meeting he told us that he will now be giving us A$500 each every week. Our meeting that day ended on that note, but little did we realize that our sponsor/employer did not tell us the finer details of his new proposed pay scheme for us. When we started receiving his proposed pay amount in the bank starting on the 16th of July 2008, we were told that the A$500 that each of us will be receiving is but our gross pay and when our sponsor/employer made all the deductions against the said amount we were left with a net pay of A$90 each week.
When I reached my one (1) year of working with our sponsor/employers, I hopefully waited for them to initiate a talk to me and possibly make changes in our pay scheme. But my one (1) year of working for our sponsor/employers had passed without them mentioning anything, not even any of my due entitlements. So before another month passed, I have come to a conclusion that no change of our pay scheme is forthcoming and sometime on the 22nd of August 2008 I requested for an audience with our sponsor/employer. In the said discussion I open up to my sponsor/employer that he had seen both the quantity and quality of my work and since I have worked for them for more than a year, maybe I have finally paid whatever they supposedly said we owe them and if it’s possible that they start paying us a reasonable amount of money for our work. Since our sponsor/employer keeps on mentioning and complaining in many instances how hard and difficult it is for them to make a financial turnaround of their restaurant, I told him that we are not even requesting them for us to be paid on a standard rate but only a reasonable amount of pay that would just be enough to enable us to keep up with the rising cost of living and also to give us standard working time schedules that would make it possible for me to augment our earnings by doing some work elsewhere during my free time.
Our sponsor/employer, though irritated of me opening up our pay issue, suggested that we give them our proposed pay scheme and they’ll discuss it with their accountant. After we submitted our new proposed pay scheme, though not up to the Australian standard rate of pay, yet we think is reasonable enough for us to be able to survive, intense series of discussions and debates ensued between us and our sponsor/employer that lasted in a couple of weeks. Our sponsor/employers and their accountant eventually came up with a counter proposal pay scheme of A$753.36 (taxes and house rental deducted already) for both of us, that we think is reasonable enough for us to be able to survive and we agreed to it. We also followed through with a request that the agreed terms of our new pay scheme be retroactive from the 16th of July 2008 where our net pay went down to A$90 each per week. After all of our discussions have been concluded, our sponsor/employer told me not just once that he has these feelings that things will get worst between us and I told him that I believe otherwise and if what he thinks will eventually happen me or my partner will not be contributing anything to make it so.
After a week or so, the treatment of our sponsor/employers to me started to become even more nasty, harsh and rude. I really feel totally harassed and violated by their behaviour towards me. I have noticed that these are the same treatment our sponsor/employers do to their other employees if they want them out and if their employees could no longer handle their unacceptable treatments towards them, they would just simply resign. Despite these treatments, I still continue to dispense my work and duties as professionally as possible and besides, I simply don’t have the luxury of resigning because of our visa conditions. This kind of treatment towards me went on for about less than two (2) months and maybe when our sponsor/employers concluded that I intend to stay put in my work even in the face of their unacceptable behaviours, he decided to terminate my employment last 19th of October 2008. The next day, the 20th of October 2008, I handed to our sponsor/employer a letter requesting him to give me my Certificate of Service and other entitlements due me, but he simply kept on foot dragging on my said request. In addition to these unacceptable behaviours, our sponsor/employers handed us on the 21st of October 2008 a Notice of Eviction advising us to vacate the flat where we are staying within sixty (60) days. In the following day on the 23rd of October 2008, our sponsor/employers issued a letter of termination to my partner, advising her that her last day of work will be on the 21st of November 2008.
The day before our sponsor/employers gave the letter of termination to my partner we already filed the appropriate complaints to the Workplace Ombudsman (WO), who in turn patched us up to representatives of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) so we can notify them of our situation. We also made and filed the appropriate complaint letter to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). We also submitted a letter of request to the Minister of the DIAC, Senator Chris Evans to look into our case; since our sponsor/employer insinuated to us at one time ‘if we don’t think that the Australian government is not siding with businesses?’ We submitted all our complaints to the said government agencies with our corresponding evidentiary documents we’ve collected so far to back up our claims.
A great number of kind hearted individuals in Bellingen, our friends and friends of our daughters, both Australians and Filipinos alike tried to pull all of their meagre resources and whatever efforts to help us get by with our daily living in the town. Few of our friends even offered their houses for us to stay, but we accepted the offer of one of the parents of our daughters who stays near the town centre while they are away on a holiday. Our friends and especially the friends of our daughters were all reduced to tears when we finally said our goodbyes to them as we held a last get together gathering at Mylestom beach on the day before we left Bellingen. The situation is really heart breaking as each one of them even wrote letters or committed to write letters addressed to the Minister of the DIAC requesting us to be allowed to stay in Bellingen, if not in Australia. A number of our friends there even organised and launched last March 2009 a sort of fund raising concert to assist our family financially. These gestures really offset and far outweigh the tragic experiences we had in Bellingen.
My partner and I tried our very best in looking and finding for another sponsor/employer before our period of finding one lapsed. We made the little town library as our “office” for a couple of months in making the necessary letters of application and resumes. Sending these out through the post to almost five hundred people and entities all over Australia for any possibilities whatsoever of helping us find another sponsor/employer. Our daughters and their friends even put up a number of signages around town for people to help us find a possible sponsor/employer. Having little or no chances of being able to find another sponsor/employer in Bellingen and its surrounding area, we asked our case officer at the DIAC if it’s possible for us to look for possible sponsor/employer in the city like Sydney. Since, about five people we wrote to found our letters worth looking into are from Sydney, we arranged to hitch a ride from Bellingen to Sydney before the end of December 2008. Much as the people who responded to us wants to be of help in being our possible sponsor/employer, yet they think that the enormity of sponsoring us is just too much for them considering the current global financial crisis and the impending threat of recession. With the help of fellow Filipinos who sympathises with our plight, I was able to find work in the restaurant I mentioned beforehand. They also helped us find a modest place to stay somewhere in a bit far west side of the city. A Filipino priest also assisted us in finding a school to accommodate our two (2) daughters. Since with the type of visas we have, the Department of Education is requiring us to pay A$4,500.00 each for our daughters upfront before they can be accommodated at any State school.
When we finally made our move to Sydney, my daughters have yet to dry their tears and they already felt pitiful as we all slept on the floor of the rooms we rented. Since we don’t have any bed or beddings at the moment and the only things we brought are sleeping bags. They even asked me if I think our situation now is better than the one we left in Bellingen. I tried explaining to them that I apologize for our situation, but I assured them that we are trying our best as their parents to make things better for all of us and our situation on the surface may not be better than before, but at least we are no longer slaves.
Though deep inside, I also ask myself about my journey. ‘Is this really where I’m heading?’ I will never be able to see where I’m heading if I will not look back where my journey started. Looking back, our journey did not really start from Bellingen. It actually started more than twenty (20) years ago, when we first met our sponsor/employer back in the Philippines. We were both buying tribal handicrafts then somewhere in the mountainous northern part of the Philippines. He is selling the products he bought in his own country, which is Israel, while we sell ours in the city of Manila. The three (3) of us became friends right there and then and we even joined the bus ride going back to the city. Since then he visits the Philippines like an average of three (3) to four (4) times in a year to buy other handicrafts and he stays in our house whenever he’s in Manila. He would sometimes invite us to accompany him in his tour on some parts of the country or request us to go to some places where foreigners are not quite safe to go to. We even introduced him and got to know all our relatives in the passing of the years. Our relationship with our sponsor/employer could very well explain, that when some people would asks us about why we allowed or why the exploitation of our sponsor/employers took this long - because there is an element of trust in our relationship. A trust that he just betrayed and violated without circumspect, allowing even our friendship to be thrown out of the window. It is even rather ironic that deep inside me I cannot fathom the fact that knowing our sponsor/employers who were both Jews came from a race that were victimized by slavery for centuries and atrocities of Hitler would condone, let alone do such despicable things.
Honestly, I myself don’t know what lies ahead of us, especially that day when I talked to our sponsor/employer when I raised about the issue of our wages. But I definitely know what I’m doing or where I’m heading – I’m taking back the power and dignity that was taken away from us. I and my family are not victims here of the so-called global financial crisis or recession, but we are rather victim of systems long renounced, resented, rescinded and rebuked by human civilization – which are trafficking, exploitation and slavery.
Up to this day, the Workplace Inspector who handled our case and the WO have yet to fully resolved our case and the so-called ‘Finalisation of the Investigation to your Complaint/s’ that he released is totally lop sided in favour of all the things that our sponsor/employers have been claiming. It seems we are still very far from getting justice we rightfully deserve as the DIAC and the ATO have yet to notify us also about any update whatsoever on the complaints we filed in their respective offices. Now, as if being exploited by our so-called friend, worked like slaves with pauper salary, terminated without due cause, evicted from the house where we live, subjected to injustices and on top of not being eligible for any unemployment assistance and paying for our own health insurance are not enough, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) just cancelled our visas. We have now brought our visa issues with the Migration Review Tribunal (MRT) and with the help of our very sympathetic migration agent, we successfully applied to the DIAC a kind of bridging visas without working and studying restrictions.
I and my family are all highly and immensely grateful to the Australian government for giving us the chance to come here and prove our worth of being a productive member of the society. After living here for more than two (2) years we have already made this country our home and intend to continue doing so as lawfully as possible. Based on our stay in Australia though brief, we have come to see and realized that our sponsor/employers may have failed us in so many ways and that goes too to a couple of government entities, yet we honestly believe that the dynamic and vibrant society of Australia ensures not to fail its inhabitants, especially the exploited and downtrodden sectors of society whose only intention of coming here is to make an honest living. We have violated no laws, persons nor properties, but we are such in a quandary as to what are the possible and lawful recourse or assistance, available and accessible to us in relation to our status and our intentions of making Australia our home and further contribute in nation building and society.
Whatever will be the outcome with regard to our earnest effort in pursuit of justice, I do hope that lessons will eventually and ultimately be learned from our experiences even by those people who came before us and for those who’ll come after us. For the government and the Australian society in general shall be remembered for this and in the end I shall quote a phrase from the Australian national anthem explicitly mentioning people like us, ‘For those who’ve come across the seas We’ve boundless plains to share; With courage let us all combine To Advance Australia Fair’.
5 August 2009
