In a week, Popi’s household of full employment went to a bare six hours a week. Four foreign nationals on temporary work visas, they watched in disbelief as, in turn, they endured layoff after layoff after layoff.
As the Australian government has swung into action to counter the economic chaos of the coronavirus pandemic, outlaying public money to support businesses and a new jobkeeper wage subsidy to keep money in the pockets of employees laid off, Australia’s million-strong migrant workforce has been conspicuously absent.
There are more than 1.1 million temporary workers in Australia – international students, working holidaymakers, bridging visa holders, those on temporary protection or safe haven visas – most are ineligible for all of the government’s assistance packages.
Migrant workers have been acutely affected by the widespread layoffs as a result of Covid-19. Many work in hospitality, retail and services, some of the industries hit hardest by shutdowns, and few have family and community networks they can turn to.
Popi, a 24-year-old Argentinian on the second year of a working holiday visa, has had her hours working in a Wollongong cafe cut back to a bare six hours a week, not even enough to cover her rent, and even that is more an act of generosity than economic rationality.
“My boss says he would probably be better off closed, but he keeps the cafe open for short hours, just so I, and other workers, have some work, have an income.”
She says her employer, and her community, has rallied to support those hardest hit by the cuts.
“We have food in the freezer, food in the fridge, and that’s because people have been helping us. But for a lot of people it’s going to be very, very hard. They have no income at all, and we are watching our savings disappear.
“I am constantly talking with my friends and we are trying to support each other, sending messages ‘don’t get to the point of being hungry, we are all here to help’.”
Popi says she is hopeful she might be able to have her rent relaxed, but says other migrant workers face the very real prospect of destitution or being left homeless. Others have spent thousands from dwindling savings accounts trying to book flights home that have ultimately been cancelled.
Popi can’t get home. The borders of Argentina are closed, even to citizens, and there are no flights.
“Everywhere is closed. There is nowhere I can go.”
More than a million people in Australia on temporary visas are excluded from the government’s jobkeeper and other support payments such as Newstart: about 500,000 international students, 140,000 working holidaymarkers, 120,000 skilled temporary entrants, 200,000 bridging visa holders (largely partner visa applicants or asylum seekers), and more than 16,000 temporary protection visa holders (refugees Australia is legally obliged to protect).
Peter Mares from the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership and the author of Not Quite Australian: How Temporary Migration is Changing the Nation, said governments faced a hugely complex and evolving set of problems trying to counter the economic devastation of the Covid-19 shutdown.
But he said Australia had an obligation to support the temporary migrants it had invited into the country and on whose labour the Australian economy depends.
“I would argue temporary visa holders need to get some sort of support if they are stuck in Australia and they can’t go home and can’t find work. People cannot be left with nothing, with no income to survive. People also need to be supported as a public health issue.
“We’re seeing both the implications of high levels of casualisation in the workforce and high levels of temporary migrant labour in the workforce, and what happens when their jobs suddenly disappear.”
Mares said Covid-19 had wreaked havoc on Australia’s migrant labour market, in some cases in contradictory fashion: some local mayors were telling people “don’t come to our shire”, while farmers in the same shire were urging potential workers “we still need labour”.
“In some cases too, we still need that labour, it’s important that produce gets picked, it’s important that temporary visa holders working in aged care or as cleaners in hospitals, stay in that work, that is essential.”
The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia chief executive, Peter Strong, said the ineligibility of most temporary visa workers to access the jobkeeper payment was “definitely a concern”.
“Industries have brought these people in to do work, … we’ve got to look at that, beyond a doubt,” he said.
Asked directly on Monday whether temporary visa holders were eligible for the jobkeeper wage subsidy, prime minister Scott Morrison said “such matters are under consideration”.
“But for now, the short answer to that is ‘no’.”
British national Niall Harden, a full-time food and beverage supervisor at Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art, was stood down on 27 March after the museum closed its doors. Harden said he felt well-supported by his employer, which has committed to two weeks’ pay beyond his leave entitlement, but after that, he fears there are few prospects.
“I’m looking around for other work but my experience is all in hospitality and tourism which is absolutely dead in the water. The idea of job-hunting in the Tasmanian winter is pretty disheartening. We certainly can’t survive six months with no household income. I haven’t received a reply from our landlord yet about whether we can pay reduced rent.”
Harden says moving back to the UK was not a realistic option – after five years in Australia there is not a physical home to go back to – but may be his only choice.
“To pack up five years worth of life and abandon the pathway to permanent residency that has taken so long would seriously impact my mental health, and for what: to go and claim benefits in a different country? And I don’t reckon we’d be eligible for anything there either.”
Harden said he was devastated by Morrison’s response to a question on the situation of visa holders, when the prime minister said New Zealand migrants “have built a life here” in Australia.
“It left me feeling physically sick. Like, ‘what the fuck do you think the rest of us are doing?’”
