Scottish family deportation: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese slams ‘absurd’ migration system

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has branded Australia’s migration system ‘absurd’ as he spoke out about the Scottish family in Adelaide fighting to stay in the country.

Mark Green, 44, wife Kelly, 45, and daughter Rebecca, 19, were given a last-minute reprieve by Labor’s immigration minister Andrew Giles two weeks ago.

A series of broken promises by employers left the family stranded without a visa 10 years after emigrating from Ayrshire in central Scotland for a new life Down Under.

Despite being headhunted and flown out from Scotland to Australia for his specialist solar installation skills – and doing nothing wrong – the family were set to be kicked out of the country.

The row sparked global outrage and raised questions about why the Tamil family in Biloela, Queensland, who arrived by boat, were allowed to stay but the Greens were not.

Now the PM has admitted the skilled worker migration system is broken and needs to be fixed.

‘One of the things I can speak about is the absurdity of how we bring in temporary migrants in areas where there are skills shortages,’ he told 2GB’s Ben Fordham.

‘That to me doesn’t make any sense.’

Mr Albanese said he couldn’t directly discuss the Greens case as it was currently before the immigration minister with a decision to come within the next three weeks.

‘That’s with the minister at the moment,’ said the PM on Wednesday. ‘The minister has to make a decision objectively.’

They were hit by a new red tape wrangle this week when they were given just 24 hours to fill in 240 pages of paperwork on Monday, including details of all international travel from the past three decades.

But the form-filling was hampered by the destruction of the family’s old passports – containing the vital travel and visa details – when they were renewed earlier this year.

Now they are scrambling to retrace their steps from memory and family pictures – and are terrified of making a mistake which could cost them their visa. 

It’s another punishing blow for the family who have been let down seven times by companies sponsoring Mr Green.

The family has already spent $150,000 on visa applications and immigration lawyers but his employers have repeatedly gone bust before the mandatory three years of sponsorship for residency could be completed.

Another former boss even told Mr Green that he’d applied for the family’s citizenship and paid their fees – but faked the paperwork in a heartbreaking blow.

‘I’m still very stressed,’ admitted Mr Green, whose eldest son Jamie flew back to Scotland years ago after visa conditions stopped him from working in Australia. 

‘I came here to better my life and it’s just been an absolute nightmare. It’s just too much to handle in my head. 

‘The immigration department got in touch looking for more information so I’m just filling out endless forms now.’

The father-of-two told Daily Mail Australia: ‘Our problem is that we renewed our passports at the beginning of the year.

‘They give you an option: “Do you want your old passports back or you want us to get rid of it?”

‘I thought it was pointless keeping our old passports so I said just to get rid of it.’

They are now painstakingly piecing together all their international movements but are aware the clock is not on their side.

‘We were told to get these forms back to immigration by Tuesday afternoon, and the immigration minister wants the full case on his desk by August 29,’ Mr Green said.

The clan sold everything they had in Scotland when they left 10 years ago and have nothing awaiting them back in the UK.

They faced being homeless and jobless after Mr Green’s UK electrical certification expired while he was in Australia.

He added: ‘I was totally naive – I didn’t think anybody was like this. 

‘I thought it would all be smooth sailing – but I was just naive to it all.’

 

Why a hardworking family is being DEPORTED after paying taxes in Australia for more than 10 years – and they need your help to stay

This story about the harrowing plight of the Green family was published by Daily Mail Australia on August 10.  

Mark Green was headhunted for his specialist solar installation skills in 2012 and flown to Australia with his wife Kelly, 45, and daughter Rebecca, 19.

He moved to his new home with the promise of their permanent residency being sponsored by the company flying him in.

But every time he’s been eligible, the employers have folded before the paperwork could be completed – and it’s now happened seven times to the devastated family.

‘I don’t want to go home. I don’t. I really don’t…’ mother-of-two Kelly sobbed in their  empty Adelaide home after they sold off everything ahead of the family’s forced exit.

Relocating to the UK is set to cost $60,000 – and will force them to leave behind beloved pet dog Maisie because of the prohibitive $35,000 cost of flights and quarantine fees.

The Greens have already spent more than $150,000 on immigration lawyers and visa and residency applications but must leave the country before they can apply again.

‘We sold it all to come out here and then we started again,’ Mr Green told Daily Mail Australia. 

‘And now we’re having to sell it all, to go back to Scotland, to try and apply to come back again, to restart again. For the third time. 

‘I’m nearly 50. We can’t go through is anymore. There’s nothing for us back in Scotland now.’

He added: ‘This is where I live. This is where my heart is. It’ll never change. Even if I go back to Scotland, here is where I will class as home.’

The family have been on a sponsored work visa since arriving which has meant they need to pay for everything Australians take for granted, on top of paying their taxes. 

They were denied access to Medicare or free public state schooling for daughter Rebecca, which costs them $8,000 a year – but they say they paid without complaint.

‘It was the best day of our lives coming here. The best day ever,’ said Kelly, 45, originally from Kilbirnie, 40km south-west of Glasgow.

They want to stay in Australia permanently but currently just need their bridging visa changed from an E-type to a C-type to allow them to apply to stay without leaving.

The family has been undone by firms sponsoring Mark as an employee and starting a three year route to residency, but going bust before the process is complete.

‘The company went into liquidation and which means I have to start again, all three years, all over again,’ said Mr Green, originally from Prestwick, Ayrshire. 

‘That’s happened seven times to me. Most of them closed because of warranty issues – they don’t want to guarantee the warranty of the product.

‘It ends up costing them money, so what they do is they shut up shop and they open up under another business name.’ 

The final straw came after one employer told him he’d applied for the Greens’ residency and paid their fees – but hadn’t, causing them to unwittingly overstay their working visa.

‘I was let down by my former employer,’ he said. ‘I trusted him and he lied to me. 

‘The government has a responsibility to protect me as a foreign worker who was invited to come to Australia to work and was let down by an Australian company.’

Their son Jamie has already flown home to Scotland after the visa conditions meant he was unable to work in Australia for years.

The family has been fighting to stay in the country for a year but time is now running out and they’ve had to sell up ahead of next week’s deportation.

Mr Green won’t even be able to work in his industry when he arrives back in Scotland as his UK electrical qualifications are now out of date after a decade in Australia.

He has nothing in Scotland and nowhere to live, with his elderly parents unable to cope with the family joining them while they wait for their visa to be approved.

‘Everything I hoped for here is gone,’ said Mr Green. 

‘The stress is terrible. Absolutely terrible. It’s not fair. Not fair at all.

‘Nobody has been in contact with me about trying to sort this out. All they say to me is I have to leave the country.

‘My mum and dad are nearly 80 – as much as they would love to see us, they don’t want a family staying with them. It could take up to two years.

‘I thought I’d have my own company and my own home by now but instead our life is in turmoil.’

Their case has now been taken up by Adelaide politician Frank Pangallo, who compared them to the Tamilese Murugappan family from Bilgoela in Queensland, who had their visa conditions changed to let them stay despite arriving by boat.

‘They didn’t do it legally, unlike the Greens, and they got preferential treatment,’ Mr Pangallo, of South Australia’s Best Party told Daily Mail Australia.

‘Forcing a family to leave a country they’ve called home for 10 years simply to return to their country of origin to re-apply to return to Oz seems pointless and ridiculous.

‘And this is all happening while governments grapple with changes to the country’s skilled migration program due to massive shortages across the country.’

A plea to the previous Liberal immigration minister Alex Hawke was rejected and fresh appeal to the new Labor immigration minister Andrew Giles has fallen on deaf ears.

Mr Pangallo added: ‘If you want skilled migrants to come into this country, you better give them an undertaking they’ll be able to stay here and not be booted out when it suits you. 

‘It’s absolutely disgusting.’

A spokesman for Mr Giles insisted the immigration minister never commented on individual cases, despite commenting extensively on the Biloela case.

She then told Daily Mail Australia: ‘The minister does not comment on the individual circumstances regarding the Green family.’