Motel manager Amanda Slade helps South Sea Islanders caught in visa ‘scam’

A Bundaberg mother and businesswoman has revealed the extraordinary lengths she went to in order to help ni-Vanuatu workers who had been left penniless by practice targeting South Sea Islanders brought into Australia to work on farms.

Wife, mother and business owner Amanda Slade was going about her busy working day when she was approached by South Sea Islander workers staying at her accommodation, The Palms Bargara, near Bundaberg.

They told her they were not getting any work, had no money, and asked her to help them with their visas.

Ms Slade noticed they couldn’t afford to pay for their accommodation and was shocked to hear they were not getting any work.

The workers trusted Amanda with their email accounts and IMMI accounts, an online service for visas, and she sprang into action, digging through payslips and looking at their visas to see what was going on.

Motel manager and human rights advocate Amanda Slade selflessly helped South Sea Islander workers re-engage with the PALM scheme after they fell victim to an alleged "dodgy" contractor that left them without enough money to cover everyday expenses.

She soon realised some people were only taking home between $100 and $200 a week.

“The further we looked into it, we realised there were huge visa costs coming off their payslips,” she said.

“We asked them what those costs were for and they told us they were for protection visas.”

Ms Slade searched online and found protection visas only cost $40, with huge deductions being taken by their employer.

“Urson Contracting been deducting up to $3000 from their weekly wages to get a protection visa and these guys had come over here on the 403 visa.”

Isagani “Chuck” Ursua from Urson Contracting has since told the NewsMail that after being approached by the Victorian Labor Board, he is now trying to refund all the workers “visa fees” after paying the Immigration Lawyer the expenses himself out of “goodwill.”

She continued her deep-dive, further discovering a list of approved PALM scheme and SWP employers.

The Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme allows Australian businesses to hire workers from 9 Pacific island countries and Timor-Leste when there are not enough local workers available.

The Seasonal Worker Program (SWP) has now been consolidated, reformed and replaced by the PALM stream.

“Urson Contracting wasn’t on those lists,” she said.

“It transpires that the same ni Vanuatu approached each of the workers from different farms across Australia and offered them better pay, better conditions better visa to work at Urson Contracting.”

Ms Slade said she was told this same story by a number of different workers.

When the South Sea Islanders approached for work started working for Urson Contracting, ongoing deductions of up to $250 a week for protections visas were being taken from their pays.

“I was devastated, absolutely devastated,” Ms Slade said.

“One man had $105 to live off after the deductions. With this $105, he still had to pay rent, buy mobile and food and send money home to his family.

“Nobody could live off that.”

Amanda Slade has spent thousands of dollars giving “conned” South Sea Islanders a roof over their heads, and getting them back onto the correct visa to continue working in Bundaberg so they can send money home to their families.

Ms Slade allowed troubled workers to live at her motel for free, footing the bill, which is still well in the thousands of dollars.

“You cannot put a price on human life,” she said.

It wasn’t long until the South Sea Islander workers heard what Ms Slade was doing to help people and more converged on The Palms.

Ms Slade told them they were on a 403 visa and applying for a protection visa would mean they were breaching their visa and would not be allowed to work.

“The more I looked into it, the more I believed it to be indentured labor. They were promised jobs, they had been promised these visas that they were not allowed to have and don’t actually require.

“Protection visas are for people coming from war-torn countries who genuinely need protection, but these workers didn’t understand what they were signing, they didn’t understand what was happening, they were conned.

“Once they joined this company and left their approved employer, they had these significant costs come out and lost access to travel documents though their immigration and Gmail accounts.”

Through further digging, she found the workers were allegedly introduced to an Immigration Agent by Urson’s whose office they never went to.

It’s believed the immigration lawyer went to Victorian farms to meet workers and lodged protection visa applications on their behalf.

Amanda Slade has allowed troubled workers to live at her motel for free, footing the bill, which is still well in the thousands of dollars.

“My colleagues started to help these guys, we got them access back into their immigration and Gmail accounts,” she said.

“One thing we noticed on the protection visas that were lodged was the same story with a slight variation time and time again.

“It was ‘land disputes’ or ‘very poor at home and needed to stay to support their families, therefore they need to stay here.

“I’m no immigration lawyer or specialist, but I believe the Contractor and Agent knew there was no way those protection visas would have ever gone through with those particular reasons.

“There’s 50 people from the same company using the same immigration lawyer, lodging the same application with slight variations of the words. It was a scam and I believe it to be pure criminal.

“The sad thing is that these guys didn’t have anyone to say to them “you can’t sign that contract” and they didn’t know what they were signing up for.

“I myself have signed things in the past that have been misleading and deceptive”“They were lured in with the promise of better pay and better conditions with a visa that would allow them to stay longer to send money home.

“Now they’re here with no working rights at all. “

Ms Slade worked day and night with the help of her colleagues, Blake Stam and Hannah Cackett to get the workers back onto the right visas for the PALM scheme, and started finding them work on farms run by approved employers.

She contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs, Member for Burnett Stephen Bennett’s office and Mark Zirnsak Uniting Church of Australia, who all pointed her in the right direction.

She has also been working alongside human rights law firm, Levitt Robinson.

“They’ve helped me in many ways. They’ve been brilliant.”

Hannah Cackett and Blake Stam, Amanda Slade's colleagues, also assisted South Sea islander workers desperately seeking help.

Ms Slade is no stranger to human rights work or helping her community.

When French backpacker Valentin Egger was left homeless after being ripped off by a local farm, she took him in.

Amanda represented an oasis in the desert of uncertainty and inhumane working conditions linked to the critical first few months of the pandemic, waves of workers escaping the cities and already grounded by greedy companies,” Mr Egger said.

“She offered me six weeks of free accommodation in her motel while looking for better work and guidance to my sensitive position as an international student.”

The mother-of-one is also one of Bundaberg’s best kept secrets on the social media front. She boasts a following into the thousands with her Mumspo Facebook page, which has since branched out to include Kmart Mums and Lunchbox Mums groups.

Her social media success saw her selected as a keynote speaker at Facebook’s Community Management conference last year to talk about building and connecting people across the world through online communities.

Ms Slade continues to be an advocate for human rights in Bundaberg by helping struggling Islander workers doing it tough locally and across the country.

“Despite what’s happened, I want to say there are some excellent and approved farm employers,” she said.

“I think Bundaberg gets the worst reputation when it comes to exploitation, it’s not always the case.

“Macadamias Australia are an incredible employer, I’ve had nothing but good feedback.

“I work with BundaGrow who is a contractor; he’s a local guy, and also employs lots of local people. There’s this fallacy out there locals don’t want to work on farms. It’s simply not true.”

She also credits Attard Family Farms, Steemsons and Mortimers as “great employers”.

Ms Slade is currently looking for financial assistance to open offices in each Australian state dedicated to helping workers with contracts and everything from bank cards to medicare.

“I certainly believe the Islanders need independant help that they can come to day-to-day.”