Heartbroken Scottish family deported from new home in Australia

A family is in tatters after being forced to leave Australia due to visa issues despite putting down roots for the past 10 years.

A Scottish family will be deported from Australia on Wednesday despite calling the country home for the past 10 years.

The Greens moved to Australia in 2012 after 44-year-old electrical expert Mark Green was headhunted by a solar installation company.

Along with wife Kelly, 45, and daughter Rebecca, 19, Mr Green planned to make a new life in Adelaide.

However, despite promises by the employer to sponsor the family’s permanent residency, the plans fell through when the company went bust.

Since then Mr Green has repeatedly attempted to find work that will allow his family to remain in Australia and has been similarly let down.

The disappointing cycle has repeated seven times, with one company even saying it had applied for the family’s permanent residency and paid their fees when it had not.

The Green family will be forced to return to Scotland on Wednesday despite living in Australia for the past 10 years and putting down roots in Adelaide. Picture: A Current Affair

“Most of them (solar companies) closed because of warranty issues – they don’t want to guarantee the warranty of the product,” Mr Green told A Current Affair.

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

Each time Mr Green was forced to start his three-year visa term from scratch despite the businesses failing through no fault of his own.

“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,” he said.

2GB radio host Ben Fordham compared the case to that of the Sri Lankan Murugappan family who were granted permanent residency on Friday and allowed to stay in Biloela in Central Queensland.

The family was held in detention for four years – including Australian-born daughters Kopika and Tharnicaa who are both under 10.

They spent two years at the Christmas Island detention facility before being moved to community detention in Perth to allow the youngest daughter to receive medical treatment for a blood infection.

The Sri Lankan Murugappan family have been granted permanent residency following a harrowing visa ordeal.

Biloela residents campaigned passionately for the Murugappan family to be allowed to stay in their community, prompting a promise by the Labor Party to do so if it won the last election.

In announcing the family’s permanent residency last week, Immigration Minister Alex Giles said it was done with, “careful consideration of the Nadesalingam family’s complex and specific circumstances”.

However Fordham argued, “Don’t ignore the double standard here – the minister is happy to show compassion when there’s enough publicity for him to look like a hero.

“He’ll step in to help one family but allow another to be kicked out of Australia. It exposes the hypocrisy of the federal government and politics of large.”

Expert solar installer Mark Green has had the disappointing cycle of companies going bust and having to start the visa process from scratch occur seven times. Picture: A Current Affair

The Green family say relocating to the UK will cost them around $60,000 – and they will be forced to say goodbye to pet dog Maisie due to the prohibitive $35,000 cost of flights and quarantine.

Daughter Rebecca has been in Australia since she was nine, completing her schooling and making plans to attend university.

“I wanted to study at uni with my friends after high school. We were going to go into aged care,” she said.

Back in Scotland, the family don’t even have a place to live, and having been in Australia so long, Mr Green’s highly sought-after qualifications have lapsed.

“No house, no job prospects, my electrical over here will be void back home because I’ve been gone for more than a decade,” he said.

Daughter Rebecca has been in Australia since she was nine and was planning on studying aged care at university with her friends. Image: A Current Affair

In the lead-up to their scheduled deportation, the Green family called for their bridging visa to be changed from an E-type to a C-type to allow them to apply to stay in Australia while they applied for permanent status.

“This is where my heart is,” Mr Green said. “It will never change, even when I go back to Scotland, I will class here as home.

“If they just look into the case, maybe give me a phone and ask me what happened I can tell them the truth and get this sorted for us.”