The summer holiday period is a time to bring the family together but for Martin Ward the new year brings an agonising choice that may tear his apart.

Ward is a master carpet fitter, a British citizen employed in Australia on a subclass 457 visa who could be forced to return to the United Kingdom owing to changes announced in April to replace the temporary skilled visa and remove more than 200 occupations from the qualifying list.

Floor finisher, the occupation that helped Ward and his wife, Belinda, migrate to South Australia in 2012, did not make the cut.



The Wards’ son Jamie and his wife, Lisa, followed them out to Adelaide in 2014 with their two young children and have since given their parents another grandchild, who is four months old.

Martin’s visa expires in February and, owing to difficulties applying for permanent residency because of his age (59), he faces the possibility of returning to the UK or giving up work.

“The wife is absolutely devastated, we’re such a close-knit family,” Martin says. “How can they say you have to go back to UK when we’ve got three grandchildren here?

“How can you pack up after five years and not see them grow up? It’s crazy … this is absolute limbo.”

The Wards have applied for a contributory parent visa but have been told by their migration agent that it could take up to five years to process.

The Department of Home Affairs says 90% of applications are processed within 38 months but “processing times may vary”. The visa costs $19,750 and although there is a cheaper “parent visa”, the department warns the waiting times for that option is “up to 30 years”.

Another option is to stay in Australia on a visa without work rights, a forced retirement made more difficult by Jamie’s job relying on Martin’s employment with a high-end floor-fitting business.

“If nothing changes I have to leave in February,” Martin says. “But we’ve bought a house, we’re living over here and I’ve got a good job over here.”

They have nothing in England to go back to – no home, no jobs, no furniture Lisa Ward

The rationale for the temporary skills shortage visa – which is due to replace the subclass 457 in March 2018 – and the shortening of the list of qualifying jobs is that Australians should get first shot at local jobs.

Lisa Ward says the family “can’t understand why floor finishers were taken off the list”.

“My husband, Jamie, does this here also and both he and Martin are inundated with work, due to the high demand of new builds being completed and renovations,” she says.

And Martin Ward has done his part for Australian jobs by training two apprentices, boasting that one had “hardly learned anything” at his first year of Tafe but came top of his class six months after Martin took him under his wing.

Martin is now on his third apprentice – Robert Kouw – and is worried he too will lose his job if he has to return to the UK.

“Martin took him on when nobody would give him a chance and he is progressing fantastically and will also go on to make a good carpet installer,” Lisa says.

Kouw, who is a year and a half through a four-year apprenticeship, says he is “not sure what to do” about his employment if Martin is forced to go back to the UK.

“If he ends up going I won’t have a job,” he says. “I’ve tried going to everyone else, they say they want people who have more experience.

“I’m freaking out a little bit, yeah. I’ve got a three-year-old and a house, a car. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

If he doesn’t find someone else to take him on, “the next thing would be to go on Centrelink”, Kouw says. Asked about the visa’s rationale to favour Australians for local jobs, he observes “without [Martin] more Australians wouldn’t be able to get work”.

Lisa Ward is apprehensive about the new year. “We now find ourselves in the tragic situation where, come February 2018, Martin and Belinda have to leave Australia as they won’t have a valid visa,” she says.

“This means leaving a home they were allowed to buy, their jobs that they love and, more importantly, their family.”

Lisa says she and her husband rely on their parents to help look after their three young children.

“If they leave Australia, they have nothing in England to go back to – no home, no jobs, no furniture – and the bond they have with my children will fade as my children will forget them.

“Five years is a long time for a seven- and four-year-old child, let alone a baby.”