The Gold Coast attracts tourists from all over the world, but it sometimes means people stay too long.
Although major political parties often talk about refugee and border protection, what about those who come to Australia on legal visas but are overdue?
MacDonald (Andrew McDonald), a resident of the Moncrieff district, raised the question like Australia: "more than 60, 000 visa holders overstay in Australia, most of them work, and most of them don't pay taxes. How and when is government going to solve this problem? "
Then let's take a look.
How many "overdue" are there in Australia?
As of June 30 last year, an estimated 62900 people were stranded after their visas were overdue or cancelled, Interior Ministry speaker said.
"the vast majority of people who come to Australia abide by immigration laws," speaker said. "more than 99 percent of temporary visa holders leave Australia before their visas expire," speaker said.
The number of overstayers is only about 0.2 per cent, with the total number fluctuating between 62000 and 64600 over the past five years.
People with expired visas do not have the right to work while in Australia, speaker said.
The Gold Coast attracts tourists
Climate, lifestyle, people and beaches make the Gold Coast the best destination for overseas tourists.
Jones (Oliver Jones), a local immigration expert at Marino Law, says there are many reasons for overdue visas. "usually you see overstayers applying for asylum visas, that is, refugee applications for humanitarian reasons, because of political violence and other reasons, they are at risk of returning to their parliament of origin. When overstaying, ha can apply for a spouse visa-as long as a spouse is willing to guarantee you-but you also have to show convincing and compassionate conditions to prove why your application should be approved. "
Jones said the longest overstaying he had ever seen was 13 years until the woman applied for a spouse visa to attract the attention of the authorities.
Industries such as craftsmen and restaurants often pay in cash, Jones said, so the Gold Coast is a place to attract overstayers. "they usually only accept cash to avoid being found by government, otherwise they may be detain. And Gold Coast has some cash economic industry, especially craftsmen. It's hard for you to find them."
evade [dodge] tax
The Australian Revenue Department (ATO) did not estimate the tax losses caused by overstaying, but said it had a way to detect tax evasion.
"with the efforts of the Black economic Special working Group, ATO expanded its data matching capabilities. "We use a wide range of third-party data, a small business base, to check that assets and lifestyles match income levels," said one speaker. And use a series of other indicators to identify enterprises and employees who underreport or do not report income to evade taxes. "
ATO also said employers and employees could be punished if they failed to meet their tax obligations.
What did the candidate say?
In this year's election, both parties proposed border control policies, but did not specifically address the issue of overdue visas. However, Bell (Angie Bell), candidate for Moncrieff's Free National Party, said in a statement that government had taken and strengthened a series of measures to address the exploitation of illegal workers and employers, including the establishment of a multi-agency common task force, Taskforce Cadena,. An additional $20.1 million is provided to fair work investigators to deal with employers who exploit workers.