Lily Kristanto – Dimas and Bella had plans to earn some money and travel Australia when they arrived for their working holiday.

They left behind jobs in Indonesia's banking industry and flew to Darwin, with work lined up picking and packing cucumbers at a farm.

But from the moment they were collected at the airport, Bella said something felt off. As they drove for hours to the property where they would be working, they found themselves virtually cut off from the outside world.

"It was night-time, we couldn't buy internet, we couldn't buy a [SIM] card, lots of different things we couldn't do, we could only hotspot off the person who came to pick us up," Dimas told the ABC.

The roads turned from asphalt to dirt and the couple, who asked to use pseudonyms to protect their identities, began to worry even more. "I thought where are the houses, where are the residents?" Bella said.

Despite their mounting concerns, they still hoped their dream holiday would pan out. Then they arrived at a rundown farm.

Influencers tout working holidays

The number of Indonesians like Dimas and Bella applying for Work and Holiday visas has increased significantly since the pandemic.

The Department of Home Affairs received 2,493 applications in 2021-22, 7,606 in 2022-23 and 9,907 in 2023-24. The department has said that border closures during the pandemic had led to "pent-up demand".

But there has also been an increase in Indonesian influencers posting about their experiences in Australia.

They make claims such as that by picking fruits in Australia for just one month, working holiday visa holders can earn the equivalent of a year's salary in Indonesia.

After being inspired by these influencers, Dimas and Bella saw an ad on Facebook asking for people to pick grapes and decided to contact the employment agent.

The agent told them they would be doing relatively easy work, with decent pay and accommodation. However, they said almost none of it turned out to be true.

The mirage comes undone

At the property, the couple met two other workers who were also Indonesian. Immediately, they asked what type of jobs Dimas and Bella had been promised.

When the couple replied, "to harvest and pack cucumbers", the other workers told them those jobs did not exist and that they had been lied to.

Instead, they had to do heavy manual labour to renovate the farm, which they were told had been abandoned a year or two earlier. Bella started to cry.

"When our roommates said there are no cucumbers, we have to do hard labour, I was surprised, and also scared," she said.

"The agent said that the girls only had to pack cucumbers, but when we got there, all the girls had to lift iron bars that were 3 metres long."

Dimas said they also found the agent was taking a cut of their pay. When Bella struggled with the work, she said she was abused by a supervisor.

"Because Darwin is hot and this was my first time doing heavy lifting work, I was slow," Bella told the ABC. "The boss's right-hand man cursed at me with foul language."

After a day and a half of hard work, Bella had had enough. "I cried. I tried to think 'how are we going to get out of this place?'"

The ABC attempted to contact both the employment agent and the owner of the farm, but did not receive a response from either.

Undrinkable water, filthy accommodation

Not only was the work much harder than they were told, Bella and Dimas said the building they were given to stay in was dirty and appeared to have been abandoned long before.

Nonetheless, the couple said they had to pay $100 a week for the accommodation – even though that had never been mentioned before their arrival.

"You couldn't drink the water at the farm because it was dirty – we had to buy water," Dimas said. "The place was not livable."

To flush the toilet, they said they had to carry buckets of water from the bath. "The toilet was very, very dirty," Bella said.

They eventually managed to buy SIM cards, but the farm was too remote for them to be able to pick up a signal.

"We couldn't contact anyone at all," Dimas said. "We wanted to leave but we couldn't because no-one knew the address of the farm. The location wasn't available on Google Maps – it was a dead end."

Indonesian officials investigating

Dimas and Bella eventually managed to get a signal by walking from the farm until their phone found reception.

They then contacted a Facebook group set up to help Indonesians in the Northern Territory on working holiday visas and someone offered to come and pick them up.

Dimas and Bella said when their bosses heard, they panicked because they had been hiring other people on visas who didn't have working rights.

To avoid revealing the location of the farm, they dropped Dimas and Bella at Lake Bennett – the closest location marked on Google Maps.

The couple said they had not made a complaint to the authorities. "We didn't want to get involved in things that are complicated, because we are afraid the problem will become more complex," said Dimas.

ACTU president Michele O'Neil is calling on the government to reform a temporary working visa scheme that prevents workers leaving bad bosses and to blacklist dodgy employers who use migration worker exploitation as a business model.

The ABC contacted Northern Territory police for comment but did not receive a response, while the Indonesian consulate in Darwin said they were investigating the case.

The Department of Home Affairs said individuals could report unlawful activity via the Border Watch website.

A spokesperson said: "All workers in Australia have the same rights and protections at work, regardless of citizenship or visa status."

In July, the Australian government introduced measures to enhance protections for migrant workers.

They included a pilot program to strengthen reporting protections, and three new criminal offences relating to exploiting workers based on immigration status.

Dimas and Bella said the information Indonesian influencers posted online was often misleading, and set expectations too high.

"They are exaggerating, like 'you can earn 1 billion rupiah [$95,000] a year in Australia' – all that kind of stuff that makes people think 'really?'" Dimas said.

While they considered heading home, the couple decided to stick it out in Australia.

Now working a job in the hospitality industry in Darwin, they stressed the importance of doing your research and verifying information that is given to you. "Don't be ashamed or shy to reach out to relevant people," Dimas said.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/indonesian-work-and-holiday-visa-scammed/10444138