Rebecca Thomson
Principal Lawyer, Asia-Pacific Regional Coordinator, Migration Services
Only Australian citizens, permanent residents, and certain New Zealand citizens have unrestricted rights to employment in Australia. All other people in Australia need a visa that enables them to be in and work in Australia lawfully.
Not all visa holders in Australia have the right to work. Some visas have no work rights, such as visitor visas. Others have work rights subject to limitations, such as working holiday visas or student visas.
How BDO can help
Our team will provide you with easy-to-understand advice and guidance on each employee or candidate’s visa status and work rights. We offer a quick turnaround, and these work rights checks can be provided to corporate clients on a fee-for-service basis or a monthly subscription cost.
Employer obligations
All employers must check whether a person they’re employing has work rights in Australia and, if so, whether their right to work is unrestricted. An employer must comply with any restrictions a visa is subject to. Failure to do so can leave the employer (and others) subject to civil or criminal sanctions.
To ensure compliance, employers should check Australian Citizenship OR non-citizen visa status before or during hiring. And in the case of non-citizens, “at reasonable times” throughout the employment cycle.