Good day everyone.

As you all know, COVID-19 crisis has hit us hard for the past 3 months. It is only going to get harder for the next 6 months with the full lockdown here in many parts of Australia. I know a lot of people who are temporary residents (TRs) such as student visa (500), temporary workers (485, 482) already lost their jobs or got stood down as a result of this extreme turbulence (I myself am holding a 485 visa and being stood down at my main job at the moment). Australian citizens and Permanent Residents (PRs) who are financially affected by this could receive the COVID-19 payment support of 550 per fortnight if eligible and two automatic $750 payments, not to mention early access to their superannuation funds of up to $20,000. However, TRs have no such support from the Australian government and are also dealing with the same problems as Australian and PRs. My understanding is that while TRs have to pay the same amount of tax like the Australian and PRs here and cover our own health insurance, we have zero financial support from the Australian government. How is that a fair-go for us?

Therefore, I am putting this petition up to ask for financial support from Australian government in the forms of:

1. Allow all TRs who has legal working rights to have early access to their superannuation fund during the COVID-19 crisis.

2. Include all TRs who has legal working rights in the latest wage subsidy scheme so that we could also get some form of wage subsidy to sustain our lives here. 

I wholeheartedly hope that the Australian government would consider implementing these changes so that no one is left behind during these extraordinary hardship times. 

Best regards.

Ha Nguyen.