Cooking up a plan
Nicola Roberti arrived in Melbourne in 2014 on a Working Holiday Visa. He brought a swag of highly developed hospitality skills to Australia after years working and training in Italy. He was eager to get into the local kitchen game.
Roberti climbed up the industry until he became Head Chef at one of Melbourne’s most iconic Italian restaurants, Caffe e Cucina. He was twice named in the top 10 finalists of the Foodservice Australia Chef of the Year competition, in 2017 and 2018.
But, despite this success, Roberti decided to head back to Italy at the peak of his career. Why?
"Some people told me I was crazy,” he says. “Melbourne is the food capital of Australia, the competition is very strong and the level is also very high. I learned a lot, but if you really want to establish yourself and start your own business in Australia it’s a whole different story.”
Roberti decided to go back home and start from scratch once more for two reasons.
Named a top chef in multiple competitions, Nicola Roberti has struggled to secure skilled residency in Australia Source: instagram.com/chefnicolaroberti
First was the difficulty in securing a permanent visa. None of the sponsorship offers he received were fulfilled by business owners and changes to migration legislation made it difficult to secure a clear path to residency.
He decided to move to Ballarat and try a regional Visa over the course of two years, but says he found the sacrifice wasn’t worth it, and left soon after arriving. Hospitality in a rural area did not offer the same professional challenges and perspectives, he says, and the chef was eager to continue his career growth.
“Some people would do anything for a permanent [visa], but I decided not to do it."
Aside from professional instability, the idea of starting a family so far from his support network and wider family was daunting.
"Here we are immigrants in Australia and in Italy we are at home,” he says. “Having the help of the family and the support of people who have always known you is more important than all the rest."
Family ties
Enzo Scordo decided to leave Australia when his partner fell pregnant as the pair decided they wanted to be closer to extended family. Scordo had spent four years in Australia, first on a Working Holiday Visa and later on a Student Visa because he wanted to study ‘Business Innovation’ and invest in his future career in the country.
"The Australian lifestyle is fantastic but we decided to return to Italy to start a family," Scordo tells SBS Italian. "Among the many pros of Australia, the con is the distance from family ties and the difficulty in creating a family on your own."
IT expert Fabio Gullace decided to move closer to home after two years in Australia for similar reasons. Today he is based in Bratislava, Slovakia, just a short plane ride from his home province of Reggio Calabria in Italy.
Enzo Scordo and his partner enjoyed their time in Australia, but have returned to Italy for family reasons Source: Courtesy of Enzo Scordo
"My partner worked in a shop and after some time her employers offered her a sponsorship”, recalled Gullace. "For a month we couldn't sleep [while considering the offer], but in the end we decided to go back to Europe".
"If you want to live in Australia you have to make peace with yourself, draw a line with your past… it's like being born again. Sometimes we give the best of ourselves away from home. Australia has been a part of our journey, we carry it in our hearts, but now we decided to focus on ourselves and our family alongside the people we love.
“In two years I did all sorts of jobs, which was a different and interesting experience, but because of the Visa limitations I could never get into my industry. Today in Slovakia, I can work successfully in my field and go to Italy for the weekend.”
Visa changes
SBS Italian has observed a larger number of temporary Italian migrants quitting Australia than has been seen in the past.
According to the Student visa and Temporary Graduate visa program report published by the Home Affairs department, there was a 9.2 per cent drop in student visas lodged by Italians and a decrease of 34.2 per cent of student visa renewals between 2018 and 2019.
Emanuela Canini, a migration agent based in Sydney with many Italian clients, says she knows the numbers well having seen it in her own work.
“Statistics tell us the number of total student and temporary work visas lodged by Italians have been decreasing in the last four or five years for, I would say, several reasons, but in particular in the last two years due to the impact of changes around the employer-sponsored visa legislation.”
Canini says this is due to the creation of the short-term and long-medium-term lists in 2017 and the elimination of the 457 working visa.
“The transition from the controversial 457 visa to a new temporary work visa 482 in 2018 has led to a change in the way a migration pathway is conceived,” she says.
“Italians for example have strong numbers in the hospitality industry in terms of visa applications and study fields… given two of the main hospitality occupations – such as cook and restaurant manager – were no longer suitable for several permanent visas, they had to find alternative solutions or to leave.”
