A 28-year-old international student from Pakistan took a job as a chef in Queensland. His employer paid a flat hourly rate that was well below the legal minimum, with no payslips. When he eventually left, his employer hired the next new arrival.

“It is like an ecosystem,” he told us, “and everyone passes through it.”

His experience is not an outlier. Our new report, published today by the academic-led Migrant Justice Institute, shows that for migrants working on temporary visas, it is the norm.

Drawing on the largest national survey of migrant workers ever conducted in Australia, we found two-thirds of temporary visa holders were paid less than they were legally owed. A quarter were shortchanged by at least A$10 an hour.

We estimate across Australia, international students alone are being underpaid by around $61 million every week – more than $3 billion a year.

This is not just a failure of worker protection – the system is also allowing exploitative employers to thrive by systematically undercutting honest businesses that do the right thing.

To fix the problem, we must first understand how exploitative employers give themselves maximum power with minimum visibility.

Exploitation not a few rogue employers: it’s a core business model

Our new research draws on a survey of almost 10,000 workers on temporary visas in Australia conducted in 2024. Around 80% were international........

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