MEMBERS of Launceston’s Tran family are counting their blessings after recieving a ministerial intervention to avoid deportation and will continue doing what they love – living in Tasmania and cooking delicious Vietnamese food.
LANA BEST reports:
SINGLE mother of three, Dan Thi Tran, recently found herself in a position where she could lose her beloved Yorktown Square restaurant, Mekong, due to a Visa card bungle.
Less than a month off having to pack up her family, home and business and move back to Vietnam, the Trans were given a reprieve by Immigration Minister Andrew Giles thanks to the political pressure and endorsement of an entire food loving community.
An online petition attracted 19,500 signatures and letters of support came for many quarters in an effort to keep them in Australia. In a lesson for all immigrant business operators, finding the right migration agent was also key in staving off deportation. For eight years, Mekong has meant everything to Ms Tran.
It’s provided her family’s livelihood, funded her children’s education, provided a meeting place for friends and been a training ground and handy casual workplace for university students and young people wanting to work in hospitality.
Following a marriage break-up, the savvy business woman, who ran a successful import/export business in Vietnam, moved to Tasmania with her children for a fresh start. Since then, the family has assimilated into the Launceston community, the children have excelled at school and Mekong has gone from strength to strength, winning the Australian Good Food Guide Readers’ Choice award three times.
The Tran family paid thousands of dollars to an agent to assist them in navigating the intricacies of immigration law and visas so they could extend their stay in Australia until they were eligible to apply for permanent residency.
It wasn’t until they applied for a business visa extension that they realised they had been going through the wrong process from the start and it was too late to re-apply. They claim the former migration agent did not tell them they must have officially owned and operated their business for two years to apply.
By the time they were aware of this crucial criterion, it was too late to apply for another visa and they were struggling, like all restaurants, to stay afloat during the pandemic. Years of to-ing and fro-ing with government agencies, multiple appeals and rejections, has weighed heavily on the family.
Ms Tran’s daughter Mia Vo, who is in the final year of a marketing and business management degree at the University of Tasmania, said she has watched her mother take a flailing business, introduce her signature style of home cooking and build a loyal customer base. She said there was no way they were going to give up without a fight.
“She’s so passionate about what she does – she’s here early in the morning, she does all the food prep,she’s here every evening and prepares every single meal herself – she just won’t let anyone else cook!” Mia said.
Mia’s brother Dat Tien Tran Vo is also completing the same degree as Mia, one year behind her, and together they’ve been able to put what they learn into action – developing a website and working on a social media profile. They never expected they would have to engage in political lobbying and an online petition to save their family business.
Along with their little sister Liah Tran Phuong Vo, they all work in the kitchen and front of house at Mekong where diners can BYO drinks, feast on curries, seafood, stir frys, noodles and rice dishes and go home full to the brim for a reasonable price.
“We are so grateful to be able to stay, and thank all of our customers who wrote letters of support to ministers and signed the petition – they are in our heart,” Mia said.