Nathan Que quit his job in China and waited 10 months for a chance to come to Australia for a once-in-a-lifetime working holiday.
But now he feels “cheated” by the government, along with tens of thousands of other working holiday seekers from China.
Mr Que said many of them had been pondering the same question — “is China being targeted?”
For many young people around the world, a working holiday visa is seen as a precious chance to experience life in Australia.
In 2015, the program opened to 5,000 Chinese applicants annually under a free trade agreement between Australia and China.
The agreement said the program aimed to “increase demand for tourism services and support the development of Australia’s tourism sector, particularly in rural Australia”.
The demand to come to Australia is there, but according to applicants the chance to obtain a working holiday visa has all but evaporated.
No announcement about visa suspension
According to information on the Department of Home Affairs website, when a country’s quota of working holiday visas was close to full, it would be “suspended” and visa applications from its citizens would no longer be taken.
Five countries on the list eligible for the visa have been tagged as suspended: Brazil, China, Switzerland, Thailand and Turkey.
A footnote on China’s “suspended” tag in the Home Affairs documents said the suspension was linked to “a high volume of interest”.
Out of the suspended countries, only China’s annual cap of 5,000 visas is far from being filled.
Altogether, only 406 working holiday visas for new applicants in China have been issued in this financial year, according to Department of Home Affairs records.
It is unclear why applications from China have been suspended when the cap hasn’t been hit.
The ABC has sought an explanation from the government.
“There were a couple of countries on the list, but it only stopped [processing] for Chinese applicants. I don’t know why,” Mr Que said.
“There was no announcement, no communication.”
Mr Que said he had wanted to come to Australia for a working holiday after his friend spent a year in Darwin in 2016.
“He told me I would be seeing a different world … and I would be able to meet a lot of people from different parts of the world,” Mr Que said.
Angry applicants left in the dark
Lily Li, who’s also in China, has been longing for a working holiday in Australia.
She had been waiting for her visa pre-application to be processed.
But last week her application — along with tens of thousands of others according to Chinese media reports — was marked as “expired”, she said.
That has left her furious and disappointed, but she is also unsure about what she can do.
For China and other countries where people queue up for a working holiday visa, a pre-application is required.
The next step is meant to be random selection until the quota is met.
Ms Li received a message last year from the Department of Home Affairs, which has been seen by the ABC, saying she would be included in the “next random selection round” and her registration would expire on April 30, 2024.
“Even until the last days before the expiry, people were waiting for miracles,” Ms Li said.
The “random selection”, however, never happened.
“We’d all been waiting,” Ms Li said.
“I mean, if you are not planning to select [applicants], why open the visa?”
She wasn’t alone in her anger.
Hundreds of young people have left angry messages on the Australian embassy’s official account on Chinese social media Weibo, asking for an explanation.
“You are a liar,” read one of the messages.
“Straightforward response is the way to solve problems,” another comment said.
People have continued to message the embassy over Weibo asking for answers.
The visa application issues come after the government tried to drum up interest in tourism even further with a $125 million Come and Say G’day campaign launched in late June last year.
It was seen millions of times on Chinese social media.
The Department of Home Affairs has been contacted for comment.
Additional reporting by Natasya Salim.
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