457 Visa workers do jobs Australians do not want Shobit Singh, Suvash Bhatt, Anil Singh, RajendraKumar and Pan Singh, five chefs at the Maharaja's Haveli restaurant in Quakers Hill, have come to Australia on 457 visas. THEY do the jobs most Australians either don't want or can't do. You will find them at the bedsides of the dying in the most remote towns around the country, cooking specialist cuisine using methods they learned in their home countries and coaching the next generation of Australian sports stars. After the government this week revealed more details of its crackdown on the 457 visa scheme, News Limited spoke to workers who have filled critical gaps in the Australian workforce. Nurse Caroline Manyathi sums up the spirit of 457 foreign worker visa holders, many of whom provide critical skills which keep NSW towns alive. She applied to come to Australia from South Africa through a nursing agency and was handed a bundle of brochures on the outback NSW town of Cobar, a place she had never heard of. Stunned by how remote her new home 300km west of Dubbo was, Ms Manyathi never considered returning to South Africa. She got so much out of providing palliative care to the town's dying she had her husband Noel and their 13-year-old twin daughters Cheenah and Teenah join her and they have all become permanent Australian residents. "Not knowing how outback it was, I had no idea what I was coming to, they sent me brochures, it looked so close on the map, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for," Mrs Manyathi said. The community at large is very supportive and makes you welcome. At times residents of Cobar could be cared for from the cradle to the grave by nurses on 457 visas with an Indian and Filipino nurse having called the town home. Bronwyn Bock Jonathan captained the South African Proteas netball team but has devoted herself to nurturing Australian sports stars after falling in love with Canberra while on a 457 visa. She was recruited by Netball ACT originally but made the temporary move to Australia, with her husband Marvin Jonathan, permanent. Her son Jordan, 8, counts himself an Australian and her two-year-old daughter Danica-Zeta, who Ms Jonathan calls her family's "true Aussie," was born in Canberra. "Once we started living and working in Canberra we completely fell in love with it and we decided to make it our home," she said. Sheila Waterman spent three decades with the US peace corps nursing in places like conflict riddled South Sudan. After a stint in Kiribati where she met Australian aid workers, she wanted to test out the country. "I liked them and enjoyed being around them," she said. She initially worked in the Emergency Department of Canberra Hospital but now works in a specialist walk in centre where nurses treat most patients or refer them to doctors. "I became a citizen in February, I decided if I was going to stay here, I wanted to be a citizen, I wanted to be part of it," she said. Quakers Hill restaurant owner Satinder Benepal has sponsored five chefs on 457 visa holders to work at the Maharaja Haveli, which holds four festivals involving specialist Indian cooking a year. He went to Dehli last month to hire more staff but new English language rules imposed by the government meant it would be impossible to hire the specialist cuisine chefs he needed. Mr Benepal warned against the new proposed crack down by the government which would mean employers will have to advertise or hire job agencies to prove there are no Australian workers with the required skills. The health industry is exempt. We need specialists from hotels in India. We can't find staff here in Australia," Mr Benepal said. These (457 visas) are very crucial for Australia, it is some people who misuse it. That should be stopped but at the same time there are needs for the Australian economy to have 457 visas. The government crackdown began amid claims the visas were being rorted and holders had grown by more than 40,000 in three years to over 100,000 people. Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor has told parliament the crackdown will protect foreign workers from abuse and also give preference to Australian workers. Ian Woodcock is a local councillor from Lightning Ridge and said he doubted most politicians in Canberra "know anything about it (457s) themselves." Lightning Ridge has previously had to look overseas for a chef for a club in the town. Council colleague Jane Keir said foreign nurses were providing crucial continuous care in nearby Walgett which had relied heavily on agency nurses who stayed for only eight weeks at a time. "They're contributing to the community, they're not here overnight and gone," she said. We can't get staff in banks, we can't get staff in local services, we can't get teachers. Teachers are vital to this area. If you can't get teachers and you can't get nurses then these communities can't continue.