India's former high commissioner to Australia must pay penalty to domestic worker who earned less than $10 a day for a year's work

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Federal Court has ordered India's former high commissioner to Australia Navdeep Suri Singh to pay a penalty to a domestic worker who he had paid less than $10 a day.

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00:00 Behind the imposing gates of this Canberra property, the Federal Court has ruled a woman

00:07 was being exploited. Seema Shergill fled the Indian High Commissioner's residence in 2016

00:14 after more than a year working for then High Commissioner Navdeep Suri Singh. The Court

00:19 had already ordered him to pay $136,000 plus interest in unpaid wages and entitlements.

00:26 Yesterday it added the maximum penalty of $97,200. The Court heard Mr Suri denied Ms

00:33 Shergill a day off, took her passport and only let her out of the house to walk the

00:38 dog. Such departures from Mr Suri's obligations to Ms Shergill are not minor. They were in

00:44 every sense egregious and exploitative. The circumstances of this case fall within the

00:50 definition of slave-like conditions. Ms Shergill's lawyers say the decision should send a clear

00:56 message. "Diplomats and High Commissioners, ambassadors can no longer hide behind diplomatic

01:03 immunity in respect of the arrangements that they make to employ domestic workers." And

01:07 they're calling for legislative change to make domestic workers more visible. "These

01:12 workers live inside someone's house and never leave it for the entire time that they're

01:18 there." Mr Suri didn't engage with the case at any point. Last year the Indian Ministry

01:23 of External Affairs said it does not accept that an Australian court could adjudicate

01:28 the issue. It argued Ms Shergill simply wanted to stay in Australia permanently. She's now

01:35 an Australian citizen.

01:36 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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