New South Wales man Chang Yen Chang, who owned and operated the hotel on the East Coast until 2014, has been fined more than $200,000 by the Fair Work Ombudsman in its first racial discrimination case.

He has been fined $35,099 and his company Yenida was fined a further $176,005 following the court proceedings.

“This is the first time the Fair Work Ombudsman has taken legal action against an employer for racially discriminating against employees,” Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James said.

The husband was recruited through an advertisement in a Malaysian newspaper in 2007. He was sponsored on a 457 skilled worker visa to work as the head chef at the hotel’s restaurant until 2014.

He was required to work six days a week, worked between 33 and 57 hours a week and was paid a salary of between $45,240 and $46,280 between 2010 and 2014. The Ombudsman found this was not sufficient to cover the penalty rates he was entitled to for weekend, public holiday, evening and overtime.

It resulted in an underpayment of $20,550.

The judge, Justice Barbara Baker said she “did not accept Mr Chang’s denial that there was no connection between [the husband] coming from Malaysia and accepting working long hours on six days per week”.

“[The husband] negotiated his terms and conditions of employment and accepted the terms without an understanding of workplace laws in Australia,” Justice Baker said.

The man’s wife was on a spousal visa connected to her husband’s visa and was employed as a kitchen-hand in the restaurant between September 2009 and January 2010.

She was required to work between 35 and 51 hours per week and was paid a flat rate of between $446 and $594 per week. This was about half of what she was entitled to - leading to an underpayment of $8775 over a period of just four months.  The wife gave evidence that she quit due to the workload.

“This employer knew that all staff were lawfully entitled to minimum Award pay rates, but chose to pay the Malaysian couple significantly less than Australian staff because of their race, which is unlawful,” Ms James said.