Why 97% of Australian Businesses Think They're Compliant, and Why Many Aren't: Insights from Citation Legal's Lisa Qiu

Lisa Qiu was never supposed to become a lawyer. At least, that was the plan she made for herself as a teenager in Sydney.

"My parents migrated to Australia from China in the 80s, and they obviously wanted me and my sister to do very well academically and get good jobs," she recalls. "I was very much rebelling at that stage and saying, I don't want to be like every other Asian student and become either a doctor or a lawyer."

Then she adds, with the self-awareness of someone who has told this story before: "But I do love a good argument."

That love of a good argument eventually pulled her into law school, into courtrooms, and ultimately into one of the most consequential intersections in Australian professional services: the space where employment law meets migration. Today, as an employment lawyer and Partner at Citation Legal, part of the UK-headquartered Citation Group, Qiu advises Australian businesses navigating exactly that overlap, and her perspective on where the industry is heading is refreshingly candid.

From Court Monitor to Lawyer: Lisa Qiu's Path into the Law

Qiu's exposure to the legal profession began in the least glamorous seat in the courtroom. While studying law at university, she worked as a court monitor, the person who switches on the microphones before hearings so court staff can produce transcripts.

"With that work, I got exposure to lots of different areas of law," she says. "And I found that employment was an area that I was quite interested in because it had that human element."

The human element, however, had to wait. Like many graduates facing a competitive market, Qiu took the first solid opportunity available: a law clerk role handling insurance claims. Motor vehicle. Home and contents. Steady work, but not the work.

"I wasn't really passionate about insurance claims. So I thought, well, I'm going to go and try and find a job practicing in employment." She did, landing a one-year parental leave contract at a second firm. It was there that a door opened almost by accident. The firm's migration agent, who handled employer-sponsored visas for corporate clients, left. With her contract winding down and no guarantee of an ongoing role, Qiu raised her hand.

"I thought if I take that opportunity, well then that's a need that the firm has and something that I'm happy to explore."

The gamble paid off in an unexpected way: the two practice areas fed each other. Clients would call about an employment issue and then mention, almost in passing, that a valued team member was on a student visa they desperately wanted to extend. For roughly six years, Qiu practiced both employment and migration law side by side, later completing a master's degree in migration law and practice.

The COVID Crossroads: Choosing a Specialty in an Era of Constant Change

The turning point came during the pandemic. Qiu went on parental leave with her second child during one lockdown and returned a year later to find Australia in another. In between, both of her practice areas had been transformed.

Employment law was in upheaval as businesses closed their doors, unsure whether they could stand down staff or had to keep paying employees who could not work. Migration law was equally turbulent, with Australia's borders sealed shut.

"If I want to call myself an expert in both these practice areas, I've got to choose one or the other because there's so much change to get across," she remembers concluding. She chose employment, though her migration expertise never left her. At Citation Group, which she joined about two years ago, she still advises businesses on the overlap between employment considerations and migration, while a dedicated Citation Migration team handles visa processing.

Inside Citation Group: A SaaS Business with a Law Firm Attached

Citation Legal is not a traditional law firm, and Qiu is upfront about that. The practice began life as FCB Workplace Law, a North Sydney firm with a 30-year history that gradually added HR and certification streams before being acquired by the UK-based Citation Group.

Within the group, Australian businesses can access support across employment law, HR, migration, safety, certification, and, through the recent acquisition of the foundU platform, payroll.

The value of that model shows up in situations like wage compliance reviews. If a review reveals a business has been underpaying staff, Citation Legal can provide privileged legal advice on remediation and voluntary reporting to the regulator, while other arms of the group can address the payroll system, policies, or safety practices behind the problem. "You wouldn't usually get that in a standalone law firm," Qiu notes. "They'd have to refer out to different providers."

The Compliance Confidence Gap: What 510 Business Leaders Revealed

One of the most striking insights Qiu shares comes from research Citation Group recently commissioned, surveying 510 Australian business leaders on their workforce responsibilities across eight areas, including migration, employment law, HR, safety, technology, AI, certification, and payroll. 

At first glance, the results – published in their 2026 Workforce Pulse Report – looked reassuring. 97 per cent of leaders said they were confident managing their workforce responsibilities.

Then the questions got specific.

"The deeper the questions went, the more we realized there was this gap between compliance and confidence," Qiu says. "As we asked more specific questions, we found that those business owners became less and less confident about their compliance in each area."

She attributes the gap largely to the sheer pace of legal change in Australia since COVID, particularly in employment and migration law. Even businesses that track the headlines struggle to understand the detailed procedures behind each change, and then face a second challenge: making sure the knowledge held by the board or the HR team actually reaches the managers dealing with issues on the floor.

"The biggest gap is still compliance with the detailed procedures that we have in Australia," she says.

Australia's Migration Challenges: Late Renewals and Missing Pathways

Asked about the biggest mistakes businesses make on the migration front, Qiu does not hesitate. Timing tops the list.

Employers frequently underestimate how complex the system is and leave visa renewals dangerously late. A worker mentions their visa expires in a few months and asks to be sponsored on a new one, but employer-sponsored visas can take months to be approved by the Department of Home Affairs. "Leaving it too late puts a lot of pressure on everyone," she says. Her advice is simple: start the conversation about visa renewal and each worker's long-term migration hopes early.

The second mistake is subtler. Businesses often sponsor workers onto temporary visas of two or four years without realizing that, depending on the visa type, there may be no pathway to permanent residency at the end of it. For a worker who has relocated their family and wants to call Australia home, that oversight can be devastating. Mapping out the migration pathway early, and choosing the right visa from the start, matters enormously.

Migration Politics in Australia: A Familiar Sentiment Returns

Qiu is equally frank about the political climate. With Australia's next federal election due to be called sometime before May 2028, migration policy is once again a live debate, and she sees anti-migration rhetoric from overseas beginning to influence the conversation at home.

"Australia's always had a bit of a convoluted history when it comes to migration," she observes. "We are a multicultural society. We have people from all around the world. But especially in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, there was quite a bit of anti-migration sentiment, which I feel is starting to come back now."

She points to a recent statement by an Australian senator arguing the country should be monocultural rather than multicultural. "Of course that begs the question of whose culture and what does that look like," she says. What comes next, she adds, will depend on the government Australia elects.

The One Law Lisa Qiu Would Change: Parent Visas

If she could change a single piece of immigration legislation, Qiu would look at one of the system's quietest sources of heartbreak: the parent visa.

Skilled workers migrate to Australia on employer-sponsored visas and build lives here, but their elderly parents often remain overseas because, in her experience practicing migration law, processing times for some parent visas stretched as long as 30 years. Faster pathways existed, but at a cost most families could not afford. "That caused a lot of angst," she says.

She would also like to see more flexibility around the health restrictions that can make certain visas difficult or impossible to obtain for people with particular medical conditions. The policy rationale, she explains, is protecting taxpayer-funded healthcare, but the human cost is real. "Perhaps loosening or providing some more exceptions around health, and particularly around visas that elderly parents can get approved, and the processing times. It would be good to see some change in that."

How AI Is Reshaping Legal Practice, According to Lisa Qiu

On artificial intelligence, Qiu speaks with the urgency of someone watching her profession transform in real time.

"AI is changing everything. It has landed so hard and fast in all aspects of our lives and I don't think we're keeping up," she says.

Client expectations have already shifted. Rather than paying lawyers for hours of document review and case analysis, clients now expect AI-driven efficiency and lower fees. "I think that's fair enough," Qiu says, "because there are so many ways that we can transform the way in which we're doing things to make law more accessible and more cost effective for our clients."

The technology is also changing who brings legal claims in the first place. Qiu describes employees walking out of an unhappy workplace meeting and, by that evening, sending their employer a complaint "that sounds like it's been drafted by a lawyer." The volume of legal complaints lodged by individuals without lawyers is rising, she notes, even if those AI-assisted claims often bury the real legal issue under irrelevant noise. In migration, a similar shift is underway, with more individuals confident enough to complete their own visa applications rather than engage an agent.

As for the long term? "I don't actually know what, at the pace that AI is moving, I don't know what it's going to look like even in two, five years time," she admits. "But I do think that it's going to force humans to work smarter and better." Tasks that once took three or five hours, she points out, can now often take 20 or 30 minutes with good prompting. Her hope is that as the mundane work falls away, so will the profession's punishing hours.

Lisa Qiu's Advice for Young Lawyers: Don't Get Pigeonholed

For early-career lawyers, Qiu's advice draws directly on her own winding path from insurance claims to employment and migration law.

Fresh graduates, she notes, are often so relieved to land any role in a brutally competitive market that they take whatever comes, and then find themselves pigeonholed. "Don't be afraid to try different practice areas until you find what the right fit for you is," she says. The law offers many ways to practice: government, in-house, private practice, and countless specialties within each.

Her reasoning is about sustainability as much as satisfaction. "Working as a lawyer, you've got to think about the long game. It's a stressful, high-pressured role and it's easy to burn out or become complacent with a practice area if you're not really passionate about it. So find something that gets you excited to get out of bed each morning."

Advice for Migrants Coming to Australia: Plan the Pathway Early

Qiu's message for individuals on their own migration journey mirrors her advice to employers: think long term, and think early.

Working holiday and student visas are popular entry points to Australia, she explains, but they can lead to a dead end if permanent residency is the ultimate goal. The Australian government prioritizes certain occupations for permanent residency, which means the degree you choose and the career you pursue can shape your visa options years down the track.

"If you're in the early stages of your migration journey and you still have room to choose what you want to study and what career you eventually want to go down, get some advice early on," she urges, "so that you can make sure you're applying for the right visas and studying the right things."

Despite the political noise and the system's frustrations, her closing message is an open door. Australia, she says, is always facing a skills shortage, and it remains a great place to work, visit, and live.

"If people are thinking about coming to Australia, definitely do it."