Treatment of Murugappan family is a stain on Australia’s soul, writes Michael McGuire

At least we now know what it takes for the federal government to find a little compassion. A serious illness of a child, writes Michael McGuire.

Even when it’s dragged kicking and screaming to the edge of human decency, the federal government seems unable to fully commit to doing the right thing.

It’s certainly promising news the Murugappan family – who have been abandoned in detention for more than three years – will be reunited on the Australian mainland, but Immigration Minister Alex Hawke was quick to point out that “importantly today’s decision does not create a pathway to a visa’’.

Why that’s important is not really clear. But let’s be charitable. After more than three years of expensive state-sanctioned mental torture of the family, the government didn’t want to be seen backing down too quickly. That would be too embarrassing.

Predictably, Hawke also threw in one of the federal government’s go-to lines in these situations: “Anyone who arrives in Australia illegally by boat will not be resettled permanently.”

As usual, ignoring the obvious point there is nothing illegal about seeking asylum, no matter your mode of transportation. Come on a boat, a bike, a camel or a zeppelin, it’s all the same.

At least we now know what it takes for the federal government to find a little compassion. A serious illness of a child. A child currently being treated in a Perth hospital for sepsis and pneumonia after being left to become increasingly sick on Christmas Island for almost two weeks.

There are times when I think the conspicuous Christians in Scott Morrison’s government read the passage in the Bible when Jesus advised his followers to “suffer little children’’ overly literally. To say nothing of “love your neighbour as yourself’’.

The treatment of the Murugappan family has been a stain on the soul of Australia.

Of course, there are plenty of terrible stories when it comes to Australia’s refugee policy but the treatment of husband and wife Nades and Priya, their two children, six-year-old Kopika and four-year-old Tharunicaa is still genuinely shocking. Nades and Priya arrived separately in Australia in 2012 and 2013. They are Tamils who faced persecution in Sri Lanka.

Priya left the country for India after saying her fiance and five men from her village were burned alive during the civil war.

The pair met in Australia, fell in love, moved to the central Queensland town of Biloela, settled in well to the local community and had their two daughters.

In March 2018, a day after Priya’s bridging visa expired, the Australian Border Force turned up before dawn, grabbed the family in the way you expect in an authoritarian state, and not so much Australia, and took them away.

There was a detention centre in Melbourne, then Christmas Island, where they were the only prisoners and the detention cost taxpayers $7m.

Sri Lankan family of Nades (father), Priya (mother), Kopika and Tharunicaa (youngest) who were living in Biloela until they were taken and placed on Christmas Island to await possible deportation Picture Instagram @bringthemhometobiloela

The family lost several appeals to remain in Australia, courts finding them not to be genuine refugees, but it’s hard to imagine the Murugappan family was playing on a level playing field in those battles.

The local community in Biloela wants them back. The family wants to return. If there is any sense of compassion in this government, the next step is obvious.

The treatment of the Murugappan family by Morrison stands in contrast to his relationship with that of Tim Stewart, one of Australia’s leading proponents of the frankly bonkers QAnon cult, which believes the world is run by satanic pedophiles. The ABC’s Four Corners program this week detailed the many longstanding links between Stewart and Morrison, which again called into question the Prime Minister’s judgment.

It came after a federal court judge last week called the government’s Robodebt scheme, of which Morrison was a key architect, a “massive failure in public administration’’.

Which in turn has followed Morrison’s badly judged bushfire response, the inept handling of the Brittany Higgins rape allegations, his attempt to invite Hillsong founder Brian Houston, who was criticised by a royal commission for failing to report abuse allegations against his father, to the White House. And his cosying up to disgraced ex-US president Donald Trump.

In times of crisis, good judgment is a key component of leadership. After almost three years in the job, Morrison still has a lot of work to do.