Lucy Carne: Time for the government to make an exception and return the Tamil family to Biloela
This isn’t about being a Christian or opening the immigration flood gates. This is about humanity and making an exception to put people before politics, writes Lucy Carne.
Opinion
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Remember when former home affairs minister Peter Dutton reportedly personally intervened to stop the deportation of two European au pairs and the subsequent flood of French, Italian and Belgian nannies at our borders demanding illegal entry?
Neither do I.
And yet this continues to be the government’s justification to callously keep Biloela’s Tamil family locked in indefinite detention.
The asylum seekers once again returned to news headlines last Monday after once again being torn apart.
Images were released of a distraught Tharunicaa sobbing as her sister Kopika, 5, kissed her goodbye.
After 14 days of her parents Nades and Priya seeking medical help (including from tele consultants in Sydney who advised Panadol) for their youngest daughter who was suffering fevers, vomiting, aching limbs and diarrhoea, Tharunicaa was finally admitted with her mother to Perth’s Children’s Hospital with pneumonia.
On Saturday she celebrated her fourth birthday in a hospital room with SERCO guards at the door and her dad and sister detained 2600 km away on Christmas Island.
Tharunicaa has spent every birthday locked up. She and her sister, who were both born in Queensland, are the only children remaining in immigration detention in Australia.
The family have spent nearly three years in detention since 2018 when they were removed from their home in Biloela, 120km southwest of Gladstone in central Queensland, in a 5am raid by armed police and Australian Border Force immigration officers.
Priya had been warming a bottle for baby Tharunicaa and Nades was preparing to leave for his early morning shift at the abattoir.
He also volunteered at St Vincent de Paul, while Priya made curries for medical workers at the hospital and attended the church playgroup.
They had 10 minutes to pack up their lives.
In 2019 they were moved from a detention unit in Melbourne to Darwin with 50 guards allegedly involved in dragging the family across the tarmac from a van and on to a plane.
They are now the only detainees on Christmas Island at a reported cost of $50m to Australian taxpayers.
Biloela, a close-knit town of 5700 people, desperately wants the family back. They were valued community members who did the work other Australians turned their noses up at.
A petition addressed to Prime Minister Scott Morrison has now been signed by more than 524,000 people calling for the family’s return home to Biloela.
But the family is still locked up in an eternal waiting room of uncertainty by a government blinded by stubbornness.
As though one small act of compassion would unleash an armada of Sri Lankan economic refugees conniving to use anchor babies to greedily claim citizenship to our great nation.
Refusing to intervene in the case, Mr Morrison said: “I know what happens when people think it’s OK to make an exception here or there. I remember what happened. I remember the deaths.”
But that’s the issue. They have made exceptions – and not just to European au pairs. Thousands of discretionary decisions are made every year under the Migration Act that we never hear about.
Our borders are currently closed and our refugee and humanitarian intake has been cut back from 18,750 places last year to 13,750 places.
Yet we’re happy to open up to Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters and international students, as well as Hollywood actors like Zac Efron.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott, former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and Sky News host Alan Jones support the family’s return to Biloela, as do so many appalled Australians.
And their anger is justified – even with all the facts.
Yes, Priya and Nades arrived in Australia illegally by boat.
They fled a civil war that had killed more than 200,000 mainly Tamil civilians, including Priya’s fiance who was burned alive.
They have appealed to every court, but under current criteria, have been deemed unworthy of being granted refugee status.
But an influential UK tribunal has questioned a report used by DFAT that asserts that Tamils returned to Sri Lanka are at a low threat of danger.
Instead, the tribunal found that Tamils who engaged in political activities in the United Kingdom, including simply sharing their views on social media, may continue to face “a real risk of ill-treatment or harm”.
Wanting this family to return to Biloela does not mean you are against Australia’s strict immigration and a safe turn back of boats.
It’s not a call to open the flood gates.
Nor is it about being a Christian or a parent.
This is about humanity.
It’s about making an exception, just like it was for the au pairs.
It’s about sometimes, just sometimes, putting people before politics.
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