Pressure mounts on Federal Government to release Tamil Biloela family from detention
The Assistant Minister for Women has offered a stark opinion of a hospitalised Tamil girl and her family who want to leave Aussie detention.
The Assistant Minister for Women has told Peta Credlin that despite the plight of an Australian-born Tamil girl who had to be medically evacuated from Christmas Island yesterday with sepsis, the family “knew the terms” of their arrangement.
It comes just hours after the mother of Tharnicaa Murugappan pleaded with the Federal Government to let them leave immigration detention and return to their home in rural Queensland.
The three-year-old was medically evacuated from Christmas Island to a Perth hospital on Monday with suspected sepsis, after suffering high temperatures, vomiting and diarrhoea since May 25.
Despite ongoing requests from her mother, Priya, detention centre staff allegedly refused to take Tharnicaa to hospital on the island until Sunday morning, instead handing her a piece of paper “that explained common flu symptoms”.
The Department of Home Affairs issued a statement Tuesday morning strongly denying any delay of medical care.
The little girl, who turns four next week, has since been diagnosed with pneumonia, which may have caused her blood infection.
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WATCH: Priya has released a video message from Perth Children’s Hospital, where little Tharni is being treated for a blood infection caused by untreated pneumonia.
— HometoBilo (@HometoBilo) June 8, 2021
ACT: Ask Minister Karen Andrews to bring them home to Bilo :https://t.co/oro8NSsfco#HomeToBilopic.twitter.com/HhwWoO6Frf
In a video message on Tuesday afternoon, Ms Murugappan thanked her family’s supporters “for their love and good wishes”.
“I hope that Tharnicaa can get the help she needs now. Please, help us to get her out of detention and home to Biloela,” she said, while cradling her daughter.
Then, on Tuesday night, Assistant Minister for Women Amanda Stoker, a Liberal senator for Queensland, told Peta Credlin the situation was “tough” for the family and that it was “really important that this little girl gets the medical care she needs and deserves”.
But, she noted, “this family knew the terms of the arrangement with Australia, they’ve known from the outset that people who arrive in Australia to whom we don’t owe protection obligations, who are not refugees under law, don’t get to stay here if they arrive illegally”.
“It’s a shame that they’re being, particularly the children, being put through this process but let’s also be clear, those parents who are not found to be refugees have the option of going back to Sri Lanka.
“And giving their children the free and unrestricted life, if that’s what they wish.”
Despite mounting criticism including from the Australian Medical Association, Ms Stoker noted “there was good quality enough medical care provided in detention”.
“It think that is signficiant and worth noting that we provide care of that nature, as good as you would get in Australian community, for people in detention.”
Pressure mounts
The three-year-old’s current condition has thrown a harsh spotlight on why it is that the family – held in immigration detention since March 2018 – is still being held on Christmas Island, with family friends, politicians and advocates stating that “all of this could have been avoided”.
Pressure is now mounting Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews to finally do the right thing and let the asylum seeker family return to their home in Biloela.
“No man’s political ego or stubbornness is worth the life of a child,” Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who previously served as the party’s Immigration spokeswoman, wrote on Twitter this morning.
“Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP can make a decision right now to save these two little girls and stop their suffering. It is time they were allowed to come home to #biloela.”
Senator Hanson-Young told news.com.au that the Murugappan family “has been used as political pawns for far too long”.
“It is tragic that a little girl who has already spent much of her short life in detention is now suffering even further and her life is at risk,” she said.
“The Prime Minister can make a decision right now to save her and her sister and end their family’s suffering. It is time to bring them home to Biloela.
“There is no reasonable justification for how the Morrison Government has punished these children. It is cruel and petty politics and it is heartless.
“I urge Scott Morrison not to be stubborn this time. A little girl’s life is at stake and he can help protect her and her sister and let them have a childhood that is safe and happy.”
Current Greens Immigration spokesman, Nick McKim, said in a statement the “family’s treatment has been appalling and disgraceful”.
“They have been exiled to a remote island, and detained indefinitely, having built a life for themselves in Queensland,” he said.
“Physical and mental health problems have always gone hand-in-hand with offshore detention – and yet their detention continues.
“It is beyond unconscionable that they would be sent back to Christmas Island.
“They must be resettled in our community urgently, before any more damage is done.”
Tharunicaa - just 3 years old, about to turn 4. Born in Queensland. The cheekiest, sweetest, loveliest little girl.
— Kristina Keneally (@KKeneally) June 7, 2021
Now being rushed from detention on Christmas Island to Perth for a medical emergency.🥲
All of this could have been avoided. Just let them go #hometobilopic.twitter.com/n8GgZMDqt2
No man’s political ego or stubbornness is worth the life of a child.
— 💚🌠Sarah Hanson-Young (@sarahinthesen8) June 7, 2021
Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP can make a decision right now to save these two little girls and stop their suffering. It is time they were allowed to come home to #biloelapic.twitter.com/XKfgBZpBKw
“This child is almost 4. Almost her entire life has been behind wire,” Craig Foster wrote.
“It’s a level of cruelty so bewildering, but it’s happening in contemporary Australia, at obscene taxpayer expense. When will enough of us decide that torturing kids is not part of this country?”
Labor Senator Kristina Keneally – who visited the family on Christmas Island in April – wrote that the family “should not be in detention” but home in Biloela.
“All of this could have been avoided. Just let them go #hometobilo,” she tweeted.
Speaking to the ABC, family friend and supporter Bronwyn Dendle called said the fact Tharnicaa had been “so unwell for so long, and was continually dismissed” was “very disappointing and quite frankly dangerous”.
“If this family was home in Biloela where they should be, they would have had access to medical care and Priya would have been able to take her child when she knew she needed to go to the hospital, and have got the help she needed,” Ms Dendle said.
“She wouldn’t have been forced to wait 10 days before we could get her checked over by hospital doctors.
“This family needs to be returned to Biloela – there is no other way forward.”
Asked about the fate of the Murugappan family this morning, Karen Andrews said the Federal Government is looking at a “range of resettlement options”.
In her role as Home Affairs Minister, Ms Andrews has the power to intervene at any moment and allow the family – which includes Tharnicaa, Ms Murugappan, her husband Nades, and their oldest daughter, five-year-old Kopika, who, like her sister, was born in Australia – to remain here.
Mr and Ms Murugappan came to Australia by boat in 2012 and 2013 respectively, settling in Biloela – a town of about 6000 in Central Queensland – where they started a family. In March 2018 the family were taken into detention after they were denied a visa which would allow them to stay in Australia.
“We are going through the process now of investigating a range of resettlement options in relation to a number of different circumstances here in Australia,” Ms Andrews told reporters.
“I can’t make public commentary on that at the moment because I don’t want to disrupt those negotiations.”
While the family won a court battle to avoid deportation to Sri Lanka in February, they have remained in detention limbo – with their lawyer, Carina Ford, asking the Federal Government at the time to stop fighting the family in court and allow them to return to Biloela.
“There are several ministers who have always had the discretion within the immigration portfolio to release this family into the community while their legal matters are resolved,” she said.
“That was the case in 2018, 2019 and 2020. It remains the case now, too.
“The family should be released immediately from detention and we hope that this will occur.”
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