Arguments against the Biloela family don’t pass the sniff test

Nadesalingam Murugappan, known as Nades, his wife Kokilapathmapriy Nadarasa, known as Priya, and their daughters Kopika, 5 and Tharunicaa, 3 on Christmas Island. Picture: Colin Murty.

The arguments being used to deny the Murugappan family incarcerated on Christmas Island the opportunity to settle in Australia don’t pass the sniff test. It’s time for the Coalition government to show some compassion and settle this Tamil family. Time to finally give them the chance to return to the community of Biloela in rural Queensland that wants them back.

Don’t get me wrong, I do understand the complexity of the case. They were not determined to be refugees under the formal assessment processes. The courts have not sided with the campaign to free the family, upholding rulings against the family as per their immigration status. While I have long advocated for refugee rights against the flow of public opinion, I have largely tried to avoid siding with arrivals who do not secure formal refugee status, like this family has failed to do.

But common sense also must prevail. There is a case for exceptionalism here.

In the post-pandemic world we are in, well removed from the heady days of the asylum seeker issues dominating the news agenda, an exception can be made for this family of four. The children were born in Australia. It is a costly exercise keeping them in detention on Christmas Island. They are refusing to return to Sri Lanka, fearing persecution. Whether that’s well founded or not, it’s become a stalemate. Labor has flipped and now wants them freed and granted rights here in Australia.

To be sure, Labor doesn’t come to this debate with clean hands. It has largely capitulated to the Coalition’s tough policies in recent years. But on this occasion it is on the right side of history.

Kristina Keneally and other supporters of the Murugappan family at a vigil in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

The twin arguments the government uses for not letting the family settle in Australia are that granting an exemption would be wrong, allowing the family to “jump the queue”, and secondly there are too many risks attached to a soft showing on border rules. The second argument relies on the notion that the asylum boats would start up again were this family of four granted rights after years of incarceration.

Let’s highlight how off the mark both arguments really are.

The idea that exemptions can’t be made because there is a queue is quite frankly ridiculous. For a start refugee arrivals were suspended during the pandemic, so any queue was disbanded anyway. Besides, governments make exemptions all the time. Ministers grant exemptions all the time. In this policy space and in others. We have seen exemption after exemption when it comes to celebrities travelling to Australia during the pandemic, for example. The whole reason the legislation on asylum seekers gives the minister the power to grant exemptions is because there are cases wherein doing so has a purpose, can become necessary, or is simply the right thing to do. This is one of those cases, for all manner of reasons.

Even if the government didn’t want to grant the exemption on humanitarian grounds, which it should, it could justify doing so on fiscal grounds alone. Keeping Christmas Island open and operational for a single family has cost the taxpayer in excess of seven million dollars over the nearly two years this Tamil family has been locked up there.

The notion that if we allow them to settle in Australia doing so will give people smugglers the incentive to restart the flow of boat arrivals is just a nonsense. John Howard ultimately settled most of those who arrived on the MV Tampa when it pulled up off the WA coast in 2001 in Australia, he just did it quietly a long time after the event.

Besides, opportunities for people smugglers to ply their trade aren’t what they were before the pandemic, and this government has shown that it can turn boats around at sea even if the trade were to resume.

The PM is overseas right now and the acting PM, Michael McCormack, yesterday indicated that the responsible minister would be making an announcement soon on the fate of this family. Not soon enough. They have been locked up for years, torn away from a community that wanted them to stay, and one of their children has now fallen seriously ill. All of which is to say nothing about the cost of keeping them locked up, and the psychological damage doing so must be having on them all, especially the children, who by the way were born in this country.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.