Biloela family: High Court rejects bid to hear appeal case

The youngest daughter of the Biloela family has been dealt a serious blow in her legal battle to remain in Australia.

The Biloela family: Nades (father), Priya (mother), Kopika and Tharunicaa (youngest). Picture: Instagram

The Biloela family has been dealt another blow in their legal battle to remain in Australia, with the High Court rejecting a bid to hear their youngest daughter’s appeal of a protection visa application.

The Tamil family have been in detention for three years after they were removed from their home in the Queensland town of Biloela in 2018.

Tharnicaa Murugappan. Picture: Supplied

On Thursday, the nation’s highest court refused a special leave request from Tharnicaa Murugappan’s lawyers to hear the appeal.

Priya and Nades Murugappan and their daughters, Kopika, 6 and Tharnicaa, 4 have been living in community detention in Perth after they were removed from detention on Christmas Island, where they had been since August 2019, after Tharnicaa fell ill with a serious blood infection in June. The family’s asylum case has become one of Australia’s most high-profile cases, with some government MPs including Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce calling for the family to be resettled in Biloela.

The parents and Kopika were granted a three-month bridging visa in June, allowing the parents and children to work and attend school. Both Tharnicaa and her older sister Kopika were born in Australia, but the parents do not have citizenship.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said because of the family’s ongoing legal matters it was inappropriate for him to comment on their

“I note the High Court’s decision follows a series of previous decisions by the Department of Home Affairs, Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Federal Circuit Court, Federal Court, Full Federal Court and High Court in relation to the family,” he said.

The family won a Federal Court appeal in February, with the court ruling that Tharnicaa’s visa application had been denied procedural fairness. The family’s lawyers aimed to argue in the High Court that Tharnicaa already had a valid visa application because of a 2017 ministerial decision which lifted the statutory bar preventing the children of unauthorised maritime arrivals applying for temporary protection visas.
Supporters of the family have called on Mr Hawke to use his ministerial discretion to allow Tharnicaa to apply for asylum.

On Twitter, Labor’s immigration spokeswoman Kristina Keneally said Mr Hawke could grant Tharnicaa a visa and allow the family to resettle in Biloela.

Mr Murugappan, who reached Christmas Island by boat in 2012, and his wife who arrived at ­Cocos ­Islands by boat in 2013, have ­repeatedly been found not be refugees in decisions by the Australian government, courts and tribunals.

They met and married in Australia and had their children on the Australian mainland while their claims for protection were being assessed and appealed.