Biloela family reunion ‘no pathway to visa’

The Biloela family were due to be reunited in Perth late on Tuesday after Alex Hawke granted them a temporary reprieve.

Nadesalingam Murugappan and his eldest daughter Kopika, 6, arrive in Perth on Tuesday after nearly two years on Christmas Island. Picture: Colin Murty

The Biloela family were due to be reunited in Perth late on Tuesday after Immigration Minister Alex Hawke intervened in the family’s long-running legal standoff with the commonwealth to grant them a temporary reprieve.

Mr Hawke revealed on Tuesday the family would live in community detention in Perth while their legal matters continued and their youngest daughter received medical treatment. But he stressed his decision did not create a “pathway for a visa”.

He will decide at a later date whether to lift the statutory bar preventing the family from applying for non-refugee visas.

Four-year-old Tharnicaa

The family’s youngest daughter Tharnicaa, 4, has been in hospital in Perth for the past week after falling seriously ill with pneumonia and a blood infection while in detention on Christmas Island. Her transfer sparked mounting internal pressure for the Morrison government to make a swift decision about the family’s future.

A charter flight carrying Nadesalingam Murugappan and his eldest daughter Kopika, 6, from Christmas Island landed in Perth on Tuesday evening. Their arrival followed clinical advice from Tharnicaa’s doctors that it was ­important for her health to have her family with her during her ­recovery, which is expected to take at least eight weeks.

Mr Hawke reiterated the government’s border protection policy was to not resettle anyone who arrived by boat, and warned the people-smuggling trade could ­restart at any time. He said people smugglers watched “developments in Australia’s border protection policy “closely”.

“The trade in human misery means lost life; it means more ­expense and a loss of social cohesion,” the minister said.

He told Sky News that granting a permanent visa to the family would “absolutely” trigger a flood of boats to arrive in Australia. But he said the family’s case was “complex” and he had a submission in front of him to use Section 195A of the Migration Act to grant visas to the family, which some Coalition MPs had urged him to do.

Mr Hawke said the immigration status of the Biloela family had not changed with his decision.

“They have been on a removal pathway before this,” he said. “That’s because they are unlawful non-citizens. We don’t owe protection to anyone in this family.”

He also flagged the Coalition would be prepared for them to be deported back to Sri Lanka if they were not granted a visa in their various legal challenges.

The family has ongoing legal cases before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the Federal Court and the High Court.

Mr Hawke said if one of the children was found to be “owed protection obligations” then that would affect the immigration status of the other family members.

However, the family’s lawyer, Carina Ford, said Mr Hawke could use his ministerial discretion at any time to grant the family visas and halt further litigation.

Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack told his colleagues on Tuesday that the government was dealing with “difficult and challenging issues” regarding the Biloela family, and he said Labor had “put more beds in detention centres than they ever did in hospitals” while in government.

Nadesalingam Murugappan and daughter Kopika leave Christmas Island.

Josh Frydenberg said the Morrison government needed to “hold the line” to protect the “integrity of our borders”.

During question time on Tuesday, Anthony Albanese said the Biloela community in Queensland had made it clear they wanted the family to return to the town where they previously lived.

“Why won’t the government let this family go home to Bilo?” the Opposition Leader asked.

Angela Fredericks, a longtime refugee advocate and friend of the Murugappan family, urged the government to allow the family to resettle in the Queensland town.

“Australia knows this family’s home is in Biloela,” she said, adding she hoped the family’s placement in community detention would be a “temporary stop”.

“Community detention is no guarantee of safety and peace for this family,” Ms Fredericks said.

Mr Murugappan and his wife Priya arrived separately in Australia by boat in 2012 and 2013. Tharnicaa and her sister Kopika were born in Australia but inherited their parents’ immigration status. They were the last two children in a detention facility in Australia when the family was moved to Christmas Island in August 2019.

The family’s long legal battle to stay in Australia now hinges on an asylum claim for Tharnicaa.