Minister’s final call on Tamil detainees

The minister will decide whether to lift a bar that currently prevents the Biloela family from applying for another visa

The youngest daughter of the ‘Biloela family’, Tharnicaa, is comforted by sister Kopika. Picture: Supplied

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke has formally begun his review of the Biloela Tamil family’s case, putting him on a path to make a final call on whether the family can stay in Australia.

Mr Hawke is understood to have received a submission from the family in recent days. He will decide whether to lift a bar that prevents the family from applying for other visas in Australia.

The development came as activists held a vigil on Wednesday night outside the Perth Children’s Hospital, where the family’s youngest child, Tharnicaa, 3, is being treated for pneumonia and a blood infection.

Tharnicaa was flown from Christmas Island to Perth on Monday, accompanied by her mother Kokilapathmapriy “Priya” Nadarasa, after suffering a medical emergency.

The government had flagged that it was in negotiations to send the family to either the US or New Zealand.

While Mr Hawke has typically taken a conservative approach to border control, having served as an assistant minister to former immigration and home affairs minister Peter Dutton, he has four boys under six years old and may take a more sympathetic view to the family’s case.

Ms Nadarasa and her husband, Nadesalingam Murugappan, are failed asylum-seekers who arrived separately in Australia by boat during the sustained wave of more than 50,000 arrivals under the last Labor government. They were ultimately found not to be refugees.

The couple met, married and had their two children while their claims for protection visas were being assessed and appealed. The girls inherited their parents’ immigration status.

The family has been the only detainees in the island detention camp since August 2019.

Greens Senate candidate Dorinda Cox called on the government to immediately allow the family to stay. “Australia is this family’s home, the children were born here and they are beloved members of their community,” she said.