UK legal boost for Murugappan family

A British court’s rejection of Australian intelligence has given supporters of the Murugappan family hope that they will not be deported.

The Biloela family were reunited in Perth on Tuesday.

A British court’s rejection of Australian intelligence about Sri Lanka has given supporters of the Murugappan family hope that they will not be deported.

The Tamil family at the centre of a political storm over Australia’s hard line on boat arrivals was reunited in Perth on Tuesday, as Immigration minister Alex Hawke continues his review of their case.

On Wednesday, human rights lawyer Alison Battisson said it was highly relevant for Mr Hawke to consider that three judges of the UK Upper Tribunal had in May made strong criticisms of the information Australia has relied on when rejecting asylum seekers from Sri Lanka.

The tribunal decided not to use the 2019 report from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which claims Sri Lankans face a low risk of torture.

The judges wrote: “None of the sources are identified; there is no explanation as to how the information from these sources was obtained.”

Ms Battisson told The Australian she was not surprised by the finding of the British court, saying there had been concerns for some years about DFAT’s ­information on Sri Lanka being used when assessing asylum seekers, including Mr and Mrs Murugappan who were rejected in 2012 and 2016 respectively.

She said the information used to decide they were not refugees was “out of date and was not ­correct at the time”.

Mr Hawke has sweeping powers to intervene in the family’s case, and his options include recognising that their youngest daughter Tharnicaa is a refugee.

Tharnicaa, 4, is the only member of the family whose claim for protection is unresolved. The circumstances are unusual: while Tharnicaa and her big sister Kopika, 6, were born in Australia, they inherited the immigration status of their parents who were among more than 50,000 asylum seekers who arrived by boat under the last Labor government and were ­declared unlawful non-citizens.

Before Tuesday, the family has been in detention facilities – firstly at Villawood, then at Christmas Island – since March 2018. They will now live in community detention in Perth while Tharnicaa recovers from pneumonia and a blood infection.

On Tuesday, Mr Hawke re­iterated the government’s policy was to not resettle any asylum seeker who arrived in Australia by boat. But he did not rule out using Section 195A of the Migration Act which allows him to grant a visa if he believes it is in the public interest to do so.

However, he expressed concerns that offering permanent resettlement would restart the people-smuggling trade. He also did not rule out the Morrison government deporting the family once their legal options were exhausted.  

Biloela resident and longtime refugee advocate Angela Fredericks said allowing the family to return to the Queensland town where they previously lived was the “logical” and “compassionate” solution. “In community ­detention, they are still being looked after by the taxpayer,” she told the Nine Network.