Sunday Times 2
Aussie ex-PM Morrison was all at sea when it came to integrity
After four years of despair, and millions of dollars spent by the Australian government to incarcerate them, a Sri Lankan Tamil refugee family have had their human rights and faith in humanity restored.
The asylum-seeking family, Priya and Nades Murugappan and their two Australian-born daughters, Kopica and Tharnicaa, have had a protracted struggle to stay in Australia and be returned to the Central Queensland town of Biloela, 600km north of Brisbane.
On Friday, the new Albanese government’s interim Home Affairs Minister, Jim Chalmers, ruled the family could return to Biloela on bridging visas while they await their case to be resolved in court.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attends the Quad leaders' summit, in Tokyo, Japan, May 24, 2022. Yuichi Yamazaki/Pool via REUTERS
Mr Chalmers said: “This decision will allow them to get home to Bilo, a big-hearted and welcoming Queensland town that has embraced this beautiful family.”
Nades and Priya came as refugees in 2012 and 2013, met in Biloela and married. They subsequently had their two children but their requests for permanent residency were denied by the Coalition government on grounds they had arrived illegally by boat. They were removed from Biloela when their temporary visas ran out and were sent to Melbourne before being locked up on Christmas Island, with millions spent on keeping them there.
A bid to deport them in 2019 was stalled by a court injunction, backed by the family’s supporters in Biloela and around Australia, and a coterie of human rights advocates. Their plight sparked the long-running Return to Bilo campaign. The situation worsened when four-year-old Tharnicaa, who has spent every birthday in detention, was rushed to Perth Children’s Hospital where she was treated for sepsis due to undiagnosed pneumonia. Because of Tharnicaa’s illness, the family was moved to Perth and subsequently released from detention, but they could not leave Western Australia.
It all changed for the Murugappan family after the removal of the Coalition government last Saturday. New Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Biloela, as opposition leader, in 2019 and promised their release if the Labor Party won power. When Albanese was declared PM, national news channels beamed images of an elated and emotional family.
Friday’s news led major news services, along with another Sri Lanka-linked story that had refugee advocates fuming.
In the past weeks, Sri Lanka had been inextricably linked to the Australian federal election in the worst possible way. After news polls showed Labor was on track to win government, incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison resorted to a cynical tactic to win eleventh-hour votes.
On the afternoon of election day, May 21, Morrison’s office instructed the Australian Border Force to publicise the interception of a boat carrying so-called refugees from Sri Lanka. Within minutes, the Coalition government had sent thousands of text messages about the boat to voters in marginal seats, urging them to vote Liberal and keep borders safe. This was a disgraceful act of political chicanery, as it defied all caretaker government conventions in not making official statements in an election period. It also defied Morrison’s hitherto strong stance of not commenting on Border Force operations or “on-water matters”.
Defeated PM: Scott Morrison
Prime Minister Albanese said he had warned Morrison’s office not to release the information, and that it was inappropriate to politicise the situation. “This is an abuse of proper processes and a disgraceful act,” Mr Albanese said.
The lengths Morrison and his Border Force went to protect our borders are coming to light. Earlier this week, a report emerged that two unidentified people visited a refugee camp in Indonesia and handed the children playing cards, the backs stamped with the Australian coat of arms and an image of people in a boat in rough seas. The cards also linked to the Border Force’s Zero Chance Sri Lanka website, https://zerochance.lk/ warning on illegal immigration. The web page can be translated into Sinhala and Tamil.
The playing cards were distributed a week before the text messages about the boat arrival were sent on election day. Despite the furore, the ABF has strongly defended its actions as a deterrent in line with its Operation Sovereign Borders.
Morrison served up photo-op after photo-op to mostly a subservient conservative media, unaware his campaign was comatose, and he was poisoning Liberal-National chances of winning the election. He was on the nose for many women voters because of his blokey stance and penchant for rubbing people up the wrong way. He had lost sight of the issues – a need for strong action on climate change, addressing a toxic and predatory attitude to women in parliament, cronyism, lack of integrity and rorts where funds were directed to Coalition electorates, low wages, lies, hypocrisy and transgender marginalisation.
In the election, professional women with strong integrity lined up against Morrison as Independents to smash the Liberal vote in New South Wales and Victoria, while the Greens prospered in Brisbane to spur urgent action on climate change. Morrison, who had likened West Australians to cave dwellers because of their tough border closures and preventative Covid-19 measures, endured a bloodbath with more than a 10 percent swing to Labor in that state.
With Morrison gone, there is real hope Albanese will improve the political discourse and take Australia down a kinder and inclusive path. As for opposition leader Dutton, the conservative hard head who was a key player in the Biloela family’s detention, is trying to recast himself as a forgiving, kinder, softer person.
But as all Sri Lankans know, a leopard cannot change its spots.