[Theme Music Starts]

ELLE:

From Schwartz Media, filling in for Ruby Jones, I’m Elle Marsh, this is 7am.

For four years, one Tamil family, with their two small children have been detained by the Australian government,

The parents, Priya and Nades, have maintained for years that they just want to return to their home in Queensland, Biloela,

And now they finally can.

How did they learn they would be able to return? And what does the decision say about the future of immigration policy in Australia?

Today, journalist Rebekah Holt, who spent election night with the Nadesalingam family - on the moment the family realised they could finally go back to Biloela.

It’s Tuesday, May 31.

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ELLE:

Rebekah. There is one family, the Nadesalingam a family who had a lot more at stake than others on the outcome of the election. You were with them on election night. Can you tell me about that?

REBEKAH:

Yes. When I arrived at the unit, the community detention unit that they live in

Priya was on her own with the girls.

Archival Tape -- Rebakah:

“Hello!”

Archival Tape -- Priya:

“Thank you so much…”

REBEKAH:

As soon as she opened the door, the garage door, she just immediately said to me that she was feeling so tense.

Archival Tape -- Priya:

“I’m very tense and my chest is burning red colour…”

REBEKAH:

The unit that they live in, it's a typical community detention unit. It's it's anonymous and bland. It's like a motel you'd book someone you don't like.

Archival Tape -- Kopika:

“Do you like turtles?”

REBEKAH:

And to the girls were very happy to have a visitor.

Archival Tape -- Kopika:

“it’s a sticker… a baby one”

Archival Tape -- Rebekah:

“Hi girls!”

REBEKAH:

They were chatting away, but I found myself thinking a lot about what they were absorbing. Because there's not many times you get to say this as a journalist. This was a night on which the safety depended and the lives were at stake.

ELLE:

And so can you tell me why this family was in this position, in this unit in Perth and what led them to this point?

REBEKAH:

Priya and Nades unit is Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka. They arrived separately in 2012 and 2013 respectively. They met in Sydney and got married there. There are a lot of Tamil asylum seekers who have ended up in Australia and all over the world after the war in Sri Lanka and they after they met and married they went to Biloela, a little regional town right up in northern Queensland, and abided by the rules of the bridging visas that they were given, which didn't allow them to leave Australia and meant that they, you know, had to stay in the community and work and support themselves.

So this little family with their two little girls, everything was quite normal for them in terms of where they come from and what they had fled from and where they'd found themselves in this rural community. And they were living a very normal life. And one morning in the dark, there's a raid and they are taken away.

ELLE:

So what has their situation been like since that raid in the middle of the night to this family that was in Biloela living their life? Yeah. What has this situation been like since 2018?

REBEKAH:

Their lives, since 2018 have been extremely unpredictable. They have not been able to make any decisions for themselves. They have been held at the behest of the Australian Government.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“The children can be seen on this phone vision taken by their father Nades on Thursday on board the plane that was to take the family back to Sri Lanka.”

REBEKAH:

From the Melbourne Detention Centre, they were taken to Christmas Island. .., which was at that time a shattered detention centre

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“The children scream for their mother Priya, she can just be seen here surrounded by immigrations staff who force them along the isle and try to stop the filming.”

REBEKAH:

The girls have had terrible health outcomes because they've been brought up in closed detention environments,

Archival Tape -- Priya:

“My kids are very mentally upset, its very hard, I’m a mum, I’m a normal persons”

REBEKAH:

The girls have had terrible sleeping patterns because for years, strangers in uniform walked into the bedroom at night with torches and checked on them every few hours.

Archival Tape -- Ch7 Reporter:

“the youngest daughter of the Biloela family is in the process of being medically evacuated from Christmas Island to Perth.”

REBEKAH:

And then in June 2021, the youngest daughter, Tharnicaa, was rushed to the Australian mainland with her mother.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“She is understood to be having septicaemia and has been unwell for the past ten days.”

REBEKAH:

Because she was sick with a blood infection and pneumonia .

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“And it's definitely testing time for the family and for this little girl who is set to turn four next week. And she spent most of her life in detention..”

REBEKAH:

That separated the family, leaving her father Nades and six year old sister Kopica detained on the remote island for another seven days until the immigration minister in amongst a maelstrom of international media coverage. Rising national outrage and countrywide vigils for the health of the three year old in hospital. He relented and he said that the family would be reunited on the mainland.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“In a major show of force, protesters around the country gave up their Father's Day to send one simple message to the government..”

Archival Tape -- Protests:

“Let them stay! Let Them Stay!”

REBEKAH:

So about a day or two after the minister announced that the family would be granted bridging visas and there was a lot of confusion because it was assumed that they would all be granted bridging visas. And there was a lot of joy because the supporters immediately thought they'd be able to go back to Biloela.

But what happened is that the Minister only granted three of them bridging visas and that affected Tharnicaa again yet again, the youngest child because she wasn't given a visa and that means she had to stay housed in community detention. So they had to all stay for nearly the last year in community detention in Perth because the Minister has refused to grant one more visa to the family.

ELLE:

And so election night, you are sitting in Perth, in this community detention facility with the family, can you tell me about the moment I guess when you're watching it with Priya that is started to become clear that Labor might win the election?

REBEKAH:

Yeah. Yeah. She would turn to me and look at me and just say, Is this good? Is this good? And I'd say, this is looking good.

So we didn't say much. We and I didn't want to misrepresent anything. So I was being very careful. She'd already been through one election in a detention centre

And then there was a moment when Nick from Change.org rang me and said, We're prepared to call it. We think that this Labor has enough. We feel safe to tell her it won't. There's no question now.

Archival Tape -- Rebekah:

“Come and sit down. We're going to do a phone call.”

REBEKAH:

And asked me to help him organise a zoom link.

Archival Tape -- Supporters:

“So it looks like we have won. You going, come home Girls, girls? you were going to get to come to home”

Archival Tape -- Girls:

“Oh yay..”

REBEKAH:

And Priya’s relief was immediate When she saw her supporters

Archival Tape -- Priya:

“6 o’clock I very upset, I go to my prayer room. I'm crying. I prayer is everything. But four years, it's a hard life. Back to Bilo ..”

Archival Tape -- Supporter:

“You did it.”

REBEKAH:

And she just sort of set back into the couch and put her hands on her face and started crying.

Archival Tape -- Supporter:

“Kopika And Thanicaa, You're going to get to go on another plane ride and guess where the plane is going to take you?”

Archival Tape -- Girls together:

“Bilo?”

Archival Tape -- Priya:

“I hope Thanicaa’s birthday is in Bilo, last time I remember (laughs) “

Archival Tape -- Priya:

“I’m so happy today, I join my family again. This is a gift.”

ELLE:

We’ll be back after this

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ELLE:

So Rebakah, we’re talking about the Nadesaligam family, can you tell me why a Labor win is so meaningful to them.

REBEKAH:

So that in families lives depended on the outcome of this election.Now, experts say that they would have been detained on arrival in Sri Lanka if they were deported and the girls would have been placed in state run orphanages.

And the Morrison government had over four and a half, nearly four and a half years to show them compassion and they hadn't. That was despite copious cross-party support for the family from figures like Tony Abbott, Julie Bishop, Bob Katter and Barnaby Joyce, and even advice from its own Department of Home Affairs that this family should be released, which wasn't listened to.

The Home Affairs Minister has god powers and that means that any minister in the immigration portfolio can and very often have granted thousands of discretionary visas.

Peter Dutton himself between 2014 and August 2018 alone as the Home Affairs Minister intervened under the section of the Act that it takes to grant a visa and using discretionary powers granted over 4000 visas. That's a rate of three a day. And when you think about the fact that they granted three of the family the visa, they needed to leave and go to Biloela, but just not Thanicaa, it's it's unbelievable. Before even the last election, Bill Shorten said that his family under Labor government would go back to Biloela. And Labor has stuck to that. They made it clear that if they were able to form a government, the family go back to Biloela.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“After years spent in limbo, the Nada Slims are now just days away from the place they call home Using ministerial discretion to intervene. Jim Chalmers is granting the family bridging visas while they work towards the resolution of their immigration status,”

REBEKAH:

So the Interim Home Affairs Minister Jim Chalmers called the family himself last week, last Frid ay. They're going home. They're going to be in Biloela in time, probably for Tharnicas birthday.

ELLE:

And is their future in Australia certain, are they going to be able to stay for good?

REBEKAH:

Look they are definitely safe and in Australia now, what the visas that they got on Friday were bridging visas and those aren't the best visas.. But bridging visas are pretty basic. You can work and get a bit of hospital treatment if you need it. Thats it. The feeling is very much that that they're they're safe now, and they they know where they're going and they're going home.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“Advocates are pushing for permanent protection for the 6000 Tamil asylum seekers in Australia. A hope echoed in a message from Priya…”

ELLE:

And I mean, you've been speaking with this family and following this story for many years now. Like, has it given you hope?

REBEKAH:

I normally stay away from the word hope because it's not precise enough. It's sort of like a big vanilla sponge that soaks up stuff. But This family. These stories become like an archetypal story for lots of other people who've had awful experiences, and the family has sort of been forced into the spotlight to fight for their lives.

The fact that they are safe now. It's a huge relief. And I, I really welcome the thought that they can go and do whatever they want with their lives and they can do it privately. They can make those choices for themselves. Now, they don't have to talk to the media. They don't have to beg for safety. And that's very important, I would on a professional level, I would really like to know in the next little while what Labour's position on detaining children will be. They need to make it clear where they stand because these are not the only children I reported on in these immigration detention centres. Labor need to say whether they would consider putting children in these places because they are manifestly dangerous as we've seen.

I personally hope that there'd be a national conversation when Australia could move beyond kneejerk, reactive talking points about its borders and ensure sort of people arrive by any method their claims for asylum are fairly processed as per their rights under international law and the Albanese Government has already in this short time turned back a boat and there are policies which seem baked into Australia's identity.

When I started reporting on children in onshore, there's a kind of collective mass disassociation where Australians saw that the really awful stuff only happened on Nauru or Manus offshore, conveniently sort of out of sight, obviously at a permanent and terrible cost to the family. Far more Australians know what came and has happened to children who've been detained in these centres which are just sitting in our neighbourhoods.

ELLE:

Rebecca, thank you so much for speaking with me today.

REBEKAH:

Thank you.

Archival Tape -- Girls:

“I really want to come home to Bilo…. Will we see the cockatoos?”

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ELLE:

Also in the news today,

Peter Dutton has been elected unopposed as the new leader of the Liberal Party with Sussan Ley as the party’s deputy leader.

In a press conference on Monday, Dutton suggested his party will develop policies to help what he describes as the “forgotten Australians in the suburbs”.

And,

Barnaby Joyce has been dumped as Nationals leader after the party voted in David Littleproud as the new leader. Littleproud was previously the party’s deputy leader under Joyce.

Ruby Jones will be back tomorrow, this is 7am, see you later.