Biloela family are granted PERMANENT visas to Australia bringing an end to the years-long saga

The Sri Lankan ‘Biloela’ family have been granted permanent Australian visas after a lengthy community battle against immigration officials. 

The Nadesalingam family were given the news at their Queensland home by the Department of Home Affairs on Friday afternoon after a four-year immigration battle. 

Priya Nadaraja, Nades Murugappan and their daughters Kopika, 7, and Tharnicaa, 4, will now call Australia their permanent home after years at the centre of a debate about Australia’s immigration policy.

It comes following a personal intervention in their case by immigration minister Andrew Giles.

Priya thanked Mr Giles for granting her family the permanent visas.

‘At last we feel peace,’ she said in a statement.

‘Now I know my daughters will get to grow up safely in Australia. Now my husband and I can live without fear.

‘This is a very happy day for our family and for all the people of Biloela and Australia who have supported us.’

The family were removed from their central Queensland town of Biloela in 2018 after their bridging visas expired, sparking a community-driven campaign to keep the Tamil family in Australia.

The family then spent four years in immigration detention.

The Labor government granted them new bridging visas in June, allowing the family to return to their regional home town.

Priya (left) and Nades (right) said their family finally feel at peace and thanked the immigration minister and Australians.

The ‘Biloela’ family (pictured) spent four years in immigration detention after their visas expired while they were living in the small Queensland town of Biloela

Mr Giles said he personally intervened in the case of the Nadesalingam family.

‘My intervention provides the family with visas allowing them to remain permanently in Australia.’

‘This decision follows careful consideration of the Nadesalingam family’s complex and specific circumstances,’ he said.

‘I extend my best wishes to the Nadesalingam family.’ 

But the minister said the Government’s stance on illegal boats wouldn’t change.

‘We will continue to intercept any unauthorised vessel seeking to reach Australia, and safely return those on board to their point of departure or country of origin or take them to a regional processing country,’ he added.

‘I do not want people to die in a boat on a journey when there is zero chance of settling in Australia.

‘We are not considering changing this policy.’

During a visit from the Department of Home Affairs on Friday the Sri Lankan ‘Biloela’ family  were informed they had been granted permanent visas

One organisation at the centre of the fight broke the news early on Friday evening the family had been granted permanent Australian visas. 

‘At 2.30pm today the Nadesalingam family, affectionately referred to as the ‘Biloela family’, were visited by the Department of Home Affairs team at their Biloela home and given the news that they have been granted permanent visas,’ the ‘Home to Bilo’ group posted on social media.

Biloela family friend and Home to Bilo campaigner Angela Fredericks told the ABC they were with the Nadesalingam family when Home Affairs officials visited.   

‘We knew they were coming but had no idea what for. So when they said the words ‘permanent’, there were just immediate tears and just such excitement and jubilation,’ she said.

‘They let us know the news the minister was deciding to intervene and use his powers to grant all four family members permanent visas.’ 

Shadow Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said allowing the family to permanently live in Australia ‘undermines’ current asylum-seeker policy.

‘Actions have consequences and this sets a high profile precedent. It undermines the policy that if you come here illegally you will never settle in Australia,’ she said. 

‘Together with Labor’s policy to abolish Temporary Protection Visas, this gives people smugglers a product to sell to desperate families and people.’

Online, public response has exploded as many thanked campaigners for their efforts in raising the profile of the family’s fight. 

‘Finally. How can we ever make it up to them for the trauma they have experienced? Those poor young Australians have seen the worst of our country. What a wonderful local community effort,’ wrote one Australian on Twitter. 

‘Great news for this one family. Sadly there are tens of thousands of other people like them still suffering,’ posted refugee advocate Shane Bazzi.

Nadesalingam Murugappan arrived in Australia on a people-smuggler’s boat in 2012, fleeing persecution as a Tamil in Sri Lanka.

Kokilapathmapriya ‘Priya’ Nadaraja fled Sri Lanka in 2001, seeking asylum in Australia in 2013 and meeting Nadesalingam. 

In the years following, the pair moved to Biloela where they married and settled.

In March, 2018, Australian Border Force officials, police and private security guards took the family from their home as Priya’s visa was expiring.

The family were ferried between different detention centres, Melbourne and Christmas Island, and given deportation notices. 

Their home community and social advocacy groups rallied in support of the family – with a petition carrying nearly 200,000 signatures calling on then-Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton to allow the family to return to Biloela.

Visa appeals made by Priya put the family’s deportation on hold, but multiple appeals saw the department find the family’s case fall short of the country’s protection obligations.

After the High Court denied the Tamil family’s final appeal to stay, they were put on a plane out the country, until it was stopped by solicitors lodging a last-minute injunction.

The injunction was granted as Nades and Priya’s daughter Tharnicaa hadn’t yet been assessed for a protection visa, and the family were taken back to Christmas Island.

Last year, Tharnicaa was evacuated from the island for medical treatment, and the rest of the family were granted bridging visas, though no such visa was granted for Tharnicaa. 

The family remained in community detention in Perth until the Labor government granted the family further bridging visas and allowed a return to Biloela in June this year.  

Family and friends in Biloela were celebrating the decision on Friday night, with many locals involved in the fight for the family to remain in the country.