Biloela Tamil family says government's proposed migration laws would have seen them jailed

Tamil family Nades Murugappan, Priya Nadaraja and their two daughters, Kopika and Tharnicaa. (ABC News)

The Tamil family who fought a high-profile immigration battle to stay in the central Queensland town of Biloela says if the federal government’s proposed deportation changes were law during their saga, they would have been sent to jail.

In a statement, mother Priya Nadaraja said, under the proposal, her and her husband Nades Murugappan would have been jailed – and their two Australian-born girls taken from them – because they were refusing to go back to Sri Lanka.

“We might still be in jail, instead of living safely here as a family,” she said.

“This shouldn’t happen to other people like us.

“In 2019, when the last government put my family on a plane to Sri Lanka, we were terrified.

“We did not know what would happen to us in Sri Lanka, and we could not leave our community here in Bilo.

“We fought to keep our family and community together.”

The family of four were taken from Biloela to immigration detention in 2018 when their bridging visas expired and they were found not to meet Australia’s refugee requirements, but they were returned to the town in 2022 after sustained community campaigning.

The government has consistently said the migration legislation “closes a loophole” for people who have “no legal grounds” to remain in Australia, and would give the government powers it should already have.

But supporters of the Biloela family said the government’s bill was “cruel” and would break-up communities and families, like was the case with the Nadesalingam family in Biloela.

Home to Bilo campaigner Simone Cameron said the proposed changes put many other towns and families at risk.

“Nobody in the Australian community should accept this cruelty being done to their friends, their workmates or their neighbours,” she said.

“The Albanese government must stop this cruelty, and drop this bill.”

The government tried to rush the legislation through parliament before Easter, but could not get the backing of the Coalition, so it stalled.

Since its hurried introduction, the bill has come under heavy fire from human rights advocates who said it was “entirely incompatible with human rights”.

The legislation would have compelled people to cooperate with their deportation process or risk between one and five years in jail.

The laws would have also given Immigration Minister Andrew Giles power to effectively put a travel ban on countries who refused to accept people Australia was trying to deport.

The government has said the bill’s focus is on about 150 people who are currently in immigration detention and avoiding deportation efforts, but there are serious fears the bill could affect thousands of people living in the community on bridging visas.

This includes almost 10,000 people who arrived in Australia in 2012 or 2013 and had their refugee claims rejected in a “fast-tracked” assessment process, but who for various reasons have not been able to be deported.

In March, the government admitted there was a link between the legislation and a High Court case involving an Iranian man who was refusing to be deported to Iran because he feared persecution because of his sexuality.