About 50 people demonstrated on Friday outside offices of the Department of Home Affairs in Braddon against the deportation of the Tamil family who migrated by boat and ending up settling in Biloela in country Queensland.
The Canberra protesters heard a string of speeches urging the government to relent and not continue with the deportation of the father, mother and two young children back to Sri Lanka where they say they face persecution. The two children were born in Australia.
Between the speeches outside the government offices in the heart of the Australian capital, protesters chanted, "Let Them Stay".
The meeting was organised by the Canberra Refugee Action Campaign to coincide with a court hearing about whether the family should finally be deported.
In the end, the complex legal dispute was pushed forward to a further hearing on September 18.
The family, Nadesalingam Murugappan (known as Nades) and Kokilapathmapriya Nadesalingam (known as Priya) and their two daughters have become the human focus of the country's debate over how Australia should treat those who arrive from poor and troubled countries.
The father and mother came by boat in 2012 and 2013 and met and married here. Their two children were born in Australia.
By all accounts, they have been welcomed in the small Queensland community. The father was employed at the local meat processing plant and the mother cooked for hospital staff.
But under the Migration Act, asylum seekers who arrive by boat cannot be granted asylum if they then apply for it in Australia.
The parents said they were in danger in Sri Lanka because of their Tamil background. The island on the southern tip of India was subject to a civil war from 1983 to 2009.
Speakers at the Canberra protest were vociferous in the family's support.
Canberra Refugee Action Campaign member Sophie Singh said "despite the groundswell of support for this family nationwide, government ministers remain obdurate in their refusal to exercise their powers to return them to their community.
"We will continue to stand up for compassion towards this family."
"These polices have got to change," said Dr John Minns, one of the main speakers at the protest.
"If you ask ordinary Australians if they want to keep people like Priya and Nades, they would say 'yes'," said the associate professor at the Australian National University.
He said he was not in favour of open borders so anyone could arrive in Australia and stay.
But he said the current policy of detaining people on remote islands should change.
In the 70s and 80s, he said Australian immigration officers travelled to countries like Thailand and Malaysia and interviewed refugees and migrants there.
"We didn't have mandatory detention," he said.
"We didn't have offshore detention and we certainly didn't have permanent exclusion of people who arrived by boat."
He said people needed to get more involved in politics. "If we just lie on the couch thinking about all the terrible things which are happening, we will get depressed."
- Forum: Page 27
