Federal election 2022: Scott Morrison’s ‘empathy’ won’t extend to Biloela asylum seeker family

Scott Morrison has again ruled out intervening in the case of an asylum seeker family to allow them to return to their former home in the rural Queensland town of Biloela. After promising earlier this week to govern with more empathy if he is re-elected, the Prime Minister has been pressed on whether this will extend to Priya and Nadesalingam Murugappan and their two Australian-born daughters. Mr Morrison on Friday said that to intervene in the family’s case to allow them to stay would effectively give a green light to people smugglers and restart “the carnage at sea”. “They have not been afforded the status of refugees. So they’re not refugees. That is what the courts have found,” he told reporters. “If you grant visas to people who have illegally entered Australia, you may as well start writing the prospectus for people smugglers.” Mr Morrison was then asked several times if he would ask Immigration Minister Alex Hawke to his powers of ministerial intervention to allow the Murugappan family to return to Biloela. “You said you would be more empathetic, this is one family you can change the lives of,” the reporter questioning the prime minister said. Mr Morrison said it was Mr Hawke’s decision to make, “in the same way it was his decision over Novak Djokovic”. “The most empathetic thing when it comes to border protection, (is to) keep our borders secure,” Mr Morrison said. A spokesman for Mr Hawke said he would not be commenting on the matter. Mr Morrison and Mr Hawke have previously indicated they believe the family’s fate should be decided by the courts. Anthony Albanese has promised a Labor government would grant the Murugappan family visas to allow them to return to Biloela. Priya and Nades are two Tamil asylum seekers who came to Australia by boat from Sri Lanka during the civil war a decade ago and settled in the central Queensland town after being granted bridging visas. They lived and worked in the town, where their two daughters Kopika and Tharnicaa were born, until their bridging visas expired and they were eventually sent to Christmas Island in August 2019 where they became the sole residents of the detention centre there. They were later moved to Perth after 3-year-old Tharnicaa suffered a blood infection, where they have remained in limbo despite advocacy from Biloela residents and other supporters to “bring them home”. Biloela resident Bronwyn Dendle last month told the ABC’s Q+A program the Morrison government was ignoring the majority of Australians and some of its own MPs by not letting the family return. “Please, tell us what is it going to take for Mr Morrison to simply let this family come home to Bilo where they are welcome, wanted and needed?” she said. Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is among the Coalition MPs who have thrown their support behind the family and called for an end to their lengthy legal and administrative fight to stay in Australia.