The ordeal of the four members of the Murugappan family,Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka,has over the past four years become a cause celebre for those who argue that Australia’s refugee policies have become unnecessarily politicised and cruel.
The couple arrived on separate boats a decade ago and were allowed to live and work on temporary visas in the central Queensland town of Biloela while their asylum claims were assessed.
But since 2018,when their claim was rejected at an initial hearing,the couple and their two young daughters who were born in Australia have been kept in detention first on Christmas Island and,until Friday,in Perth.
Acting Home Affairs Ministers Jim Chalmers on Friday said he would allow them to return to “the big-hearted Queensland town that has embraced them so warmly”.
It is a nice gesture which former prime minister Scott Morrison should have done sooner. He chose,however,to keep them behind barbed wire as a sign of his tough stance towards all boat arrivals and anyone deemed not to be genuine refugees.
The decision shows there is scope for compassion even within Australia’s policy of strong borders.
Yet the dilemma is that compassion must be balanced against the need to deter new arrivals and the people smuggler trade.
Chalmers has only issued bridging visas and it is still possible that the Murugappans will be deported if they lose their final case.
Labor is not abandoning the Operation Sovereign Borders policy pursued by the Coalition.
Many people believe the “Stop the boats” policy is heartless. They compare Australia’s reluctance to accept refugees with the generous response in European countries such as Poland and Moldova,which have accepted about 4 million Ukrainian refugees between them in the past three months.
But relaxing the policy would be irresponsible because it would invite the flotillas of boats last seen in 2012 and cause more deaths at sea.
Australia can show its compassion in other ways,such as by increasing its tiny humanitarian refugee intake from the 13,750 announced in the March budget. It should boost foreign aid to refugees affected by war and political unrest.
The ALP should also show more compassion to the thousands of asylum seekers like the Murugappans who are living in immigration detention either in Australia or in offshore detention on Manus Island and Nauru.
While they may not have the media appeal of the two young girls who grew up speaking with Australian accents,their cases are just as deserving.
The ALP has said it will offer permanent visas to the 19,000 people already recognised as asylum seekers but who have lived in limbo for years with limited rights.
The Coalition acted more cruelly than necessary by denying these people a resolution of their uncertain situation. This was part of a pattern.
The Coalition refused residents of offshore detention in Nauru and Manus Island access to medical attention in Australia until the courts issued an order.
It refused for years to accept offers from New Zealand to take detainees in offshore detention.
If Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wants to show more compassion than the Coalition,one important step is to stop the dog whistling and wedge politics which were too often present in the Morrison government’s approach. It denied asylum seekers humanity and refused to acknowledge that they are the real victims in this awful situation.
The most recent example was election day when acting Prime Minister Scott Morrison ordered the Australian Border Force to announce publicly the arrival of the.
It was a flagrant breach of the caretaker convention governing election campaigns under which the government avoids major decisions. It was also in breach of long-standing Border Force policy not to comment about “on water matters” in the interests of national security.
Yet,the Coalition was happy to throw all that out the window on Saturday so that they could spread the news via text message to millions of voters,in a none-too-subtle attempt to bolster their claim that the ALP was weak on borders.
There is no alternative to the Coalition’s strong borders policy,but the ALP can pursue it with more compassion and humanity.
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