“Tharnicaa has committed no offence;she presents no danger. Cruelty is being inflicted upon her to punish her parents who came by boat without a visa and thus to discourage others from breaching one of our immigration policies,” he says.
The warning comes as Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan accuses the federal government of an “internationally embarrassing”mistake that should be fixed by letting the family settle permanently in Australia.
But Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews pushed back on Thursday against calls on her to use her discretion to give refugee status to the four Tamils,known as the Biloela family after the Queensland town where they once lived.
“It’s not a case of being mean,” Ms Andrews told the Seven Network. “I am not going to have people dying trying to come to Australia by sea on my watch. I’m not going to open the gates to the people smugglers.”
Priya and Nadesalingam Murugappan and their Australian-born daughters,Kopika and Tharnicaa,were detained on Christmas Island in August 2019 after earlier detention on the mainland while they sought refugee status in the courts.
Sir Gerard,appointed to the High Court by a Liberal government in 1981 and elevated to chief justice by a Labor government in 1995,said the case tested basic Australian values because of the treatment of the children.