Extract from ABC News
Updated
At dawn on March 5, Nadesalingam and Priya and their
two Australian born daughters were taken from their home in Biloela and
placed into custody by Border Force officials.
Almost three months later, the family remains in a detention centre in Melbourne.Now Biloela locals Marie and Margot have made a public plea on Q&A to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, to allow the family to stay in Australia.
"Our town loved this little family and we want them to come home," Marie said.
"I personally have travelled, along with other people from Biloela, the 1,800 kilometres to Melbourne to visit and support this family in whatever way we can."
The Biloela community has refused to give up its fight to bring the family back to the Central Queensland township, while an online petition has garnered more than 100,000 signatures to date.
What more can we do, Biloela locals ask
The women directed their first question to Liberal senator Jim Molan, who has previously expressed support for Australia's offshore detention centres."Our question tonight is what more could we do to ensure the family returns home to Biloela?" Marie asked.
The women said the community had received feedback saying the family had not met the criteria to stay in Australia, despite having lived there for about three years.
"This man had been working and he has been working jobs pushing trolleys, been working at the meatworks and abattoirs where he is now … belonging to the community is such a precious thing to him," Margot said.
"I feel that having been in Biloela and allowed to live a free and safe life, now being taken with their children and placed in detention … to me that's just another form of passive torture that these people have to live with every day."
Senator agrees to take family's case to Dutton
.@gedkearney says it's wonderful to see a community united behind this family. @MonicaDoumit's family saw benefits from the local community. @FrBower is concerned about mental health #QandA
"Without doubt. It all goes to character. And I've heard Peter Dutton speak often about character. He has cancelled visas on a number of occasions based on their character and everyone I've looked at look like they've deserved it. [But] put your case to him."
But after being pressed by Q&A host Tony Jones, Senator Molan agreed to look at the family's case and present it to Mr Dutton.
"Absolutely [I'll present it to Mr Dutton] I'm not yet convinced because I don't know. There must be some technical reason as to why these good people were taken away. I'd be very interested in that," Senator Molan said.
"I'm very happy to do that. Very happy to do that."
Fellow panellist and controversial Anglican Minister Rod Bower weighed in on the family's plight.
"Their mental health will now be affected. Their mental health will start to deteriorate and especially the kids. These kids have now, for 84 days in prison, been surrounded by all sorts of other people that you probably wouldn't necessarily want your kids around," Fr Bower said.
"How do we get to this place, how did we get to a point where we're raiding family homes at 5:00am in the morning, in the most terrifying way, separating a family, dragging them off into detention?"There is no reason that anyone seems to be aware of that this can't be processed in the community."
Labor's Ged Kearney accused the Coalition of driving an "agenda of hate and fear".
While Senator Molan laid blame with the Rudd-Gillard government, adding that a change of asylum seeker policy would "result in more deaths at sea".
Fr Bower repeated his question: "how did we get here?"
"The reason we've got to the point where we are dragging people out of their home at 5:00am in the morning and incarcerating people on islands, is that somehow or other we've given our politicians the message that there's power in fear," Fr Bower said.
"And that we can use fear and we can use fear to manipulate people and we don't give them enough information."
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