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Tamil family to learn their fate today as debate rages on

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Sarah IsonThe West Australian
VideoThe government is refusing to allow a Tamil family to stay in Australia saying doing so would expose the nation to a new wave of asylum seeker boats.

The fate of a Tamil family at the centre of a heated debate over whether Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton should use his discretionary powers to let them stay in Australia will be decided in court today.

Nadesalingam and Priya and their two daughters, currently in detention on Christmas Island, will learn their fate after one final Federal Court hearing centred around their two-year-old child born in Australia.

The family of four were up until Friday being held in detention in Melbourne, after their four-year bridging visas expired. They were taken there by immigration officials from the Queensland town of Biloela.

The move was met with an outcry from the local community, who protested at Melbourne airport on Friday night as the family were forced on to a plane to head back to Sri Lanka.

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However, the flight was halted in midair after an injunction ordered by a Federal Court judge on the basis the youngest of two Australian-born daughters, Kopika, had not been properly assessed for a visa.

Since then, the family has been held in detention on Christmas Island, with the likes of Shire President Gordon Thomson unable to see them. “I was told my application to visit them was denied,” he said.

“(The Department of Home Affairs) said ‘operational requirements don’t permit a visitor at this time’. What could those operational requirements be? That’s the question.”

The family’s plight has garnered national support for the Home Affairs Minister to use his discretionary powers, including from surprising sources like Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce and broadcaster Alan Jones.

Mr Dutton has stood firm against the family’s pleas for “compassion”, pointing to their illegal arrival and the potential to create precedent for future immigration cases as reasons he would not alter his stance.

“No court, nobody at all that has looked at this case has determined that these people are owed protection,” Mr Dutton said in Perth yesterday.

But he would “of course” accept any decision by the court today.

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