Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets Biloella family

The Prime Minister met with a Tamil asylum seeker family who returned to central Queensland after more than four years in immigration detention. Priya Nadaraja and her family could personally thank Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for their safe and legal return to Biloela. The Nadesalingams are still to be given permanent residency, but PM Albanese sees "no impediment" to that. Anthony Albanese had taken his senior cabinet to regional Queensland last week in Gladstone and met with the Nadesalingams, who arrived in Biloela on Friday afternoon. Priya, Nades and their two Australian-born daughters, Kopika and Tharnicaa, are presently living in the central Queensland town on bridging visas granted by the new Labor government. After Labor won the election the family was granted bridging visas, allowing them to return to Biloela. Nades Murugappan and his wife, Priya, married in Australia after arriving in the country by boat and in 2014 settled in Biloela where their daughters were born. In March 2018 the Australian Border Force (ABF) removed the family from Biloela after Priya's visa expired and Nades' claim of refugee status was rejected. They have spent the last four years in detention in Melbourne, on Christmas Island and most recently in Perth, amid ongoing court challenges to any move to deport them. "The effect of my intervention enables the family to return to Biloela, where they can reside lawfully in the community on bridging visas while they work towards the resolution of their immigration status, in accordance with Australian law," Treasurer Jim Chalmers said in a statement.

"This government remains committed to Operation Sovereign Borders and keeping people smugglers out of business." The coalition had ruled out move to allow the family to stay in Australia despite the children being born in the country, arguing that doing so would encourage more arrivals to the country by boat. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had said soon after winning the elections that he believed "you can have strong borders without being weak on humanity".

"These two young girls were born here in Australia. Nades is a meat worker in Biloela. We struggle to get people who are meat workers. We import temporary labor into our meat works," he had said back then. "And they want, the community want, this family back to Biloela. And that would be an entirely appropriate outcome."