Beyond allowing one family to go ‘home to Bilo’, what else we can expect the new Labor government will do about thousands more asylum seekers and refugees?
The personal powers of the immigration minister to grant or cancel visas are extremely broad and powerful. And this isn’t the first time they’ve courted controversy.
University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Associate Professor Caroline Fisher discuss the week in politics.
The home affairs minister says Australia is exploring resettlement overseas for ‘broad cohorts’ of people. But such deals do not get Australia off the hook.
While this is a positive step, it still does not allow the Murugappan family to return to their home of Biloela in Queensland, and their situation still has some way to play out in the courts.
The Tamil asylum seekers will be moved from Christmas Island to Perth community detention while they pursue legal matters and their youngest child receives hospital care.
If the government is considering the release of the Biloela Tamil family, they may force the family to take a tortuous route rather than the simple one, writes Michelle Grattan
The government lost another appeal in the fight over whether a Sri Lankan family can stay in Australia. It’s time to ask a fundamental question: is this hardline approach appropriate anymore?