A Federal Court judge has granted an extended injunction preventing the deportation of a Tamil family from Darwin to Sri Lanka until after another court hearing in five days’ time.
Angel Aleksov, representing the family, asked Justice Mordecai Bromberg to extend the injunction so they could make a further application for Priya, Nades and their Australian-born daughters Kopika, 4 and Tharunicaa, 2, to remain in Australia.
Federal Circuit Court Judge Heather Riley first granted the injunction by phone late Thursday night, preventing any attempts to remove them from Australia after their departure on a Sri Lanka bound flight from Melbourne.
The plane was forced to land in Darwin after the injunction was granted mid-air.
Mr Aleksov has applied to the court on behalf of two-year-old Tharunicca.
There has been a request on her behalf to Immigration Minister David Coleman for permission to make a visa application.
But Mr Aleksov said there has been no assessment by any Australian official about whether she is owed protection by the federal government.
Failure by the department to refer this question to the minister for an answer is “unreasonable in a legal sense”, he said.
Unless there was a halt on the midday deportation, there would be no time to appropriately consider her case for a visa.
Christopher Tran, representing the immigration department and minister David Coleman, agreed to the extension but opposed the outcome.
“The application on its face is hopeless,” he said.
Dutton said Tamils didn’t qualify for protection
Earlier on Friday, a defiant Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton told Nine’s Today Show the family must accept they don’t deserve Australia’s protection.
“I would like the family to accept that they are not refugees, they’re not owed protection by our country,” he said.
He said the couple was told before they had children that they’d never be allowed to settle in Australia, and no court or tribunal had ever supported their case to stay.
“They came here by boat and we’ve been very clear that they wouldn’t stay.”
Attorney-General Christian Porter said the couple had paid people smugglers to reach Australia.
He accepted the Queensland town of Biloela, where the family lived before being put in immigration detention, wanted them to stay but that wasn’t the primary issue.
“The goodness of people is one consideration,” he told Sydney radio 2GB.
“The method of how people come to Australia, and whether they actually meet the criteria for a protection visa, is another one and a more complicated matter.
Melbourne and Darwin airport scuffles
Before the family left Melbourne on Thursday night after being transported from an immigration detention, there were dramatic scenes at the airport when about 60 supporters rushed to try to stop the family being put on a plane which departed around 11pm.
Tamil Refugee Council spokesperson Aran Mylvaganam said two people were arrested after cutting through a fence to reach the tarmac.
And when the plane stopped to refuel in Darwin at 2am on Friday the family was taken off the aircraft on the judge’s orders.
Priya and Nadesalingam say they face persecution if they are sent back to Sri Lanka due to past family links to the militant political group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Priya has previously said she witnessed her fiance and five other men from her village burned alive before she fled.
Family friend Angela Fredericks said Priya was injured when security guards forced her onto the plane in Melbourne. She said she was not allowed to sit with her daughters Kopika, 4, and Tharunicaa, 2, even though the youngest girl was highly distressed. ”This is just cruel and barbaric stuff,” Ms Fredericks told AAP.
The Melbourne court hearing sat at 10am as the family, with the family anxiously awaited the outcome at accommodation near Darwin airport.
Before Thursday’s deportation action, the family had been in a Melbourne detention centre. They were taken there in March 2018 after their temporary bridging visa ran out and they were taken from their Biloela home in a pre-dawn raid. The High Court denied their final bid to stay in May 2018.
On Friday at 11am, Justice Bromberg ordered the government be prevented from removing Tharunicca and her family until 4pm Wednesday, September 4.
The case will return to court next Wednesday morning.
-with AAP
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