Show Notes
The Nadesalingam family captured the hearts and minds of people across the world when they were ripped from their regional Australian community of Biloela, but there’s more to this than a heartwarming story. This series will explore the social fabric of Sri Lanka forcing Tamils to flee, the geopolitical and national forces at play when it comes to Australia’s immigration policy, the groundswell movement from their local community and beyond, the treatment and processing of asylum seekers in Australia, along with the lies we’ve been told along the way. Who does the family need to be in order to stay?
More from You Have Been Told A Lie – Blood, Borders, and Biloela
Welcome home. With a Labor victory at the 2022 federal election, we join the family as they return home to Biloela. It’s a teary, frantic, and joyous reunion for them, but what does this mean for other families like the Nadeslinagams? Is Labor’s election win the victory that people think it is?
Everything is riding on the 2022 federal election. The LNP have held firm that the Nadesalingams would not be returning to Biloela, and no special visa would be granted to them, but the Labor Party has made an election promise to return them to Biloela if they are elected. How did this one family become an election talking point in 2022?
Another deportation attempt is made, but this time, more people are following their story. Supporters drop what they are doing and dash to the airport to help. Campaigners jump the fence and get arrested. Nevertheless, the family are separated and forced onto a plane. But an urgent injunction is granted mid-flight, and forces the plane to land in Darwin. Rather than fly them back to Melbourne detention, the Nadesalingams are flown to a detention centre on a remote offshore territory of Australia, a detention centre that has not been in use for over 4 years.
Early one Monday morning, having spent three and a half years building their life in Biloela, the Nadesalingams are forcibly removed from their homes, thrown into white vans, and flown to a detention centre in Melbourne. The family are told they can’t get access to a phone unless they sign documents saying they would leave the country. What do they do?
It was conventional British colonial policy to look for minorities in colonised territories to use them where possible as the administrative class. Minorities, like the Tamils in Sri Lanka, tended to be more amenable to be used in this fashion because at times this strengthened their position in society. Following Sri Lanka’s independence from the British, the majority Sinhalese ethnic group take power. Racial tensions escalate, erupting in a war in 1983, with government sanctioned troops killing thousands of Tamil civilians as they attempt to suppress the Tamil Tiger movement. Priya and Nades are caught in the middle of it.