Nadesalingam

Labor needs to break the bipartisan consensus and end its support for mandatory detention and boat turn-backs, argues Alex Bainbridge.

Jonathan Strauss joined the September 1 vigil in Cairns for the Biloela family of Priya, Nades and their two children and writes about the growing impact of the refugee rights mvement.

At the time of writing almost 60,000 people had signed a change.org petition asking immigration minister Peter Dutton to allow a young family of Tamil asylum seekers, snatched from their home at 5am and detained by the Australian Border Force, to stay in Australia.

The family, Priya, her husband Nadesalingam and their daughters, 9-month-old Dharuniga and 2-year-old Kopiga, were woken on March 5 at their home in Biloela, central Queensland, by police, Border Force officers and Serco guards.