On Sunday, Mr Morrison and Mr Shorten wished the Australian Tamil Community a Happy Tamil New Year. The same day, Biloela’s beautiful Tamil family spent their 406th day imprisoned in Melbourne’s detention centre.
This family needs more than wishes. Please, can you click through to bit.ly/emailyourMPnow and tell our politicians to bring them home to Bilo?
Tamil New Year (“Puthandu”) is a day for family, friends and new beginnings. After cleaning their home in preparation, Tamil people in Australia and around the world wake to a tray of fresh fruits and flowers before lighting a beautiful family altar.
The day is traditionally spent visiting friends, family and offering prayers at a local temple before the whole family sits down to a vegetarian feast.
Visitors to Melbourne’s harsh detention centre are not allowed to bring fresh fruit. Traditional incense and lamps are completely out of the question. But I can only imagine how hard it was for Priya and Nades to spend their second Tamil Puthandu so far away from their Biloela “family”.
Right now, our politicians are preparing for their own special day - the May 18 election.
I have always said that this family’s plight should be a bipartisan human rights issue. This is about four human beings who need to be kept safe, not about political point-scoring. But today, I urgently need your help to send a message that our elected representatives can’t ignore.
Today, can you take one minute to click through to bit.ly/emailyourMPnow and tell your elected representative to speak up for Priya, Nades and the girls?
A lot of people are predicting how the election will turn out. After fighting so hard for this family for so long, it would be so easy to sit back and do nothing.
But the truth is that no-one knows what will happen on May 18. And here in central Queensland, the fate of our local MPs will be decided by a handful of votes.
Over 180,000 of us have signed this petition. But to bring this family safely home to Biloela, we all need to make our feelings known to our local MPs now, before the election.
Together, let’s make sure that next year’s Tamil Puthandu is a day we can all be proud to celebrate.
Puthandu Vazthukal! Happy New Year!
Angela x