After the Home to Bilo campaign, Priya and Nades have what every person deserves – the right to live in safety with their family, and a place to call home. As Australian Story showed last week, the Albanese Government was right to recognise their connection to their community, and grant them permanent visas so they could get on with their lives.
But many of us are just like Priya and Nades, having built our lives in Australia despite being failed by an unfair visa system, yet we are still fighting for these basic rights. We are still waiting for the Government to recognise that Australia is our home too.
Rathy’s story: “We arrived on the same boat, but have faced a completely different fate”
In 2013, I arrived in Australia on a boat with dozens of others escaping war and violence. One of the other passengers was Priya Nadesalingam. We both had loved ones killed by the Sri Lankan Army. We both have two daughters and want them to have the best life possible. I know the pain Priya went through because it is also my pain. But despite our similarities, we have walked different paths.
After twelve years my family is still fighting to stay in Australia. Visa insecurity means we are surviving, but not living. I cannot visit my mother who I have not seen for 18 years. I am running a small business from my home but I cannot expand. My eldest daughter will finish high school next year but won’t be able to pursue her dreams at university. I still carry the trauma of civil war, and the fear and uncertainty about our future means I cannot put it behind me.
The beautiful community support for Priya and Nades led the Government to do the right thing in their case. I am giving everything I can to my community – I worked in aged care, and volunteered for the Red Cross – but I have had to become an activist to fight for my family and everyone failed by the broken Fast Track system. Still, the Government expects us to leave.
My daughters grew up here. It is their only home. My youngest is an Australian citizen but my eldest is in limbo like me. I don’t know how to explain that one of them is welcome here and one is not.
Thanu’s story: “It is impossible not to feel the sting of unfairness when my own future remains in limbo”
I arrived in Australia alone in 2012, on a small, fragile boat, at just 19 years old. I still remember the smell of the sea salt clinging to my clothes, the fear in my chest, and the hope that this country would be a place where I could finally feel safe. I left behind my family, my friends, and everything familiar, fleeing from war and persecution. Staying in Sri Lanka meant danger.
In those first years here, I believed that if I followed every rule, worked hard, and proved myself, I would be given the same chance to belong as others. But today, I watch as people who arrived only a little younger than me – 17, 18 years old – are being granted permanent visas. They can finally build their lives without fear of being sent away. I am truly happy for them. But it is impossible not to feel the sting of unfairness when my own future remains trapped in limbo.
Living like this takes a mental toll that is hard to explain. I cannot visit my parents whom I have not seen and held for 13 years. It worries me thinking that everything I’ve built could disappear with one government decision. It is unfair that my life matters less because I was 19 instead of 18 when I arrived here alone.
I have lived here for years. I work, I contribute, I call this place home. I deserve the same chance to stay, to belong, and to plan a future without fear or uncertainty. I am asking for nothing but the fairness and humanity that Australia promised when I arrived.
After more than a decade, thousands are still denied certainty
Ours are just two stories among thousands across the country, of people who have lived in Australia for over a decade but still have no certainty about our future. The Albanese Government knows the visa system we went through was unfair – that’s why they changed it.
But instead of giving all of us a fair chance, they are hand-picking just a few lucky people. It is bittersweet seeing friends and community members achieving their dreams of permanent residency, while our own fight continues.
Our stories, and the parallel stories of our luckier friends, show the Government is drawing an arbitrary line between people who receive safety and certainty and those who do not. Anyone who believes in equal treatment should not be satisfied with a government that offers piecemeal solutions, and should join our calls for permanent visas for all.
