Home at last

THE ‘HOME TO BILO’ TEAM SHARE THEIR TRIUMPHANT STORY OF BRINGING THE ASYLUM SEEKERS BACK TO BILOELA

- Michael Crooks

As the nation’s favourite asylum-seeking family returned to Queensland on June 10, Angela Fredericks, who had fought so long for their freedom, was with them. Tamil refugees Nades and Priya Nadesalingam and their two daughters, Kopika, 7, and Tharnicaa (‘Tharni’), 5, had spent years in detention and were now finally flying into Biloela – the bighearted central Queensland town they had come to call home.

As Fredericks drove them home from the airport, “The kids were in the back of the car asking, ‘Where are we going to school?’” says Fredericks, a local mental health social worker. “So I took a drive past the school. They would have jumped out and started right then, they were that excited. This is what we dreamed about and it was finally coming true.”

The moment marked the end of a four-year journey that grabbed the heartstrings of a nation. Through the work of an inspirational band of Biloela women – including Fredericks, social worker Bronwyn Dendle and then-law student Simone Cameron – the Nadesalingam family’s plight was thrust into the spotlight through the ‘Home to Bilo’ campaign, turning it into an election issue.

It led to newly minted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese fulfilling a pledge to release the family from detention, allowing them to return to Biloela on May 27.

“It’s surreal,” Fredericks, 34, tells WHO. “They’ve beautifully settled back into the community. It’s just the little things that are so good, like bumping into them again at Woolworths.”

The family are also relishing being back in the town that embraced them. “I feel a new life is starting,” said Priya on June 10.