Every detail of the photo of little Tharnicaa Murugappan tells a heartbreaking story.
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The little girl, just three years old (she turned four in hospital over the weekend), lies on a hospital bed, with Paw Patrol stickers on a bandage around her arm. Toys are cast aside at the end of the bed, as if she is too sick to play with them.
She cries, a single tear visible as her older sister Kopika kisses her cheek.
Unfortunately, it takes an image like this to draw wider attention to the years-long plight of this family, and others who have fallen on the wrong side of Australia's tough immigration policies.
It is now known Tharnicaa had sepsis and undiagnosed pneumonia. It was almost two weeks before her medical transfer away from Christmas Island to Perth was approved. Her mother Priya was allowed to travel with her, but her father Nades and Kopika were forced to stay behind.
The family's supporters have accused the government contractors in charge of medical services on Christmas Island of denying proper care.
No child in Australia should have to wait so long, or be so seriously ill, before being admitted to hospital.
The Murugappans have long been known in media reporting as "the Biloela family", a nod to the small Queensland town where they made their home and became a part of the community. Nades arrived in Australia from Sri Lanka in 2012, and his wife Priya in 2013. They met in Australia and married, with Kopika born in 2015 and Tharnicaa in 2017.
Until the family was removed from their home in the early hours of a morning in 2018, Nades worked at the local abattoir. The campaign for their release has mostly been driven by friends and neighbours in Biloela, or "Bilo" as it is often called.
As Sri Lankan Tamils, they fear persecution in their home country, and have sought asylum in Australia.
The government seeks to shape the story around the family as one of national security. A brutally tough line must be drawn in cases like this, they say, lest the people smugglers again begin to chart boats across dangerous seas towards Australia.
No child in Australia should have to wait so long, or be so seriously ill, before being admitted to hospital.
It is difficult to see how showing compassion to this family would be any incentive for the boats to start.
It is impossible to see the little girl on a hospital bed and believe that is the price to pay for such a policy.
On Saturday, the front page of the World section of The Washington Post told the family's story. The online headline read: "She was born in Australia and turns 4 on Saturday. The government wants her deported."
To the outside world, Australia looks cruel, a universe away from the sense of the fair go.
Being tough on borders has been the recipe for electoral success for the Liberal Party for more than 20 years in Australia, but the decision on this family must not be made on what will win elections.
The government must now see that the tide of public opinion has shifted, at least in the case of this family. According to a reader poll published by The Canberra Times on Saturday, 83 per cent of respondents said the family should be able to return to Biloela.
It seems likely that the family is to be reunited in Perth on Tuesday, with a decision about their permanent resettlement to be announced by Immigration Minister Alex Hawke within days. On Monday the government was briefing it would likely be a "positive outcome".
This is not a new power the minister has recently gained. It has been there all along. It is an indictment that it has taken so long.