Shoes Off Presents: You Have Been Told A Lie Episode 1: The Birth Lottery

Nades says he couldn’t sleep when he arrived on Christmas Island. The beds felt like they were moving just like the boat he arrived on. Priya started to feel scared as other asylum seekers around her were being removed by SERCO guards with their belongings in black garbage bags in the dead of night.

Nades, Priya, and their two Australian-born daughters, Kopika and Tharnicaa, commonly referred to as the ‘Biloela family’, became the faces of the rural Aussie community of Biloela, but how did they actually end up there? In this episode, we follow their arduous journey to build their life in Australia, what they call a “happy time”, whilst they jump through the bureaucratic hurdles of applying for different visas to not be sent back to danger, knowing that they could be deported the moment one of them expires. Pressure builds as one by one, other asylum seekers around them are deported. What will this mean for them?