The au pair saga engulfing Peter Dutton has galvanised a Queensland town's fight to save a Tamil family from deportation.
Supporters who want the family freed from immigration detention and returned to their home in outback Biloela have erected a large billboard close to the home affairs minister's electorate office in Brisbane.
Simone Cameron helped raise cash to pay for the billboard, which features a large photo of Tamil couple Nades and Priya and their Australian-born daughters, aged three and one.
She says that if Mr Dutton was able to intervene to free foreign au pairs from immigration detention, he must act to help free the family and get them back home.
"He has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the overwhelming campaign that's been done by the residents of Biloela ... whereas this au pair affair, we see some people do catch minister Dutton's attention," Ms Cameron has told AAP.
"He hasn't done himself any favours with this favours-for-mates thing. It's making us all wonder why."
Nades and Priya came to Australia separately by boat in 2012 and 2013 in the wake of Sri Lanka's civil war and settled in Biloela on a temporary bridging visa, which ran out in March.
Since then the couple and their young girls have been held in immigration detention in Melbourne after Border Force officials removed them from their home during a dawn raid.
They are awaiting the outcome of a court appeal, but even if they win the father and the youngest child could still be deported.
Since the couple was detained, the Biloela community has fought to get them home, saying they are valued and productive members of the town. Residents fear for the family's fate if they are forced to return to Sri Lanka.
Ms Cameron said the billboard was about finally getting Mr Dutton's attention, and trying to get him to exert influence in the case, something he failed to do when he was the immigration minister.
"We are taking our campaign to his electorate this Saturday. We'll be talking to voters ... We are starting to feel desperate for our friends."
A Senate inquiry is examining whether Mr Dutton misused his ministerial discretion to grant two European au pairs visas in 2015, despite the reservations of border authorities. He has denied any wrongdoing.
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