As we celebrate the permanent residency granted to Sydney’s ‘bollard man’, visa uncertainty looms over others | Shankar Kasynathan

People like Ahmed however, an asylum seeker living in regional Victoria I met through the Migrant Workers Centre, must wait with uncertainty, and beyond the grasp of any goodwill handed out by our government, albeit arbitrarily.

A volunteer with his rural SES unit in the Central Highlands that has battled bushfires recently, Ahmed knows well the instinct that Guerot acted on when danger was approaching.

A courageous spirit is certainly not uncommon among the many asylum seekers living in neighbourhoods from Biloela to Bondi, waiting anxiously for the security of a permanent home in a country like ours, as the problems devastating communities around the world reach our news headlines.

The humanitarian crises unfolding in other parts of the world has made many of us appreciate how lucky we are to live in the relative safety of this country, in spite of what we have seen closer to home in recent days.

In the immediate wake of this offer to Guerot from Australia Anthony Albanese was asked about Pakistani security guard Muhammad Taha, who also played a heroic role in Bondi, like many of his other colleagues, one whose life was tragically lost.

At a time when this country and many of its citizens are searching far and wide for signs of the “fair go” that we are promised in Australia, the arbitrary nature of the good will of our prime minister threatens to reinforce a well-worn myth of deserving and undeserving migrants.