It has been almost a decade since Raed Zannoun last held his two sons.
Mr Zannoun, a Palestinian refugee, fled Gaza and sought asylum in Australia in 2013 after he was shot in the arm and had threats made to his life.
He left behind his two boys, then aged just six and seven, and has been forced to watch them grow up through photographs ever since.
'My kids all the time asking me, "Baba, Baba, when I can see you again?" But I have no answer, you know,' he said.
Mr Zannoun now considers Australia home, and carries the Australian flag with him wherever he goes.
"I'm feeling I'm Australian 100 per cent," he said.
"I love Australia very, very much."
Because he came to Australia on a boat operated by people smugglers, Mr Zannoun was granted a Temporary Protection Visa (TPV).
It granted him recognition as a refugee — but it came at cost.
It barred him from settling permanently in Australia or sponsoring his children to join him.
A fortnight ago, the federal government changed that policy.
It means that Mr Zannoun and about another 19,000 other TPV and Safe Haven enterprise (SHEV) holders in Australia are now eligible to apply for a permanent Resolution of Status.
If his application is granted, it would allow Mr Zannoun to stay in Australia permanently.
More importantly, he could sponsor his children to come here.
"If immigration allow me to bring my two kids to live with me that [would] make me feel happy, because I miss them," he said.
'A big relief'
Mr Zannoun is part of a relatively small cohort of TPV and SHEV holders who have stayed in the Northern Territory.
Many refugees moved south to cities with larger support sectors and cultural communities. But those who have remained have put down roots.
Abbass Haidari opened his auto parts business in Darwin two years ago.
The Afghan refugee, who is from the country's persecuted Hazara ethnic minority, has had to re-apply for a TPV every three years since he's been here.
When the ABC spoke to him last year, he urged the government to grant TPV holders permanent protection.
He said he lived in constant fear of being sent back to a dangerous situation if his visa was denied, and wanted to be able to apply for loans to expand his small business and sponsor family members to join him in Australia.
Earlier this month, Mr Haidari got the good news he'd been waiting for. While out to dinner with a friend, he found out he would now be eligible to stay permanently.
"This is a big relief for everyone," he said.
"We're very happy to get back to life and looking forward [to] a future, and we don't have to be stressed about our future anymore."
Calls for eligibility to be expanded
Both Mr Zannoun and Mr Haidari came to Australia in 2013, just months before the federal government began the Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB) boat turnback campaign.
But in spite of the recent changes to TPV visas, refugees who sought asylum by boat after that date are still not eligible for Resolution of Status.
The federal government has also reinforced its commitment to the hard border policy, warning anyone who enters Australia without a valid visa has no chance of settling permanently in the country.
The Refugee Council of Australia wants to see the government allow permanency for those who reached Australian shores under Operation Sovereign Borders, and are still in Australia on six-month bridging visas.
"The decisions about who is eligible for which particular visa is very, very arbitrary and entirely dependent on the date that people arrived, which particular category of asylum seeker people were put into, and also some of the vagaries of the decision-making process," chief executive Paul Power said.
"The two groups of people that we're worried about are, those who sought temporary protection and didn't receive it and are still on a bridging visa, and particularly those who have been transferred to Australia from Nauru or Papua New Guinea after being sent to offshore detention."
MaryAnn Hinton from the Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network (DASSAN) agrees.
"The boats have stopped, they've done that," she said.
"These are the ones that we as a country need to deal with now."
"They're here already. They've been here for nearly ten years, some of them. Their families are growing up here. This is the life they know."
It's a life which Mr Zannoun and Mr Haidari hope to continue building, with their respective families.
