Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Migration Amendment (Repairing Medical Transfers) Bill 2019. This bill will simply repeal the medevac legislation, which was passed by the previous parliament mere months ago. I remember this very well, as would the majority of other members who were present.

With respect to the medical treatment and transfer of people from PNG and Nauru, I say this plainly: Labor seeks to ensure that sick people get the medical care that they need. My colleagues on this side of chamber have always sought to ensure that the minister maintains the final discretion on medical transfers when it comes to matters of national security, public safety and character. Our objectives certainly have not changed. I fundamentally believe that we as a nation should always act in a humane manner. I fundamentally believe as a doctor that doctors should always act in the most appropriate manner to manage their patients and provide them with the best medical care possible.

The demonisation of these people and the blatant fear campaign surrounding these transfers is, to me, abhorrent and the lowest form of petty politics. Even the Law Council of Australia has strongly criticised this government for the fundamentally political pointscoring in the way they've managed this bill and others like it. We have seen false claims made by this government and Minister Dutton in relation to medical transfers. We've seen people demonised; we've seen people slandered. However, we know that medevac is necessary and that it is working.

Had the minister and this government had genuine concerns or legitimate proposals for improving the operation of medevac, the minister would have introduced amendments to the legislation. What we have here, however, is a government that is content with lowering the standard of political discourse in this nation, and it's simply intent on repealing this legislation and denying people their basic human rights.

We are only in the second sitting of the 46th Parliament and this coalition government's modus operandi would already suggest that they are intent on behaving in a manner that is consistent with fearmongering and the lowest-common-denominator politics that we saw in the 45th Parliament. The home affairs minister has not sought to amend the medevac legislation. He simply wants to return to the flawed medical transfer system that he originally presided over, a system that did not afford the refugees and asylum seekers in regional processing systems access to adequate and timely medical treatment. Again, I stress, we're only in the second sitting week of this new parliament, and the Prime Minister and Minister Dutton have demonstrated that they seek to continue to play petty politics with this issue rather than behave in the humane manner that Australians expect and the rest of the world expects.

This government would do well to remember the public discussion around this issue in the lead-up to the medevac legislation passing in February. Australia's offshore processing measures have been criticised by a wide variety of people and a wide variety of well-respected organisations, including the United Nations; Amnesty International; Medecins Sans Frontieres, for which my daughter works; the Australian Council for International Development; the Australian Medical Association, of which I've been a 40-year member; the Royal Australasian College of Physicians; the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons; the Human Rights Commission; Human Rights Watch; the New Zealand government; Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court; Papua New Guinea's Grand Chief, Sir Michael Somare; and multiple member nations of the United Nations. This is disgraceful.

When the Pacific Solution was introduced in 2001, then Prime Minister John Howard received criticism from the Human Rights Watch. They stated: 'The recent legislation seriously contravenes Australia's obligations to non-citizens, refugees and asylum seekers, under international human rights and refugee law. As provided for in article 2 of the ICCPR, the obligation to respect and ensure rights to all persons, including all non-citizens, applies throughout Australia's territory and to all persons subject to Australia's jurisdiction.' This is not changed. They also say, 'We have already urged the US government in similar circumstances to amend the new legislation, at a minimum, to implement it in a manner that fully upholds the fundamental norms of international human rights and refugee law.'

Further to this, more recently it was stated as illegal by UN officials, including by UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, who warned that Australia 'may intentionally put lives at risk'. Nothing has changed.

The Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea ruled in 2016 that restricting the movement of asylum seekers who have committed no crime was unconstitutional. Australia's asylum seeker policies were heavily criticised in 2015 at a session of the UN's leading human rights body in Geneva, at which the US delegate stated:

We encourage Australia to enter humane treatment and respect for the human rights of asylum seekers, including those processed offshore in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

Nothing has changed. Similar criticisms were heard from many other countries, including Norway, Turkey, Canada, Fiji, France, Germany and Switzerland. These are just some of the damning criticisms that have come on a global scale in relation to the coalition's handling of this situation.

My friend Senator Keneally said in the other place on Monday that the offshore processing centres on Manus Island and Nauru have become a sign of the ongoing failures of this government and of its Minister for Home Affairs, with his ability to play petty politics with human lives. These facilities were set up as temporary regional processing centres six years ago. People have been there for over six years. The government and this minister will continue to try and blame Labor, but the reality is they've had six years at the helm and six years to fix the problem. It is under this coalition government that these centres have become places of indefinite detention against any human being's human rights. How did we get there? This is a result of six years of failure and inaction by this coalition government.

Minister Dutton is failing a basic test. He is failing to ensure that sick people get the care and attention that they need and are entitled to that we would feel entitled to ourselves. Unfortunately, it would appear that this is not as a result of incompetence or mismanagement; this is a deliberate act. This minister appears intent on performing cheap political stunts and scoring points off the backs of some of the most vulnerable people in the world. We have a minister of the Crown who consistently manipulates, misrepresents and mischaracterises the truth for petty political gain. He is playing with people's lives—people who cannot defend themselves. This is a disgrace. I do not expect that there will be any change on the minister's part. He will not change; he has demonstrated that. And I think the way he behaves and the way he has tried to manipulate this bill and this legislation is politically disgraceful. It's morally disgraceful. It's inhumane.

Minister Dutton is failing a basic test. I repeat: he is failing to ensure that sick people get the care and attention that they need and are entitled to. They have not been charged with any crime. This is an act—an absolute travesty—that goes against any moral compass and he should be ashamed of it. I don't expect there'll be any evidence of humility or any act of contrition because he's done this, but I think as parliamentarians we should all be ashamed of it. We have a minister of the Crown who consistently manipulates and misrepresents.

There is no reason that this bill should be repealed. This government is intent on driving a wedge in the Australian electorate, pandering to the fearmongering perpetuated by the hard Right in this nation, rather than acting with integrity. The debate around medevac is a perfect example of this. Minister Dutton has repeatedly made false claims about this legislation, crying wolf every time Labor or experts explained and carefully articulated both the process and the need behind the medevac legislation.

Since this legislation was passed and given assent, there has been a grand total of just seven patients who have been transferred to Australia for treatment without the approval of either Minister Dutton or Minister Coleman. The government has approved around 90 transfers, and 20 cases have been referred to the Independent Health Advice Panel. The panel includes some of Australia's finest doctors. Of these 20 cases, the panel ultimately upheld the minister's decision not to transfer individuals on 13 occasions and overturned the minister's decision seven times. It's worth noting the panel's independence and the fact that the panel is made up of doctors chosen by the minister himself.

It is the government and the doctors specifically appointed by the government who control who is able to come to Australia under the medevac legislation. This is completely indisputable. However, the minister has time and time again cried wolf, seeking to make a political football out of this important legislation and, I repeat, playing politics with innocent people's lives.

The minister has even asserted that two doctors from Nimbin could force the government's hand—a deliberate untruth that he is telling the parliament. It speaks volumes about the minister's character and his willingness to further ostracise some of the most vulnerable people.

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