Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

Even the title of the Migration Amendment (Repairing Medical Transfers) Bill 2019—'repairing medical transfers'—is a misnomer. It's a disgraceful abuse of the name of the bill. I think Australians understand that our country can be strong on borders but still treat people with humanity and decency. That's why the last parliament passed legislation to help sick refugees and asylum seekers who are currently on Nauru and Manus Island to receive urgent medical care. The bill was needed because prime ministers and ministers for immigration and border protection and for home affairs have let people languish in indefinite detention on Manus Island and Nauru for six years. This government is now in its third term, and still we have no answer to indefinite detention on Manus Island and Nauru from this government.

We support—and I said it repeatedly as the then shadow minister for immigration and border protection—offshore processing, turnbacks when safe to do so, and regional resettlement. This government is running a desperate and shrill scare campaign, as they've done again and again since the days of Tampa. Again and again they've spread baseless lies about Labor's position on border protection and demonised people for political gain. For example, the ridiculous decision to reopen the Christmas Island detention centre was a hysterical and unhinged response by a desperate government. Our parliament was good enough to approach these matters in a grown-up and I think rational and reasonable way. Labor worked with the crossbench to achieve what is commonly called the medevac legislation.

The next important step this government must undertake is to resettle refugees and asylum seekers who are still languishing on Nauru and Manus. We need safe third-country settlement options. Since February 2013 we've had on the table from New Zealand an offer to take 150 refugees a year from Manus and Nauru. When the Abbott government came to power, they canned that. The Turnbull government didn't take up the offer. The Morrison government hasn't taken up the offer. Imagine if this government had taken up New Zealand's generous and decent offer—150 a year—or negotiated more. We wouldn't have this problem. We wouldn't have this situation where we've got this pernicious legislation that this government is bringing into the House today.

This government will do anything. I mentioned Christmas Island. They were going to spend $1.4 billion on Christmas Island—a $60,000 stunt whereby the Prime Minister flew to Christmas Island for a press conference. Even then, they spend $185 million, according to the budget papers, in relation to Christmas Island, reopening a detention centre they closed, just for political gains, and at the same time cut $300 million from the Home Affairs budget, cutting frontline staff and ICT arrangements. So, that's what they'll do. They've just spent $185 million on a stunt, and they'll cut frontline service delivery. For too long, this government has failed to treat vulnerable people on Manus and Nauru with decency and humanity, providing timely and adequate care. We should not be surprised, because the Liberal Party and the National Party are a party who in 2011 shamefully blocked the Malaysia solution, which would have stopped the boats. After failing this parliament by opposing Labor's legislation, 600 people drowned at sea.

I know Kerryn Phelps, the former member for Wentworth, is not here now, but I pay tribute to her for the work she did with me and with others on this medevac legislation. Before the Wentworth by-election, the Prime Minister said he'd accept New Zealand's offer, and guess what? After the by-election, he ripped it away. Labor recalibrated its position to enter into negotiations with the government about the people who are subject to this bill, but the Prime Minister straightaway ripped it away for political purposes. This government will do anything to avoid dealing with the real issue—that is, the resettlement of these people.

This bill that's before the House was opposed by stakeholders. The medevac legislation currently on the statute books is supported by stakeholders. Why? Because I was in the room with them. I met with them time and time again. I met with Kerryn Phelps, the former member for Wentworth. I met with the crossbenchers to negotiate. They picked up Labor's idea of an Independent Health Advice Panel. We negotiated those issues again and again in meeting after meeting I had for weeks, if not months.

Stakeholders support Labor and the crossbencher's position here. They don't want this bill to pass the chamber. The AMA, the Law Council, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Doctors Without Borders, the Refugee Council—I could go on and on—don't want this bill before the chamber passed. Let's be very clear: the medevac legislation this government is seeking to abolish does not apply to new arrivals. It is ring-fenced. Only those people detained on Manus and Nauru currently are covered. The existing cohort and the people who come to Australia, I might add, are also subject to legislation because this government has brought 900 people here. We know this because the Independent Health Advice Panel report on 29 June said there are 348 people on Nauru and 531 in PNG; 879 people on Manus and Nauru are languishing in indefinite detention. We know from that report, which has been tabled in parliament by the Minister for Home Affairs or at his behest, that there are 900 people currently in Australia for medical or psychiatric assessment or treatment, because they can't get it in PNG or Nauru.

What has the government done? When people need that treatment or assessment—often mental health, psychiatric or physical—and when doctors recommend it, what have the government been doing? They have been fighting every step of the way in court case after court case, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds—over $300,000 in last year alone. They have been fighting and—guess what?—caving in at the last minute to create the fiction that they're still tough on border protection. They cave in again and again. Sometimes the litigation is not necessary, and they just realise it's necessary to bring the person to Australia—say, the Royal Brisbane Women's Hospital or the PA Hospital in Brisbane, in my home state of Queensland. They're brought here, and the government are costing us. There is no orderly pathway. The government fight tooth and nail.

This government is trying to get rid of a process that is working now, that we know is working because the stakeholders tell us it's working as well. And the boats keep coming. But more people are coming to this country under this government not on boats but with boarding passes. We know boats keep coming because we see that they do. The government leak strategically to favoured journalists and their favoured news outlets the fact that a boat has arrived. This week we've seen a leak. But, of course, this is the cloak of operational secrecy about what's happening in Operation Sovereign Borders that they impose again, and then they leak it for political gain. It's no secret. We saw on the front page of The Australian this week that another boat came. We know boats come. We saw a boat arrive—actually in Australia, I might add—the week that the Minister for Home Affairs challenged the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership of the Liberal Party and the prime ministership of this country. As I say, through their incompetence, maladministration and political ineptitude they've allowed this issue to continue year after year after year. This is a minister who presides over Cape class patrol boats languishing in dock because they haven't got petrol and they haven't got crews. This is a minister who cuts frontline staff and hundreds of millions of dollars but allows a stunt to cost taxpayers $185 million.

What about the fact that asylum seekers are more likely to come with boarding passes than on boats? Ninety per cent of those who come by plane are found not to be refugees. They stay in Australia until their cases are resolved. We've seen a record 230,000 bridging visas issued in this country, with 27,931 applications made for protection visas in the last year alone and a record 64,362 in the last four years.

We're debating a bill now to try and abolish an orderly, working process for people to get urgent medical treatment. Where are the priorities for this government? Where are they? The medevac bill is working as we always intended it to work. We on the Labor side were ensuring that sick people could get the medical care they needed. We were ensuring that the minister has final discretion over medical transfers on national security, public safety or character grounds. And the minister's discretion is retained. I was absolutely adamant that we weren't going to outsource the minister's discretion to third-party stakeholders or to doctors. That's why we negotiated it in the way we did. The minister still has capacity, in the event of adverse security assessments or serious risk of criminal conduct by these people, to prevent the transfer. When people come to this country as a result of the transfer, they're detained and they get the medical treatment they need. That's what happens for those 900 or so people who've been brought here without the process of the medevac legislation. They're still detained and they get the medical treatment that they need. I've met many of them at detention centres around the country.

The government, under this legislation that they're trying to abolish, has approved about 90 transfers, and 20 cases have been referred to the Independent Health Advice Panel. Of those 20, the panel has upheld the minister's decision not to transfer the individual on 13 occasions and overturned the minister's decision not to transfer on seven occasions. So this independent panel, appointed by the Minister for Home Affairs I might add—the minister owes them an apology for the way he demonises them—is made up of the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer, the Department of Home Affairs Chief Medical Officer and six others, including a nominee of the AMA, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and an expert in paediatric health. They're doing their job, and the medevac legislation is working.

The medivac legislation empowers the minister to consider national security grounds. This government claims all the time that it's being tough on crime and expelling people from the country on character grounds—on the basis of serious criminality. The legislation makes reference to a definition of 'security' as 'the protection of Australia's territorial and border integrity from serious threats'. Those opposite claim that's the case when they punt people out of the country, but when it comes to legislation that's been negotiated by Labor and the crossbench it's not relevant. The inconsistency of this government when it come to that is rank. When people come to this country, whether it's through the medevac legislation or as a result of having to instigate proceedings in court or because the government simply gives in because the person's mistreatment has been so egregious that they need psychiatric or medical care, they're immediately required by law to be detained in Australia.

The minister only allows them to not be detained—if I can put it like that—and to be released into the community if he feels it's in the public interest to do so. And he should be allowed to do it if they're no risk to the public. So the minister has that incredible power to protect the Australian public, protect their territorial and border integrity from serious threats and protect them under the migration power and the character test of serious risk of criminality.

What do we know about these people? The minister demonises them and makes out that somehow, under this legislation, there was going to be a flood of murderers, rapists and paedophiles in this country. But we know all about these people, and that's what Malcolm Turnbull, the then Prime Minister of this country, said to Donald Trump, the President of the United States. Before these people were put on Manus and Nauru, a memorandum of understanding was signed with the governments of PNG and Nauru and security checks were undertaken in relation to these people. There would be no people in detention we would know more about.

This government should withdraw this legislation and listen to the stakeholders. It's a disgrace and a despicable move by the Minister for Home Affairs to institute the practices he wants to undertake in relation to the abolition of this legislation. The government should hang their heads in shame for this legislation being before the chamber.

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