Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. What has become very clear is that Labor members themselves either don't understand what their own medevac laws do or can't now bring themselves to publicly acknowledge how their own laws work. We've had several days of the member for Grayndler coming out with the 'Nothing to see here' response. He said: 'It essentially codifies what the government has been doing'—no particular changes; nothing to worry about; steady as she goes. That is nonsense.

There are several very key differences, and let me raise one of those differences here. Previously, the minister retained and exercised a general discretion to not transfer someone where, on character grounds, they would expose the community to serious risk of criminal conduct. Things that he took into account in making that decision: were there reasonable grounds to believe the person had engaged in serious criminality previously; had the person been charged with a serious criminal offence; was the person on trial for a serious criminal offence; had the person been convicted and were they awaiting sentence for a serious criminal offence? That discretion is now gone—a very serious and significant change.

The member for Scullin was asked a very simple question today. The question was: under Labor's laws, would the minister still have a discretion to prevent the medical transfer of someone where there was a strong case against that person and they were charged with murder?

Here was the answer from the member for Scullin: 'Well, that could well be the case. These are all going to depend on the circumstances of the cases. This is actually the sort of discussion we should be having played out in parliament, isn't it?' I might address that answer in two parts. The first part is that you are simply plain wrong, and this is not hypothetical. We have been racing against time to try and assess the people that will be subject to these transfers. I mentioned one case yesterday. We also now know there is an individual currently in regional processing who has been charged with assaulting a medical official, who has a history of violence and who has allegedly been charged with murder in another country. The minister's discretion to refuse that transfer has gone, absolutely gone.

I might address the second part of the answer from the member for Scullin, the previous head of the Socialist Left. The second part of the answer was this: 'This is actually the sort of discussion we should be having played out in parliament, isn't it?' Well, we might say that is a hard discussion to have in parliament when you gag the debate on the bill—a very difficult discussion to have in parliament when you gag the debate on the bill. But don't worry, Huckleberry, because we will talk about this every single day between now and the election, every single question time. You gagged the debate on bills that fundamentally change the border protection settings of this nation and have made our border protection weaker.