Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to oppose in the strongest terms possible the government's Migration Amendment (Repairing Medical Transfers) Bill 2019. This is indeed the Morrison government's shameful attempt to repeal humanitarian legislation that allows for people in PNG and Nauru to receive the appropriate medical care on the advice of doctors. The very fact that we need to legislate to force this government to fulfil its basic duty of care to vulnerable asylum seekers is deeply saddening. The idea that the government would choose to frame this legislation, which has the sole purpose of giving sick people the care they need, as some sort of dangerous and radical heresy is astounding. The decision of those opposite to oppose the medevac legislation tells you everything you need to know about the character of this government. Those opposite looked inside and found that, even if they marshalled their combined compassion and ethical integrity, they still couldn't stretch to allowing desperately sick people to get the medical attention they need and deserve. Instead they chose the path of stoking fear and division over fulfilling their moral responsibility. They chose rank electioneering over meeting Australia's duty of care to vulnerable asylum seekers.

The government has put forward any number of arguments now against the legislation that was passed by this parliament last term, but none of them have been proven to have any merit whatsoever. We haven't seen the boats restart; we haven't seen rapists, murderers and other criminals arriving on our shores; and we haven't seen our hospitals buckling under the crippling weight of caring for thousands of new patients. What we have seen, however, is that vulnerable asylum seekers now have an avenue and an orderly process by which they can access the care they so desperately need.

This whole sorry episode has been a continuation of this government's cruel and opportunistic agenda when it comes to the treatment of some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. The fact that the government is now doubling-down and again attempting to use lies and misinformation for political gain at the expense of asylum seekers just reinforces how morally bereft they really are.

The Minister for Home Affairs has argued that there's no need for the medevac legislation. This is blatantly untrue. For too long the Abbott, Turnbull and now Morrison governments have failed to look after vulnerable people in regional processing centres. For too long these people haven't been getting the care they need or they've being kept waiting for months or years for it.

Manus Island and Nauru were originally set up as regional transit processing centres. The fact that they have become places of horrific, indefinite detention under this government is to our great national shame. Some of the most vulnerable people on the planet have been forced to live in limbo for years with no pathway to resolution. Labor has long urged the government to take up New Zealand's offers of resettling refugees there. But the government has refused, instead choosing to keep these poor people languishing in detention indefinitely. The sense of hopelessness that they must feel is unimaginable, and the government's failure to leave no stone unturned in finding a solution for six years is unforgivable.

At this point, I want to pay tribute to the staunch advocacy of the many grandmothers against detention in my electorate. This extraordinarily committed group of mostly women have been holding a weekly vigil in Newcastle for the innocent people who have been caught up in this seemingly endless cycle of trauma for more than two years now. This week they held an anniversary vigil to mourn the last six years of this indefinite detention. To those who participated, I thank you for your humanity, your compassion and your advocacy.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a dire and undeniable need for the medevac legislation. In 2016, the UNHCR found that 88 per cent of the people on Manus Island were suffering from depression, anxiety and/or post-traumatic stress disorder. Then, last year, Medecins Sans Frontieres put out its extremely depressing and distressing report entitled Indefinite Despair. This report found that nearly one in three of the asylum seekers they treated in Nauru had suicidal thoughts and nearly one in three attempted suicide. This included children as young as nine.

The facilities at the regional processing facilities are grossly inadequate to handle this crisis. This is nothing short of government sanctioned neglect, and it cannot go on. That's exactly what medevac is about, and it's supported by the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Law Council and the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre to name just a notable few.

Before this legislation passed earlier this year, it took legal action for this government to be convinced to fulfil its duty of care. Indeed, I understand that every litigated case resulted in a medical transfer to Australia, and that has been more than 50 cases now. With today's legislation, the government isn't proposing amendments or improvements to the medevac process; no, it wants to axe it entirely. And that means a return to the flawed and compromised medical transfer system that has failed asylum seekers again and again and again. The determination of this government to see vulnerable asylum seekers again plunged into a situation where there is no easy process to seek appropriate medical care is unconscionable. Why hasn't a single government member put their name down to stand up and explain to the chamber today why sick people shouldn't get the care they need—the care that Australia has a responsibility to provide?

As I mentioned earlier, there has been a lot of misinformation about this bill, and, shamefully, a lot of it has been coming from the government. What does the original bill actually do? Basically, it provides an avenue by which two independent Australian doctors can recommend that an asylum seeker needing urgent medical attention can be transferred temporarily to Australia. Before the doctors make their determination, they must be sure that the asylum seeker cannot get the treatment they need on Nauru or Manus. The bill also provides other safeguards, built into the legislation, for the protection of Australia and Australians.

There are three reasons the Minister for Home Affairs can refuse a transfer. He can refuse if he doesn't believe it's necessary. He can refuse if he believes the transfer would pose harm to Australia's security. He can also reject a transfer if he believes, on character grounds on the basis of the person's criminal record, that it would expose the Australian community to a serious risk of criminal conduct. If the minister thinks that it's not necessary for the individual's health then the case goes to the Independent Health Advice Panel for review. There are plenty of opportunities for the minister responsible to reject these transfers if any one of those three criteria are met.

Any reasonable, compassionate person can see there's nothing controversial about the medevac legislation. Indeed, Labor went to great lengths to introduce responsible safeguards at the time. First, we ensured the minister could deny a transfer on national security grounds or in the case of serious criminality. Second, we extended the time frames to refuse the transfer to make the process more workable and flexible. Third, we ring fenced the legislation so it could only apply to a set number of people in regional processing, thereby removing any incentive for people to risk their lives at sea.

There can be absolutely no justification for the government to overturn this legislation on national security or any other grounds. And yet, as I mentioned, the government has fabricated any number of spurious claims for its own rank political reasons. I don't wish to articulate all of those today, because we simply won't have time. But we do not have a system in crisis here. There is no risk to our borders and there is no invitation for thousands of undocumented boat arrivals, as the government might have us believe. No. What we have is a humane and compassionate process that allows Australia to fulfil its duty of care, and the Prime Minister knows it.

No-one has seriously bought the government's misrepresentations of this benign humanitarian process, much though the government might like for that to be the case. It is shocking that this government's crude and callous politicisation and shameless pointscoring continues in this area of policy. It is indeed rank political pointscoring and popularism that is the only threat posed to our national security in this whole sorry episode. I think the member for Mayo articulated well the shameful trajectory that we have taken to get to this point where the Morrison Liberal government now seeks to overturn a perfectly workable, humane and compassionate piece of legislation to bring some redress to what is a horrific and shameful chapter in our national history.

That members opposite on the government benches continue to pursue this attack in this chamber is to their great shame. They bring great discredit on this parliament and on the thoroughly democratic processes that we all took part in in the last term of parliament to ensure that there was some relief for those people who have been left stranded in indefinite detention, for more than six years now, on Manus and Nauru. It is unconscionable. It cannot continue. The government must step aside.

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