Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to lend my support to Senator Keneally's and Senator McKim's contributions to this debate. Labor for some time now have supported the current medevac laws, and that is because we believe that sick people that are being looked after by government, regardless of whether or not they're in detention, deserve the care that they deserve, whether it's here in this country or anywhere else they are held. It's very, very important that we make this point—that, when someone is sick, they get the best medical care possible.

It was disappointing to hear Senator Birmingham earlier, talking about there being an increase in self-harm, giving the impressing that somehow the medevac laws were to blame. It is great to know that there are senators in this place—hopefully the majority of senators in this place—who support the medevac laws. We call on the crossbench to continue to lend their support, with Labor, in ensuring that these laws remain in place.

Being a new senator, it is interesting to see what happens when governments are required to provide reports on certain pieces of legislation, as is the case with medevac. Every three months a document is meant to be tabled in this chamber and, through that process, we can see that the medevac laws are working as they were intended to. We constantly see the government delaying the tabling of such reports, and we have to ask why. Why do they keep delaying reports? Whether it's on medevac or on other pieces of legislation, why does this government continue to hide from the truth? What are they afraid of? I can only conclude that this proves that Minister Dutton's ongoing scare campaign about this legislation is fanciful.

We need only look at the simple facts. Over the three months, the Independent Health Advice Panel affirmed the minister's decision nearly 80 per cent of the time. On 12 occasions the panel overruled the minister, so that sick people could get the health care that they needed. Minister Dutton's claims are all refuted with very simple facts. Since March this year, when the medevac legislation was passed by this parliament, the government has repeatedly stated that, after the laws were introduced, offshore refugees would flood Australia, that boats would overwhelm Operation Sovereign Borders and that Christmas Island would have to be reopened to deal with the large number of medevac transferees. However, in the last eight months, after medevac was passed, all these claims have proved to be false. The Christmas Island detention centre is empty, apart from having one family of four; boats have not arrived in greater numbers than in previous years; and only 200 people have been approved for medevac transfers as of this month.

Most importantly, Minister Dutton has failed to reveal one crucial aspect of the medevac operation to date. Of the 200 transferees, the minister has approved 172 himself. That means that, in 86 per cent of the transfers, he has read the reports of two different physicians, agreed that the patient required treatment and approved the transfer without seeking a review from the government-appointed independent health panel. The panel is supposed to review cases where the minister doesn't believe that a transfer is required. But, the vast majority of the time, the minister appears to have agreed with the patient that they required transfer, without seeking a further medical opinion. But, unfortunately, that hasn't prevented the minister or his Department of Home Affairs from trying to allege that people are not sick because they haven't been in hospital for longer than seven days or that they are refusing treatment in an effort to prevent removal.

Question agreed to.