Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to continue my speech on the Migration Amendment (Repairing Medical Transfers) Bill 2019. The medevac legislation should clearly not be repealed, because it is working exactly as it was designed to do—to ensure that people's medical treatment is actually directed by doctors, not by ministers and bureaucrats. But whatever the future of the medevac legislation, we need to bring an end to this terrible chapter in our country's history around offshore detention, where innocent people who committed no crime, who stretched out a hand to our country and asked for help, have been treated in the most reprehensible of ways. We need to do that as soon as we possibly can. We need to act to resolve the many thousands of cases of people in the offshore detention cohort, people whose futures remain uncertain, no matter the outcome of this medevac legislation. We cannot say that we have brought this dark and bloody chapter in our country's story to an end until we have a royal commission into offshore and onshore immigration detention, so that we can make sure not only that we learn the necessary lessons but that something so terrible and contrary to our country's values can never happen again. (Time expired)