Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

I'm quite sure many people know in here this has been a really hard decision for me to make. Sorry, everyone, for taking this long to make it but we're getting there. Medevac isn't a national security threat but there are real problems with the way it's operating. There are problems that sit at the centre of its operation. They cannot be amended away. The Labor Party and the Greens may think everything is A-okay, but I am not comfortable with it and I will tell you: they know as well as anybody else that this isn't right.

To those who say that doctors should make the final call on matters like that: doctors don't make our health policy. The final decision-maker for health policy is the Minister for Health. You can take advice from doctors, but doctors aren't elected. They aren't accountable to the public; they can't be voted in or out. The Minister for Finance isn't an economist. The Minister for Veterans Affairs is not a veteran. The Minister for Education isn't a teacher. We have a system here where we let experts give advice but we do not let them make the final decision on matters of this nature.

Medevac lets the doctors make the call, and the minister has an incredibly limited ability to overrule it. If you care about the government being accountable to the people, that should bother you; it bothers me but it doesn't bother me enough to let people die, so I am faced with a question of what to do. Do I repeal the legislation or let it sit there? It is not as perfect as the activists would have you believe but it is not as terrible as the media loudmouths would have you believe either. The usual suspects in the media can make a big song and dance about someone coming because they've got a cold or whatever it is they are talking about.

I have got to be honest; my rule throughout this whole process has been: if it's on the front page of the newspapers and it's anything to do with medevac, it's probably not worth reading. But they dial up the outrage if a person is coming for medical treatment because they've got a cold or a bee sting or a kidney stone. Before medevac, someone presented to a nurse with a flu and 13 days later he was dead. The Queensland coroner found that death would have been completely preventable if we had done something more to help. So I do not accept we can go back to the way things used to be.

I asked myself how we could do things differently. I put up to the government a proposal to work with me to secure my support for the passage of the repeal of medevac. I'm not being coy or silly when I say I genuinely can't say what I proposed. I know that's frustrating to people and I get that. I don't like holding things back like this but when I say I can't discuss it publicly due to national security concerns, I am being 100 per cent honest to you. My hand is on my heart and I can stand here and say I will be putting at risk Australia's national security interest if I said anything else about this. Every journalist asked me to discuss it anyway because they assume that everyone who refers to national security to keep something secret is a lying, cynical bum, and they're probably right most of the time. I understand that instinct.

So I put a proposal to the government, and since then we have worked together really hard to advance that proposal. We've worked to an outcome I believe we both want, which is an outcome where our borders are secure, the boats have stopped and sick people aren't dying while waiting for treatment. As a result of that work, I'm more than satisfied that the conditions are now in place to allow medevac to be repealed. I am voting for the repeal of medevac because I'm satisfied that the conditions that led to medevac being passed aren't the same as the conditions today. The world in which this vote takes place is different, and I thank the government for working productively with me to make sure of that.

I get that this vote will disappoint many, and I apologise for that. This is a matter of conscience. I can't let the boats start back up and I can't let refugees die, whether it's sinking into the ocean or waiting for a doctor, and I am voting to make sure that neither of these things happen.