Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. This government is so obsessed by this legislation that was passed by the democratic houses of this parliament in the last term. It simply allows a refugee currently in offshore detention who needs medical treatment that can't be provided where they are to be brought to Australia to access that medical treatment. They are so obsessed with their ideology—their determination to be inhumane to the more than 500 people left there—that they will do anything to get a deal on this today. We're hearing on the grapevine that we will not be given any opportunity to have a look at what that deal is. What is it that this government has offered and agreed to in order to pass this legislation?

Let's understand what this is. If this legislation passes today, the 535 people still in PNG and Nauru—the majority of whom have been found to be refugees and have been held for seven years—will not be able to access the processes that have been put in place under the medevac laws for doctor consideration about their health needs. That's what we're doing today. This chamber has every right to stand up and demand that the details of the deal that has been done be provided to this chamber. We should be allowed to debate it. We should be allowed to disagree with it. If in the end you get the numbers, well, you get the numbers.

Labor will continue to fight to ensure that people on PNG and Nauru are not just left there, without anyone caring, in what has turned into indefinite detention. We will continue to ensure that in some way their health needs are maintained, despite the meanness of this government and its ideological pursuit of campaigns essentially against Labor. They're prepared to put these 500-odd people in the middle of it. It's a disgrace.