Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Let's name what's going on here. The government have done a deal with Senator Lambie to repeal the medevac laws and they have got a side deal, which is secret. So we've got a government working with Senator Lambie to repeal laws that provide people access to health care. That's all that the medevac laws do. The medevac laws say that, if you are sick, you have a right to see a doctor and it's the doctor who makes the decision about the sort of health care that you receive. That's a fundamental human right. Giving people access to medical care has got nothing to do with refugees or, indeed, with people in Australia. That is a fundamental human right. That's all the medevac laws do.

Now we know that those laws, which enshrine what we all understand to be a basic right afforded to every citizen, are going to be repealed on the basis of a secret deal. There's some arrangement that the government has entered into with Senator Lambie that, through the course of this debate, the Australian people will not be made aware of. We won't know what has been decided in secret. That is not the way a parliament works. It's not the way a government should work—negotiating deals in secret, agreements in secret, that fundamentally alter what has been one of the most contentious pieces of public policy in this country for decades.

Now we're being told to accept the repeal of medevac, because there's some secret deal in the background—that may make the situation better or worse; we don't know. We simply do not know. My plea to the government is: make this deal public. Demonstrate that you respect the principles of transparency and accountability. If you are going to enter into an arrangement to repeal laws that protect a fundamental human right, at the very least you owe it not just to this parliament but also to the Australian people to have the basis of that agreement made public.

What you're going to hear now is an hour's motion that forces us—if there's not a vote by 11 o'clock there will be a vote at 11 o'clock. And through the course of this day you will not hear from the government or, indeed, from Senator Lambie what the basis of this secret deal is. To enter into a deal like this over an issue that has been so fraught, so contested, so debated, that has been an area of public policy where the Australian government has been criticised by so many human rights organisations—Amnesty International and the UN—and then to repeal this law on the basis of a deal that we will never get to see, understand or scrutinise is a disgrace. It speaks volumes about the standards that this government decides it wants to uphold. It's a government that's mired in sleaze, in allegations against ministers, and has demonstrated that, while it wants to attack the rights of working people to organise under the banner of integrity, it has no integrity itself.

If this government had a shred of integrity it would allow this parliament to scrutinise the basis of what is the repeal of a law that protects a fundamental human right. Over the past few weeks we've seen scandals around Minister Taylor, we've had allegations against Minister Wyatt and now allegations are surfacing around Mr Christensen. Just when you thought that this government could not sink any lower here they are, ramming through a piece of legislation where a side deal has been negotiated—and the Australian people will never know what the basis of that deal is.

Senator Griff interjecting—