Asylum seekers: Fifty red flags on Medevac ‘short list’

Home Affairs has already red-flagged almost 50 boat people as it urgently assesses the security risk of the hundreds on Manus Island and Nauru likely headed for Australia under the new medical transfer scheme.

• Scott Morrison makes dramatic bid to stop transfers
• Security fears criminals will use medical transfers
• Electoral fight looms on border protection

Home Affairs has already red-flagged almost 50 boat people as it urgently assesses the security risk of the hundreds on Manus Island and Nauru likely headed for Australia under the new medical transfer scheme.

The Saturday Telegraph can reveal there are almost 800 individuals who still need to have security screening finalised. Of those, the department has identified almost 50 “complex cases” since the Labor-backed laws passed through parliament on Wednesday.

It is understood the government has prioritised assessment of the 300 asylum seekers and refugees that activist doctors are believed to be mobilising to bring to Australia because Immigration Minister David Coleman will have a 72-hour deadline to block transfers.

An image taken in 2013 of Vietnamese asylum seekers being taken by barge to a jetty on Australia’s Christmas Island. Scott Morrison flagged the possibility of reopening the disused detention camp in anticipation of a new wave of asylum seekers. Picture: AP

Under the new laws the minister can knock back a medical transfer only if the asylum seeker or refugee has been sentenced to 12 months in jail or more.

The government holds serious concerns that particular asylum seekers, including a man suspected of murder and another with terrorist links, would be eligible for transfer. There are also concerns that many other cases could not be quickly or easily determined.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said the Labor-backed laws had created a fundamental problem for the government agencies that assessed whether someone without official documents had engaged in criminality or posed a security risk.

“Whether it is trying to find whether someone has behaved in a previously unlawful way, or whether or not they may be a security risk, that is a ­resource-intensive process that takes an enormous amount of time,” he said.

Scott Morrison plans to reopen the Christmas Island detention centre because of the prospect of people smugglers restarting their operations.

“How long is it that Labor’s new laws give (national spy agency) ASIO to assess those 300 as to whether they might present a security risk to the Australian people?

“It is 72 hours (once they have doctor sign-off).

“Home Affairs now faces the task of assessing … people in a time frame that is effectively determined by a very small group of doctors.”

Mr Porter also flagged concerns that detainees who had been accused or convicted but not yet sentenced in relation to serious crimes would be handed tickets to Australia.

Deputy Opposition leader Tanya Plibersek said yesterday the need for the changes to medical transfers was because “Manus Island and Nauru were never meant to be places of permanent or indefinite detention”.

“This legislation would be unnecessary if the government had not failed so comprehensively to find third-country resettlement options for these people,” she said.