New wave of asylum seeker transfer bids cost taxpayers nearly $500k

Legal bids — including frivolous action — to force the medical transfer of boat people on Manus Island and Nauru has skyrocketed in recent months costing taxpayers almost half a million dollars.

Legal bids — including frivolous action — to force the medical transfer of boat people on Manus Island and Nauru has skyrocketed in recent months costing taxpayers almost half a million dollars.

Home Affairs has fielded more than 100 approaches from legal firms over requests for medical transfers since July compared with just five in the 2017/18 financial year.
The department has blamed the recent public push to speed up transfers for the steep increase which so far has cost taxpayers $479,239 in legal fees between July and September, up from $275,668 last financial year.

The bill is expected to climb much higher as many of the 100 cases to be put forward since July were yet to be formally dealt with.

It comes as Labor last week doubled down on its support for the Greens and crossbench plan to allow asylum seekers and refugees into Australia with the sign-off of only two doctors, putting the policy in the party’s national platform.

Legal bids to force the medical transfer of boat people on Manus Island and Nauru has skyrocketed in recent months costing taxpayers almost half a million dollars. Picture: AFP

The Morrison government, which fears that plan would effectively end offshore processing and restart the boats, blocked it from becoming law on the final day of parliament for the year but will face a renewed push in February.

A Home Affairs spokesman said the government had not tried to “block” or prevent transfers where the medical evidence suggests they were necessary.

“Lawyers acting for persons in regional processing countries have often commenced proceedings despite having already being informed arrangements are being made for their clients to be transferred to Australia,” the spokesman said.

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“The increase in the number of approaches from applicant firms is likely a result of a combination of factors including, the recent public and media interest in medical transfers … and an increase in the number of law firms representing transitory persons.”

The spokesman said that in the vast majority of matters the government either consented to or did not oppose orders requiring medical transfer to Australia.

Labor immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann the Morrison government needed to explain why it was acceptable to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars fighting medical transfers rather than listening to the advice of treating clinicians.

“Nauru and Manus Island were set up as temporary regional processing centres but have become places of indefinite detention because of the failure of successive Liberal Governments to negotiate other third country resettlement options,” he said.

Immigration Minister David Coleman has warned the proposal to speed up medical transfers was “dangerous” and “effectively contract out Australia’s border security to doctors based thousands of kilometres away”.

“If implemented by a Labor Government, everyone on Manus Island and Nauru would be transferred to Australia within a matter of months, spelling the end of offshore processing and the recommencement of boat arrivals,’ he said.