Stirling Griff: Dutton just scaremongering on refugees and controversial Medevac laws

The controversial Medevac legislation has not opened the floodgates to refugees, nor has it restarted the boats — disputing Peter Dutton’s claims, writes SA Senator Stirling Griff.

One of the many things I’ve learnt in my three years as Senator for South Australia, is that Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton can be relied on to exaggerate the threat around refugees.

The latest is there will be a “flood” of medical transfers because of the Medevac laws, passed with Centre Alliance’s support in February.

The laws require two treating doctors to recommend a transfer, and the Federal Court recently ruled that a doctor may do so after reviewing a patient’s case notes rather than assessing them face-to-face – which specialists do in Australia all the time.

Mr Dutton’s response to this was to say it would “open the floodgates”.

What floodgates?

The only people coming here are those who, on the advice of qualified doctors, need medical or psychological treatment they can’t access on Manus and Nauru for chronic, serious and degenerating conditions.

The laws are acting as a complementary safety net to ensure transfers can happen speedily, and not get bogged in costly and unnecessary court cases as they often were.

So far, about 31 people have been approved for transfer under the Medevac system and 22 have arrived in Australia for treatment.

The laws are operating as intended but they are not a free-for-all.

The Medevac laws only apply to the people who were already on Manus and Nauru when they came into effect on March 1 (the majority of whom have been found to be genuine refugees) and they also retain the Minister’s ability to refuse entry to a person on character or national security grounds.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins.

Importantly, they have also forced the Government to remove the remaining children from Nauru.

The laws have not “restarted the boats”.

Even so, the Minister seemingly can’t help spinning his misinformation – even if all of it is proving false.

Other Government ministers have piled on, insulting refugee men and women as possible “rapists and murderers”, and then warning that Medevac transferees would bump Aussies off hospital waiting lists. That was almost immediately dismissed by St Vincent’s – one of Australia’s busiest hospitals – as “baseless”.

Stirling Griff

Australians should also be angry that the Government has wasted $185 million in taxpayer money on its scare campaign, so it could re-open the detention facilities at Christmas Island until July.

This was transparently just for show, underscored by the fact it is as empty of asylum seekers today as it was the day it reopened.

As a party, we look at every issue on its merits but the ongoing demonising of refugees by Government ministers is unnecessary, offensive and desperate.

That’s why I said this week this scaremongering risks undermining the cordial working relationship we have with the Government.

As a party, we don’t play games.

We endeavour to be true to our word and we rely on the Government being honest in its dealings with us.

At the moment, we are speaking with the Government about its personal-income-tax plans. We generally have a good working relationship with a few senior ministers including Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, and we feel we are making some progress.

But the misinformation being spun on the Medevac Act, just so the Government can falsely claim grounds to repeal it, is testing this relationship.

I don’t see eye-to-eye with Minister Dutton on a lot of immigration issues. But, as I said, we do approach every issue on its merits and we do look at each bill as it is presented to us.

My longstanding concern is that if we have a Minister who plays semantics with the facts and twists them to suit his purposes, it puts us in a difficult position when bills in his portfolio are put before us. What’s true and what isn’t?

As much as voters think all politicians lie, we actually do rely on honesty in our dealings – which is why we canvass views from many stakeholders when we are assessing the impact of proposed laws. But when the principal source of information on a bill, the Government, starts playing with the facts, then we have a problem.

Stirling Griff is an SA-BASED Centre Alliance Senator

Originally published as Stirling Griff: Dutton just scaremongering on refugees and controversial Medevac laws