Jacqui Lambie’s secret deal with Scott Morrison to release refugees revealed

Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie has lifted the lid on a secret deal, saying the PM told her she risked jail if she told the truth about it.

Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie has lifted the lid on her secret deal with Scott Morrison to release over 400 asylum seekers from Nauru and Manus Island, revealing the Prime Minister told her she risked jail if she told the truth about it.

The Tasmanian Senator has refused for years to detail what her deal was with the Prime Minister, after she tearfully voted to scuttle Medevac legislation that was originally passed against the government’s will by independents in the last sitting week of 2018.

But today’s announcement that New Zealand will receive up to 150 refugees a year, more than nine years after its offer to take them was first made, has freed her to tell the full story.

The announcement applies to refugees in an Australian offshore detention facility on Nauru, as well as those currently housed in temporary regional processing centres.

In an exclusive interview with news.com.au, Ms Lambie said she kept the secret, and the Prime Minister kept the details of the agreement in a safe in Parliament House. She said it included a private agreement from Mr Morrison to accept the New Zealand offer.

“My demand was to ensure that by the time his term was finished, to make sure that everybody, unless they were a security risk, was off those bloody islands,’’ she said.

“I couldn’t tell the story of what had happened because otherwise the deal’s off. That means that people would have been still stuck there.”

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Senator Jacqui Lambie. Picture: Gary Ramage/NCA NewsWire

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: Brenton Edwards/NCA NewsWire

Ms Lambie wanted to “put a boot up his bloody clacker” and ensure the Prime Minister did the right and humane thing and accepted the New Zealand deal.

Under the deal, Ms Lambie said the Morrison government agreed to get hundreds of asylum seekers off Manus Island in exchange for her scuttling laws to allow doctors to decide when sick refugees could be medevaced to Australia.

Ms Lambie said the secret deal was retained by the Prime Minister and included allowing refugees to go to New Zealand.

“There certainly is (a document), you should ask him to go to his secret safe now and ask him to remove that document and produce it without any redactions,’’ she said.

“Well, if I’d come out and spoken about it, I may have ended up in jail, basically.”

Asked who had told her that, she said “that was made to me over the table from the PM.”

“I felt really annoyed by that. I thought that (was) quite threatening. I was not happy about it. That’s why I kept saying if I say anything I come out in handcuffs. I am rapt these people are free. It’s such a relief.”

The Medevac laws shifted the power to determine whether sick refugees should be moved to Australia from offshore detention away from the government to two treating doctors.

But the bill was overturned after Ms Lambie voted with the government and One Nation.

At the time of the deal, Ms Lambie described it as a “really hard decision” to support the legislation’s repeal, but said she had done so because the government had agreed to an “outcome” that would improve medical treatment for refugees held in offshore detention. She burst into tears in the chamber announcing her decision.

“I can’t let the boats start back up and I can’t let refugees die, whether it’s sinking into the ocean or waiting for a doctor, and I am voting to make sure that neither of these things happen,” she said.

Refugees pictured on Manus Island.

Asylum seekers protest inside the Mantra Hotel in Preston, Melbourne. They were previous detained on Manus Island. Picture: Michael Dodge/AAP

In an interview with 7.30, Ms Lambie previously threatened to tell the truth.

Later, when the years dragged on and no deal with New Zealand was reached, she claimed there was no deal, and then threatened to release it.

“And if the Prime Minister doesn’t do it, I will,” she said.

“So he can go and threaten me with jail or whatever he likes on a piece of paper. I don’t care. But if he doesn’t tell you by the end of the year, I will. How’s that for you, right? He’s had long enough.”

Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally told parliament at the time that voters “have a right to know” what had been agreed to.

“What is the secret deal? There’s been a deal between the Morrison government and Senator Lambie to drive a stake through the heart of Medevac, and they’re keeping it secret from this parliament and from the Australian public,” Ms Keneally told the Senate.

However, the Prime Minister and then-Senate leader Mathias Cormann insisted there was no deal.

“There is no secret deal,’’ Senator Cormann said.

The Prime Minister also told reporters that there was no secret deal.

“It means she is happy with the government’s policies and the bill that was presented to the Senate, and she voted for it,” Mr Morrison said.