‘Advocate doctors are calling the shots’: Peter Dutton responds to medivac ruling

Peter Dutton has declared doctors are dictating who should come to Australia.

Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton. Picture: AAP

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has declared “advocate doctors” are dictating which asylum-seekers and refugees on Manus Island and Nauru should come to Australia for medical treatment, after a controversial Federal Court ruling.

Two doctors applying for a person’s medical transfer under the Medivac bill now only have to review a person’s medical file and do not necessarily need to speak directly to them following yesterday’s judgment.

Mr Dutton said he had also been advised that a patient did not necessarily have to provide consent to doctors to put forward his or her case for a medical transfer.

“I am worried by this most recent court decision and I’m awaiting advice at the moment in relation to our appeal prospects,” Mr Dutton said.

“It’s inconceivable that a sovereign government doesn’t have the right to say who is going to come to our country and don’t have the right for those people to turn back once medical assistance has been provided.

“Not only does a doctor or the two doctors, not only do they not have to see the patient themselves, the patient doesn’t even need to provide consent … If you’ve got a situation where people aren’t even asking for their case to be considered, that is, for them to come to Australia, then it is a deeply flawed process.”

The government is ramping up pressure on Labor to support a repeal of the Labor-Greens-crossbench Medivac bill, which only applies to the current cohort of people in offshore processing, when parliament returns in July in the wake of the Federal Court judgment.

There are 512 people still on Manus Island, including 393 refugees and 119 non-refugees, and 332 on Nauru, including 242 refugees and 80 non-refugees.

“The Labor Party has created a massive mess here. This is Labor’s law and Labor should support the government to move in the Senate to revoke this bad law because it sends a bad signal when you have a country like ours being dictated to by doctors who can say that people must come here, regardless of their background,” Mr Dutton said.

“If you look at the advocacy record of some of the doctors involved in putting these cases forward I do think that’s problematic.”

Mr Dutton repeated “fears” the court ruling “opens the floodgates” and said if a significant number of people were transferred from Manus Island and Nauru it would create a “pull factor” for other asylum-seekers and the people-smuggling trade.

“Mr Albanese needs to provide support to us in the Senate to see this bad law repealed because otherwise the next arrival will be on Albanese’s shoulders,” he said.