Labor’s medevac laws bypassed on way to mainland

The Morrison government is ­quietly bypassing Labor’s medevac laws to medically transfer refugees to the Australian mainland.

Immigration Minister David Coleman. Picture: AAP

The Morrison government is ­quietly bypassing Labor’s medevac laws to medically transfer refuge­es to the Australian mainland­ from Manus Island and Nauru, as the number receiving treatment in Australia exceeds the number in offshore detention.

The Australian has spoken to a 21-year-old Iranian refugee girl, “Nina”, who was transferred from Nauru with her mother, stepfather and stepbrother on March 19 on the orders of Immigration Minister David Coleman. The transfer occurred nearly a month after the passage of the Labor-backed medevac bill, which allows medical transfers on the advice of two doctors, but did not occur under the new laws.

Department of Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo told a Senate estimates committee hearing yesterday there were now 915 refugees and asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru, while there were 953 temporary transferees in Australia.

Nina, who asked not to use her real name, has a heart condition and has undergone an echocardiogram test since arriving in Australia. She said doctors on Nauru had advised that her mother needed a hysterectomy to treat fibroid ­tumours, while her stepfather was diagnosed with a tumour in his head. Both had undergone scans since arriving in Australia.

Nina said she and her family were confined to a hotel in Brisbane and were yet to receive ­approval to allow them to move freely around the city.

“The first week after we ­arrived, it was so good,’’ she said. “I was really relieved to have left that place and I’m in Australia. But now, when we come back to the hotel, we’re still locked up.”

Mr Coleman confirmed to The Australian that medical transfers were continuing outside of Labor’s medevac law. “As has always been the policy, if specialised medical treatment cannot be provided in a regional processing country, medical transfers are available. This continues to be the case,” the minister said. He said Labor’s ­medevac law, which only allowed the government to reject transfers on national security grounds, had undermined ministerial discretion over medical transfers.

The Australian revealed yesterday that only one person — a male detainee from Manus Island — had been medically evacuated under the Labor-backed laws, and he was brought to Australia rather than the reopened Christmas ­Island detention centre.

Labor immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann said Scott Mor­rison had spent $185 million reopening Christmas Island to whip up a “shrill scare campaign”.

“(He) has wasted millions of taxpayers’ dollars on his unhinged stunt,” Mr Neumann said.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said the lack of transfers to Christmas Island did not reflect badly on the government.

“I think it’s very embarrassing to the people who said there was a medical emergency on Manus and Nauru, and that people were so sick that they needed to leave those places for medical treatment,” he said. “I would suggest that requiring anyone who got transferred under the medevac process to go to Christmas Island has and is providing a pretty significa­nt deterrent.”