Lambie won’t change Coalition policy on refugees

The government will not change its offshore refugees policy in exchange for Jacqui Lambie’s vote to repeal the medivac laws.

Senator Jacqui Lambie won’t divulge want she wants in exchange for her vote to scrap the medivac laws. Picture: Kym Smith

The government will not reconsider accepting New Zealand’s offer to take 150 refugees or change its approach to removing people on Manus Island and Nauru in exchange for crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie’s critical vote to repeal the medivac laws.

READ MORE: Medivac bill sinks New Zealand resettlement option for refugees | New Zealand to take 150 asylum-seekers from Australia | Morrison opens door to NZ refugee solution

Scrapping the bill is listed as the government’s first item for debate in the Senate on Monday, with Scott Morrison in need of a win after the surprise defeat of his union-busting Ensuring Integrity bill on Thursday.

Senator Lambie, who is due to meet the Prime Minister for a second time in two weeks about medivac, appeared to suggest the mysterious demand she gave to the government in order to vote for the repeal did not relate to getting the remaining asylum-seekers off Nauru and Manus Island.

She did not rule out having asked the government to reconsider New Zealand’s long-term offer of resettling 150 refugees held by Australia offshore.

However, asked what she ­believed was the “permanent solution” to removing refugees and asylum-seekers on Nauru and Manus Island, Senator Lambie told ABC radio: “I know there’s some bad eggs amongst them but once again should everybody be tarred with the same brush? Right now my discussions with the government, I’m not really getting into that line of fire too much.

“But certainly we cannot leave them over there forever and a ­solution needs to be found, there’s no doubt about that.”

The government has ruled out amending the medivac laws to gain Senator Lambie’s vote.

Senate leader Mathias Cormann, who is also Finance Minister, said the government would not change the way it was dealing with the legacy caseload. There are about 263 people on Manus and 221 on Nauru.

“We will not make any amendments to the bill. We will not make any changes to what we are doing right now in relation to dealing with the legacy caseload that we’ve inherited from the Labor Party,” Senator Cormann told Sky News.

“We’ve mostly been able to fix up the mess that Labor left behind in terms of that legacy caseload but there’s still some work to be done. We will make these decisions based on what is right, not based on some trading in relation to important national security-related legislation in the Senate.”

Senator Lambie, who holds the final vote the government needs to scrap the medivac laws, said negotiations were heading in the right direction and was hopeful they would come to a conclusion early next week.

If the government agrees to her condition, she will help repeal the laws. “I wouldn’t call this horse trading, this is something that just needs to be done and it has to do with national security,” she said.

A possible vote on the repeal of medivac next week comes after the government suffered a setback when the full bench of the Federal Court upheld an earlier ruling that asylum-seekers can be medically transferred to Australia without speaking to a doctor.

Centre Alliance senator Stirling Griff, who supports the laws, backed the judgment.

“It’s common for doctors to ­review case notes in Australia without all parties having a physical consultation with patients. The example given is no different to what is happening in Australia for Australians,” he said.

The Federal Court case centred on whether a evacuee must have had “direct personal interaction” with the doctor who recommended their transfer, such as through a phone call or teleconference.