Medevac law clears way for first refugee

The first medical transfer of a refugee has been made under Labor-backed medevac laws for treatment for an undisclosed illness.

Scott Morrison on Christmas Island last month. Picture: Adam Taylor

The first medical transfer of a refugee has been made under Labor-backed medevac laws, with a male detainee brought from Manus ­Island to Australia for treatment for an undisclosed illness.

The Australian can also reveal that seven weeks after the medevac bill passed the parliament, the government has now appointed two independent medical practitioners to its new health advice panel, which will oversee the ­process.

It is understood the man was transferred to mainland Australia in the past seven days, while the Immigration Minister is also considering applications by ­doctors to transfer several more detainees.

The government did not force the man to go to Christmas Island for treatment, despite reopening the detention facility earlier this year to accommodate medical evacuees and deter fresh people-smuggling enterprises.

Tuesday’s federal budget revealed the government was now planning to close the facility if it won the election, slashing the costs of reactivating the centre to $185 million from an original $1.4 billion.

Labor frontbencher Matt Thistlethwaite yesterday said a Shorten government was likely to stick to the government’s July time­frame for closing Christmas ­Island, despite vowing to stick with laws that put medical transfers from offshore detention in the hands of doctors.

Mr Thistlethwaite said the ­decision to close Christmas Island in July showed the government’s reopening of the facility had been a political ploy.

“The government again has been caught short on this trying to whip up hysteria and trying to use this as an election issue when it wasn’t an issue in the community after all,” he told the ABC.

Immigration Minister David Coleman told The Australian the government would be able to close the facility because it intended to repeal the medevac law.

“That will allow us to close Christmas Island as we will have put back in place the system that has been so effective in protecting Australia’s border security,” he said.

Mr Coleman’s office confirmed the independent health advice panel, which can overrule ministerial rejections of refugee medevacs on all but national security grounds, was now operational.

It includes an Australian Medical Association appointee, Antonio Di Dio, and Royal Australasian College of Physicians representative Susan Moloney. The panel also includes two government ­appointees — Department of Home Affairs chief medical officer Prabodh Gogna, and Chief Commonwealth Medical Officer Brendan Murphy.

The government had warned when the medevac bill passed that there were 300 refugees and asylum-seekers on Manus and Nauru ready to lodge medical transfer ­applications signed by two doctors. But the threatened flood of applications did not eventuate. A coalition of refugee groups has taken charge of medevac ­applications by offshore detainees, helping to defuse what could have been a damaging election issue for Labor.

The Medical Evacuation ­Response Group has appointed a left-aligned public relations company, Fifty Acres, to handle all inquiries about medical transfers under the medevac bill. But the agency yesterday said it was unable to comment on the first person to be transferred.