‘It was never about the kids’: PM Scott Morrison visits Christmas Island

Scott Morrison warns that refugee advocates have turned to well-worn tactics — including coaching, and distribution of scripts — to “game the system”.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the jetty on Christmas Island. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

Scott Morrison has warned that refugee advocates have turned to well-worn tactics — including coaching, and the distribution of scripts — as part of a wider campaign to “game the system” and expedite the transfer of asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru to Australia.

The Prime Minister, who travelled­ to Christmas Island yester­day to tour the detention centre he reopened in response to the new medivac law, said refugee advocates were looking to use the same tactics they used to hasten refugees’ transfer to mainland Australia during an unpreced­ented run of boats between 2008 and 2013. In that time, more than 50,000 people arrived on 820 boats and an estimated 1200 people­ drowned.

“You will see the usual stuff, you will see the coaching, you will see the scripts, you will see all of these things. We have seen all of these things before when we were going through the assessments,” Mr Morrison said.

“They will know all the right things to say to actually trigger the process … they will have a game plan and they will play it out and what they’re seeking to do is end offshore processing. That was the goal, this was always the goal.

“It wasn’t about kids on Nauru. The kids are off Nauru. It wasn’t about getting people access to medical treatment. People are already­ accessing medical treatment. This was always about shutting down regional processing.”

Last week, a coalition of refugee support organisations under the umbrella of the Medical Evacuation Response Group­ publish­ed a five-step “flowchart” on its website that explains to asylum­-seekers how the medical transfer process works.

A boatload of asylum-seekers picked up by HMAS Broome arrives at the jetty on Christmas Island in 2010.

Mr Morrison said he understood refugee advocates were motiva­ted by kind hearts but “those kind-hearted motives have resulted in some of the worst traged­ies that I’ve seen”.

“And so it’s not enough to be well motivated. You have got to have the right policies, and the policies they support are very dangerous and the ones they oppos­e have been very effective.”

The medivac response group said yesterday its work was based on expertise.

“Refugee-sector experts­ have joined together to create a robust system to ensure transfers are based on medical need,” said spokeswoman Kelly Nicholls. “The public can see through the government’s scaremongering.”

The medivac bill, which was supported by Labor, the Greens and most of the crossbench, has left the government unable to block the transfer of refugees and ­asylum-seekers who are considered to be dangerous but are not ­subject to an adverse ASIO ­assessment and have not been sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment.

Mr Morrison tours the North West Point detention Centre on Christmas Island. Picture: Adam Taylor

Of the 950 asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru, 57 have been accused of crimes includ­ing murder, child sexual assault, drug-trafficking and terror activity. Mr Morrison, whose trip to Christmas Island yesterday was the first by a sitting prime minister, was asked if that meant the other 900 could safely go to the mainland.

“If there were to be a resurgence in illegal boat activity, this is the transfer point … they would be quickly processed here and they would be transferred to Nauru,” the Prime Minister said.

The renovated Christmas Island­ centre, for which the government has budgeted $1.44 billion over four years to operate, was a hardened facility that could be used to deter riots, and it was a disincentive for asylum-seekers who “game the system”, he said. He denied that reopening it was an invitation to people-­smugglers to try their luck again.

But the Opposition Leader labelled­ Mr Morrison’s trip to Christmas Island a “frolic” and a “waste of money”.

“This government is a desperate government,’’ Mr Shorten told a business forum in Sydney yesterday. “Their shrillness is almost immeasurable. Their desperation (is) measurable in decibels.’’