Labor split over Christmas Island as treatment centre

Senior Labor frontbenchers have contradicted Bill Shorten over his acceptance of Christmas Island as a refugee treatment centre.

Tanya Plibersek, at the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday, questions how the Christmas Island facilities stack up. Picture: AAP

Senior Labor frontbenchers, including deputy leader Tanya Plibersek, have contradicted Bill Shorten over his acceptance of Christmas Island as an appropriate location for the treatment of sick refugees, exposing fresh divisions within the party over the ALP-backed medivac bill.

A day after Mr Shorten declared he was “fine” with medically evacuated refugees being sent to Christmas Island, Ms Plibersek said she was unable to see how the facilities at the newly reopened detention centre could be adequate.

“I frankly can’t understand — and it really is up to the government to explain why — if a person cannot be properly treated on Nauru or Manus Island or Port Moresby, that they somehow can be properly treated on Christmas Island,” she said.

“Christmas Island, I know, has good medical facilities, but it’s hard to see how they could be that much better than what’s available on Manus or Nauru.”

Opposition defence spokesman Richard Marles also hit out at the idea of sending sick refugees to Christmas Island after the transfer by the government of 900 refugees to Australia in the past two years for medical treatment.

“There has never been a suggestion, never, that any of those people needed to be treated on Christmas Island,” Mr Marles said. He said talk of reopening Christmas Island was “silly” and would only serve to encoura­ge people-smugglers.

But Labor frontbencher Brendan O’Connor backed his leader, declaring: “Quite frankly, as long as there is the requisite medical expertis­e, it doesn’t matter what part of Australia they’re transferred to.”

Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong said the party wanted to ensure­ refugees received the medical care they needed, “and I would assess Christmas Island on that basis”. “What we want is for them to get the medical care they need, wherever that may be,” ­Senator Wong said.

Immigration Minister David Coleman said appropriate medical facilities would be provided at Christmas Island to treat an antic­ip­ated surge in medical evacu­ations under the bill, which passed through parliament last week despit­e government opposition.

“The government has made it clear we will have to reopen Christmas Island … because we are expecting a large number of ­people,” he told Sky News. “We’ll ensure that adequate medical facilities are provided. So if a person needs to be treated for a particular matter, adequate facilities will be provided at Christmas Island.”

Mr Shorten said on Tuesday he would be happy for medic­ally evacuated refugees to be sent to Christmas Island if they could get the right treatment. “If the medical treatment is required and it’s delivere­d on Christmas Island and it makes people well, well that’s fine,” he said. “The issue here is the safe treatment of people within the context of strong borders.”

Department of Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo confirmed at Senate estimates hearings on Monday that it was the government’s policy to send any transferee to the Christmas Island detention centre, unless a person needed to be sent to the mainland for specialised treatment.

He said the medivac bill could amount to the “effective unravelling of regional processing”, despite 11th-hour changes that prevented it being accessed by new boat arrival­s. The legislation will allow two doctors to order the transfer of refugees and asylum-seekers to Australia for treatment.

The minister may object, but that decision is reviewable by an “independent health advice panel” which could overrule the minister on medical grounds.