Scott Morrison backs Peter Dutton claims over medivac costs

PM backs Peter Dutton’s claim transfers from Manus and Nauru would mean fewer spots on hospital waiting lists for Australian patients.

Scott Morrison supports Peter Dutton’s claims on medivac transfers. Picture: AAP.

Scott Morrison has backed Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton’s claims that refugees medically transferred from Manus Island and Nauru would take spots on hospital waiting lists otherwise meant for Australian patients.

Labor has branded Mr Dutton’s claims “fear-mongering” but the Prime Minister and other Coalition ministers have supported the claims.

“We’re seeing people at hospitals missing out on medical services because people are taking it from Nauru and Manus,” the Home Affairs Minister said yesterday.

But Mr Morrison said his minister’s comments about hospital beds were “simple math.”

“It’s just a simple fact. If we’re going to treat more people in Australia, then obviously they’re going to take the place of people getting that treatment any way,” the Prime Minister told ABC radio.

“It’s simple math.”

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann also said there was a risk of Australians losing out on hospital beds due to the lack of control the government now has over medical transfers.

“If you bring people to Australia who otherwise wouldn’t have come to Australia, clearly they will be accessing services that would otherwise be available to Australians,” he told Sky News.

.@MathiasCormann says the medivac laws and @billshortenmp have 'exposed Australia to the risks that come with weakening border protections'.

MORE: https://t.co/ykweMevBOK #amagenda pic.twitter.com/UCT350nTqH

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) February 28, 2019

Labor senator Kristina Keneally this morning blasted the Prime Minister and Mr Dutton for their claims, and said any clog up of the health system was a result of Mr Dutton’s time as health minister from 2013 to 2015.

“If Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison want to claim that Australians are on waiting lists for elective surgery, are unable to get the care they need because of refugees getting treatment, that is just fear mongering,” she told Sky News.

“What they need to acknowledge is that if Australians are on waiting lists, it’s because the Liberals have cut hospital funding, they have frozen Medicare rebates, they have presided over the decimation of the health system.”