This bill has a really simple proposition. The government is putting forward the basic
idea that if you're sick you shouldn't be able to get medical treatment. That's what
this government is saying to all of the people whom Australia has locked up in prisons or
on prison islands because they've committed no crime but have done nothing more than come
here and try to seek our help, often fleeing war, trauma and persecution. They've come
here, and the Australia government, under successive governments, under a bipartisan
policy, has made them sick. It has locked people up in indefinite detention when they
have committed no crime. It has said to young children, 'Even though you have done nothing
wrong, you are going to spend your future unable to live freely and play like every
other child does.' When you do that to people, it makes them sick. We've been told that time
and time again, under a Liberal government and under a Labor government. This policy
of offshore indefinite mandatory detention breaks people. It breaks them to the point
where children have tried to kill themselves. We've had reports of people trying to set
themselves on fire. That is what we have done to people.
The people who are getting help under this legislation are people who need it. They are
sick people and, eight out of 10 times, the minister agrees they're sick, and so they
get the help they need without having to go to court. That is the law now, and this government
wants to change it.
This government wants to go back to the old way of doing things where, even if the minister
agrees that you're sick, you have to go to court, and the minister and the government
will fight you with all the vast resources of the Australian government. They will fight
you and fight you and fight you. If you get sick and die along the way, so be it; we don't
care. This system is working. It is getting help to the people who need it. They are getting
the treatment that they need, and this government wants to deny that to them.
We now have a question to answer in Australia. Regardless of where you stand on whether you
think offshore detention is right—whether you think it's right to keep people locked
up for not having committed any crime—we now have to deal with the very obvious fact
that under this government's watch there are now hundreds of people who are sick because
the government has made them sick. What are we going to do with those people? Are we going
to say they are not entitled to medical help, which is what this government wants to do,
or are we going to allow this legislation to stay in place so that they can just get
the help that they need? Obviously the government doesn't care whether sick people get worse
or die. It's quite happy to leave them in conditions where they don't get the medical
care they need and in fact are going to make them sicker. It's quite obvious the government
doesn't care.
If this bill passes this place—unless this government has a change of heart, for which
you need a heart in the first place—and goes to the Senate, I say to all the members
of the Senate: by rejecting this bill, you are not posing a security risk to Australia.
By knocking this bill back, you are not changing the government's border protection policies.
I'd love it if the medevac bill changed the government's border protection policies, but
it doesn't. It's not my preference, but, if you believe in offshore detention, indefinite
detention and all of those things, you can still knock this bill back, because this bill
does nothing for Australia's security. All this bill does is say it's going to be okay
from now on for the minister to dip his hand into the public purse, take money that could
be going to schools and hospitals and use it to go to court to stop sick people from
getting treatment. That's what the government's asking for. The government is asking for the
right to use public money to stop sick people getting treatment.