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15.3.19

letter to editor medevac legislation - some facts

The Medevac Legislation-Some Facts
This new legislation, enabling the medical evacuation of sick people, applies only to people currently on Manus Island and Nauru. It does not apply to any future asylum seekers.
The Minister retains the right to reject medical transfers on a number of grounds including security risk or if the person has a substantial criminal record.
Prior to this legislation, 879 sick people and their families have been transferred to Australia for treatment, often as a result of intervention by the courts. This has not resulted in any new boat arrivals. Not one!
In recent years an armada of Australian navy vessels has prevented asylum-seeker boats from entering Australian waters. Some 34 boats carrying more than 1,000 people have been turned back into Indonesian waters. This turn-back policy has the explicit support of the Coalition and the Labor party.
The Government claims that some men on Manus have committed serious offences. If so, why haven’t they been deported already back to their home countries?
The hysteria created by the Morrison Government over this Medevac legislation is deliberately deceitful and inflammatory in pursuit of a base political agenda based on fear and bigotry.
The reality is that the great majority of the 970 people remaining on Manus Island and Nauru have been assessed by UNHCR and Border Force officials as legitimate refugees. They have committed no crime. All they have done is to exercise their legal right under the Refugee Convention to seek asylum in this country. Australia and nearly every country in the world is a signatory to this Refugee Convention.
Surely it is time to end the persecution and cruelty that these people have endured for six long years. They should be immediately resettled in Australia, the USA, New Zealand or another safe country.

Paul Bartholomew
Boambee East

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