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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