In Kerryn Phelps’ brief and unlamented career as a parliamentarian, her sole achievement was to be a watermelon wrecker. Phelps glommed onto the rich peoples’ protest vote at the removal of their wealthy paragon, Malcolm Turnbull. A millionaire representing Australia’s wealthiest electorate, Phelps naturally obsessed over the sort of things rich people are comfortable enough to obsess about: climate change and refugees.
Safe in the knowledge that refugees only get dumped in poor suburbs, Phelps indulged in some top-tier virtue-signaling and abused the newly minted Morrison government’s then-minority status to force through the idiotic “Medevac” bill. This is the absurd, Clayton’s open borders bill that gave fakefugees a golden ticket simply on the say-so of any virtue-signaling medico.
But times and the parliamentary balance-of-power have changed.
The Morrison government is shaping up for another parliamentary brawl over refugee medical transfers. A Senate committee examining the coalition’s push to scrap so-called medivac laws is due to report back on Friday. The repeal bill will then be debated in the upper house as early as next week. Independent senator Jacqui Lambie, who is likely to cast the deciding vote, has indicated she will be guided by the inquiry.
Lambie casts herself as a political maverick, who has trenchantly criticised the Greens, proposed a burqa ban and the death penalty for foreign fighters. These are all issues that have played well in her blue-collar Tasmanian electorate. She might want to keep that in mind.
She certainly wants to turn a deaf ear to the bleating of the media.
Despite near-universal calls to keep the medical evacuation laws in place, Attorney-General Christian Porter insists the government is reflecting the will of the people. “Our position on these sort of matters, I think, is accepted by middle Australia — it’s rejected by some — but it’s absolutely crystal clear,” he told ABC Radio on Monday. “We took our vision as to how border protection should work … to a full election and it was fully endorsed.”
“Near-universal”, according to whom? Opinion polls and election results (where border protection was a significant issue) have shown, repeatedly, that Australians oppose these kind of open-borders policies.
“Part of that was retaining the orderly system of medical transfers that successfully worked to date, where the minister does have an ultimate discretion.” The medevac laws, which were enacted against the coalition government’s wishes earlier this year, gave clinicians a greater say in the medical transfers of asylum seekers. The bill created a specialist medical panel to approve evacuations on advice from doctors rather than government officials.
And, just like that, there are thousands of illegal immigrants allowed into the country for “medical reasons”. Apparently, addiction to welfare is considered a medical condition these days.
The Morrison government is harking back to John Howard’s election-winning statement that “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”.
“It is the government’s position that it should determine who is allowed to enter Australia, and the terms and conditions to be imposed on that entry, as is the right of every sovereign nation.”
theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/politicsnow-first-home-loan-deposit-scheme-to-pass-senate/news-story