THE HON. MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
THURSDAY, 21 FEBRUARY 2019
SUBJECTS: Medical transfers bill; Helloworld
JOURNALIST: What do you make of this new legal advice that the Government is spreading around, or not so spreading around?
MARK DREYFUS, SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The Government is not so spreading it around. The Government must immediately release the legal advice that it says it has got from the Australian Government Solicitor. It speaks volumes that the Government thinks that the way in which to proceed in this Parliament - and Parliament is still sitting today for a brief time longer that the way in which the Government thinks the right way to proceed is to give bits of legal advice to the Daily Telegraph and not approach the other members of this Parliament for what they say is an amendment that is required. On what we've got to go on at the moment we don't think that there's any problem. Our bill talks about temporary transfers and that's the idea - that when someone who is in offshore detention needs medical treatment that they will be temporarily transferred to Australia and when they are well on doctors advice, they will be returned.
JOURNALIST: Do you know for sure that the Medevac bill includes that provision for returns because that's what the Government is saying is missing.
DREYFUS: Well its not entirely clear what the Government is saying and the only way the Government can make clear what the Government is saying is if they release the advice. And the reason why that is vital is because this Government has already got a very bad record of misrepresenting the advice that it gets. On this very bill, we've had a complaint this week from Duncan Lewis, the Director General of ASIO telling us that the Government misrepresented ASIO's advice which would cause damage to ASIO. We've had the spectacle last week of the Attorney General misrepresenting advice of the Solicitor General when he wrote to the speaker and asked the speaker to deny even passage of the bill on the basis of constitutionality of this very bill. The speaker very wisely ignored Christian Porters demands that the Solicitor Generals advice be kept secret and released it to the Parliament and when we got it we saw that the Solicitor General had put a number of qualifications and caveats on his advice, which made it clear that it was matter for the Parliament to determine whether the bill could go forward and if you go back further in time the previous Attorney General had a habit of misrepresenting the advice that he'd received. Christian Porter himself has on a number of occasions disgracefully for an Attorney General of the Commonwealth, misrepresented the effect of the law which of course is confined to people presently on Nauru and Manus Island.
JOURNALIST: We know that of the roughly 800 people have .
DREYFUS: It's 900.
JOURNALIST: Okay, for medical treatment, none of them have gone back why would anyone have *inaudible*
DREYFUS: Lets be precise, it was our advice that 900 people have been brought to Australia for medical reasons and one - that's 900 people brought from Manus and Nauru and one has been returned to Australia so this desperate Attorney General running around trying to create fear this morning is talking about a situation that is already happening. All that the bill did that passed through the Parliament last week, is to put in a regular form, a process that is already happening but regrettably has needed in many cases the orders of Federal Court Judges to bring, for example, sick babies with life threatening conditions, to Australia. This Government think its appropriate to force a Federal Court proceeding to be held over that, rather than to do what they should be doing which is to make sure that there is proper medical care given to people who are under our care.
JOURNALIST: Lets just say this loophole does exist, will you be asking for a briefing with Christian Porter to perhaps fix this and get on with it?
DREYFUS: I'm demanding a briefing and I'm demanding that the Government release the Australian Government Solicitors advice.
JOURNALIST: Whats his response so far?
DREYFUS: All that's happened so far is that we've had the Government going off to the Daily Telegraph and putting on the front page bits of advice, who knows what the full advice actually says. That is no way to proceed. The Parliament is sitting today, unfortunately because we have a part-time Parliament in Australia and the Governments decided to run away from Parliament, Parliaments not sitting again until the 2nd of April but the Governments had this bill since last December, why is it that on the last morning of Parliament before we break, because the Governments decided Parliament wont sit, we break until the 2nd of April, why is it that the Governments chosen this morning, to put this on the front page of the Daily Telegraph and not approach Labor, not approach the cross bench not approach any other Members of Parliament. That is no way to conduct the business of this Parliament. Business of this Parliament should be conducted in Parliament, in public and its an entirely, ordinary, regular, thing for Government to make amendments to laws where there has been drafting problems, if in fact there are drafting problems. And just today, Ill finish with this, just today, Labor is cooperating with the Government to make amendments to the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act that was passed by the Parliament with Labor's cooperation on June 28th last year, and these amendments fix up drafting problems in the Governments own legislation, its a regular activity for Parliament. Instead of creating this desperate scare, the Attorney General should be doing his work in a proper way.
JOURNALIST: If Labor wins the election, would you get rid of Joe Hockey as US Ambassador?
DREYFUS: Lets talk about why you've asked me that question about Hockey's status as Ambassador in Washington. Its extraordinary and it stinks that we have the Federal Treasurer of the Liberal Party providing free trips to the Finance Minister in the Commonwealth Government which the Finance Minister claims to not have noticed - $2700 worth of free trips. This is the same Finance Minister that's ringing up the Federal Treasurer of the Liberal Party because hes the CEO of this travel company. He says that's the right thing to do, that you ring up the CEO of the travel company, a large one at that to make your own bookings. Please! And we now know from yesterday of the involvement of the Ambassador of Australia to the United States who arranged a meeting with staff of the embassy in the run up to the tender process being conducted by Helloworld and yesterday we have the Prime Minister of Australia misleading Parliament as to what the Ambassador actually did. The whole thing stinks. The Prime Ministers got to come clean, and so does the Government.
ENDS
