Saturday 30th of March 2024

the scumdungonians's "there is not a secret deal" means "there is a secret deal"...

lambie takes australia to the slaughter...

Labor and the Greens have accused crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie and the Government of having struck a secret deal to end the medevac laws that allow refugees to come to Australia for medical treatment.

Key points:
  • The Senate votes 37-35 to repeal medevac laws, with Jacqui Lambie, One Nation and Cory Bernardi's support
  • The laws allowed doctors more control to bring refugees in PNG and Nauru to Australia for treatment
  • Senator Lambie and the Government have refused to reveal the details of their negotiations


The Tasmanian senator, who held the crucial vote on the proposal, has repeatedly refused to outline the details of her negotiations with the Coalition, insisting it was a matter of national security.

Her vote gave the Coalition the numbers it needed to repeal the laws, which passed the Senate on Wednesday morning.

"I am voting for the repeal of medevac because I am satisfied that the conditions that led to medevac being passed aren't the same as the conditions today," she said.

"The world in which this vote takes place is different and I thank the Government for working productively with me to make sure of that."

The medevac laws, which give doctors more power to decide whether refugees on Papua New Guinea and Nauru should come to Australia for treatment, came in under the previous Parliament, when the Coalition was governing in minority.

The Coalition also gained the support of One Nation and soon-to-retire senator Cory Bernardi to win the final vote 37 to 35, with Labor, the Greens and Centre Alliance opposed.

"At the moment we have cabinet ministers like lemmings coming in here to vote for a bill on a deal you haven't seen," Labor's Penny Wong told the Senate.

"That's how cabinet government works in this country — members of the cabinet of Australia are coming in to vote on a deal that's been done with Senator Jacqui Lambie that they don't even know about. 

"What sort of cabinet government is that? What sort of process of democracy is that?"

Labor and the Greens demanded the terms of any deal be made public before the Senate votes on repeal legislation to overturn the laws.

"Let me just make the most important point right up front — there is no secret deal," the Government's leader in the Senate, Mathias Cormann, told the Parliament.

"Let me repeat that again. There is no secret deal."

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-04/medevac-jacqui-lambie-coalition-r...

 

The heart of stone in Scummo's butt won't bleed....

a curly one? you've got to be kiddin'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!....

The high court of Australia will this week examine a complicated question: can Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders be deported as aliens if they don’t hold Australian citizenship?

The federal government says yes.

But lawyers for two Indigenous men facing removal from the country, backed up by the Victorian state government, say there is another option: non-citizen non-alien.

The special case hearing on Thursday before the full bench will examine a series of propositions, which were unusually put forward by the high court itself, and which go beyond the contentious issue of deportations.

The Australian government contends it is an issue of binary definitions and that, because the men are not citizens, they are therefore aliens and the minister has the power to cancel their visas.

Parties have already invoked significant precedents, including the Mabo ruling and the original act of colonisation, in arguing their cases.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/04/citizenship-test-...

 

Eeeeeerrrrrrrrr? Is this for real?....

if you are a sick refugee, just die...

Australia has controversially repealed a law which allowed sick refugees held offshore to be treated in the country.

The government's push to scrap the "medevac" law - passed by opposition MPs in February - has drawn criticism as cruel and inhumane.

But Prime Minister Scott Morrison argued the law had presented a "national security" risk.

At least 12 people have died under Australia's offshore detention policy.

Since 2013, the nation has sent asylum seekers arriving by boat to detention centres on Nauru and Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Canberra has defended the controversial policy by arguing that it stops deaths at sea and disrupts human trafficking.

What was 'medevac' about?

It followed public outrage about the health crisis of detainees - including children - on the islands of Nauru and Manus Island (PNG). There were reports that children as young as 11 were attempting suicide.

That led to the passage of the medevac bill - the first time in decades that a government had lost a vote on its own legislation in the lower house.

 

Experts have repeatedly warned of inadequate medical facilities on the islands, while the UN has previously described the camp conditions as "inhumane". 

The medevac law allowed for doctors to evacuate ill people to Australia for urgent medical treatment. 

The government said as a result of the medevac law, 135 refugees were brought to the mainland for treatment this year. 

It argued the law had been a "border protection" risk and was a "loophole" for refugee advocates to bring asylum seekers into Australia.

"[The] weak and bad medevac laws must be repealed in order to strengthen our national security again," said the government's Senate leader, Mathias Cormann.

 

Read more:

 

 

 

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The Medevac was mostly the signature of Dr Kerryn Phelps — an independent MP for the most conservative electorate in Australia — that of former conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, which she had won in a by-election — but got bowled out by less than 1500 votes (I believe) in the general election.

The Australian government is shamelessly un-Christian while pushing fake-miracles down our throat daily. It is led by a Scummotologist of high religious hypocrisy who thinks burning coal is the answer to everything.

 

a message from dr phelps...


how good is that?...

Sometimes, the medical profession and governments are on the same page. Examples are public health initiatives like immunisation programs or bowel cancer and cervical screening programs, when medical expertise informs policy.

This week we sadly saw the opposite, an ugly clash between medical ethics and political expedience.

On one side, there were 13 medical colleges, the Australian Medical Association and thousands of doctors who were arguing passionately to keep the medevac process in place.

On the other side, a government hell-bent on repealing a piece of legislation that gave doctors the ability to carry out our professional oath to do no harm, and to put the patient’s needs at the forefront of decisions about medical care.

When I heard about the repeal of the medevac legislation, I felt a mixture of emotions, but mainly a profound sense of sadness. This repeal signals a return to the government’s unambiguously cruel and inhumane policy in the treatment of a small cohort of people seeking asylum. These are among the most vulnerable people on the planet.

The decision to repeal medevac is an absolute violation of Australia’s obligations under international law to provide these refugees with safe asylum and medical care. It also strikes at the heart of our medical training and ethical principles.

Before medevac, medical treatment of refugees in offshore detention was often delayed until conditions were life threatening and even then, human rights lawyers were often forced to fight for their transfer in the courts. Before medevac, 12 people died in offshore detention.

Usually cloaked in secrecy, the dire situation on Nauru and Manus Island began to emerge in late 2018. Brave whistleblowers, risking a jail sentence for speaking out, told us of the intolerable conditions in Australian offshore refugee facilities.

When the medevac legislation was passed, the government made no apparent attempt to set up a process to honour the new law. It was left to a group of doctors who came to be known as the Merg (Medical Evacuation Response Group) to set up an urgent triaging and assessment system. It was essential that this process was to be a robust and as credible as possible. Many of these doctors were involved in the Senate inquiry into the repeal bill. Of the 84 submissions, 82 argued against the repeal. There is a reason the medical profession was united in support of medevac. It fulfilled one of the most basic of medical ethics – to provide medical care based on need and without discrimination.


Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/06/to-those-stuck-in-...

 

lambie deserves the brickbats...

 

From Paula Matthewson

...

Instead of hurling outrage and disappointment at the Senator, causing her to stubbornly dig in, we should redouble our efforts to expand her understanding of the issues that face Australia, and the best ways to solve them.

Better awareness of such solutions would then equip Senator Lambie to inform and change the minds of the voters who listen to her.

Who better than an imperfect, authentic politician with the hide of an elephant to start the repairs on our broken politics?

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/12/06/paula-matthewson-jacqui-lambie/

 

Scumroulade is a salesman. Lambie versus the PM? A lamb to the slaughterhouse via paradise promised... National interest, national security, national hubris will be the pins used by Scumbum to prick that "elephant" hide which is no thicker than a baby's bum skin with a rash. Authentic politician? 

Many of these doctors were involved in the Senate inquiry into the repeal bill. Of the 84 submissions, 82 argued against the repeal. There is a reason the medical profession was united in support of medevac.

This is the crux of the matter. Humanitarianism should trump any "authentic politician" being conned by the present cocky government under the leadeship of a second-hand clapped-out car yard salesman (apologies to honest second-hand clapped-out car yard salespersons).

Lambie deserves the brickbats, as we know she can do better. No point giving a student a 10 out ten for a bad effort, because we want her to feel loved... Wake up. SOME PEOPLE WILL DIE.

 


there was a deal...

When Cormann took his walk across the chamber, Labor’s Katy Gallagher had moved an order for production of documents, which would, if passed, have compelled the tabling of anything relevant to the “secret deal” before the bill could pass the senate.

The government didn’t want that, and it was voted down.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale, who was sitting at the next desk to Lambie’s, was one of several people who claim to have overheard what happened next.

“Senator Cormann came up to Senator Lambie and said, ‘Is it okay, I’m going to say there’s no deal?’ And he goes ahead and does that,” Di Natale told a press conference after the sitting.

“Senator Lambie then stands up and goes into great detail about how she’s been negotiating with the government on a secret deal but can’t reveal the contents of it because of national security.”

Whether Di Natale’s recollection is entirely accurate – he later conceded his quoting of Cormann was not verbatim but “words to the effect of”, and he did not hear Lambie’s reply, although he thought he saw a grim nod – it’s hard to dispute his central point that one party or the other was not telling the truth.

Cormann’s denial of a deal appeared unequivocal.

“There is no secret deal,” he told the senate. “There will be no change to our strong border protection arrangements. There will be no change to our strong national security arrangements. And there will be no change in the way we deal with the legacy case load that Labor left behind …”

ONE MIGHT WONDER WHY THE GOVERNMENT WAS SO DETERMINED TO REPEAL A POPULAR POLICY THAT WAS WORKING.

Lambie, however, insisted through tears that she had forced change on the government and that repeal did not mean “we can go back to the way things used to be”.

She continued: “… I put a proposal to the government, and since then we have worked together really hard to advance that proposal … As a result of that work, I’m more than satisfied that the conditions are now in place to allow medevac to be repealed.”

But still she would not say what change had been achieved, beyond giving the government a badly needed but narrow 37-35 political win and returning Australian policy to the status quo ante – where decisions about the medical care of long-detained, desperate people were not driven by doctors but fought slowly and expensively through the courts.

“… When I say I can’t discuss it publicly due to national security concerns, I am being 100 per cent honest to you,” Lambie said. “My hand is on my heart and I can stand here and say that I will be putting at risk Australia’s national security interest if I said anything else about this.”

Refugee advocates were genuinely confused. And distressed. Di Natale, a doctor himself, said: “This was a shred of hope those people were clinging on to, and now it’s gone. We know that already [there have been] 12 deaths. And I worry that more people will die as a result of the decision of this government.”

There is reason for such concern. Madeline Gleeson, of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, told a senate inquiry into the repeal bill in August that her research since 2012 had shown reports of self-harm and mental health problems among those in offshore detention tracked to political developments in Canberra.

“Nauru and Manus Island might seem to everyone here to be very far away, but the reality is that the decisions made here have a very real impact on the state of people over there,” she said.

Kon Karapanagiotidis, the chief executive of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, was only too aware of the potential consequences of the senate vote.

“What makes it so deeply problematic – beyond the way it betrays our democracy and the will of the majority of Australians – is that it has been done without anyone knowing what has been traded off here. We’ve got refugees wanting to know what it means for them,” he told The Saturday Paper in the wake of the repeal.

“I’ve already got my team on the phone, on WhatsApp, on email trying to reassure sick refugees, of which there are still hundreds left behind, that we’re still there for them and they should not lose hope.

“We are gutted and we are devastated. Yet Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton sit there thinking they have a victory. How ghoulish and depraved that is: stripping away medical care from sick refugees, just before Christmas,” he said.

The uncertainty is made all the more cruel because it could so easily be resolved.

 

Read more:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2019/12/07/lambies-sec...

 

 

Lambie deserves to be tarred and feathered... Read above comment. Read from top.

 

 

Cro-magnon Cormann should resign for misleading parliament: THERE WAS A DEAL.

... and the "liberal" doctors abandoned their oath...

When a bill to repeal the Medevac legislation passed the lower house last week, four medical professionals, who are also Coalition MPs, were among those who voted in favour of discarding the current legislation.

The current Migration Amendment (Urgent Medical Treatment) Bill 2018 (Medevac Bill), passed last year, takes decisions about the evacuation of seriously ill asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island and Nauru out of the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. Instead, two independent medical practitioners are required to assess the need or otherwise for temporary medical evacuation to Australia for treatment.

Member for Lyne Dr David Gillespie, Member for Higgins Dr Katie Allen, Member for Bowman Dr Andrew Laming and Member for Reid Dr Fiona Martin MP voted for these medical decisions to be returned to politicians and bureaucrats, rather than remain with their own professional colleagues.

In case you missed the significance of that, four medical professionals, including a paediatrician (Allen) and a psychologist (Martin), voted to give the power to assess the medical conditions of seriously ill adults and children to non-medical professionals.

 

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/5-top-story-o...

 

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