RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Last year the Coalition government suffered a historic defeat on the floor of the parliament. For the first time in 80 years, it lost a substantive vote in the House of Representatives.

That vote saw the passage of what’s commonly referred to as the medevac legislation - which allowed refugees in offshore detention to travel to Australia to receive healthcare. Some of those refugees are still here, and they say they’re being punished because of politics.

Today, chief political correspondent for The Saturday Paper, Karen Middleton, on what happens when a government is forced to implement a law it opposed.

RUBY:

Karen, can you tell me about Farhad Ramati, and what’s at stake for him when he speaks to reporters?

KAREN:

Yes, he is a refugee. He's been determined to be a refugee. He came from Iran about eight years ago by boat. He was sent offshore to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

Archival tape -- Farhad Ramati:

“I was brought here in July, 2019 to Australia, I was placed in BITA, which is Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation…”

KAREN:

And then in July last year, he came to Australia under the medevac legislation, because of a medical condition, he has a heart condition. Farhad was one of 182 people who are refugees or asylum seekers in Australia, though I think there was 196 all up that arrived under that legislation. And they have been held in detention centres, either formal detention centres like Villawood in Sydney or in what they call alternative places of detention, which are modified hotels in Brisbane and Melbourne. He has spoken out a number of times about the circumstances of people like him in the way that they've been treated.

Archival tape -- Farhad Ramati:

“When I had an interview with ABC, early morning, around 7:30am, six officers rushed into my room, grabbed my phone, threw it away…”

When he's done that, he's been moved from detention centre to detention centre.

Archival tape -- Farhad Ramati:

“So they put me on my face and handcuffed me at the back. Four officers, one at my right, one at left, one at back, the one in front of me facing me, grabbing my head and put it against his chest so I couldn't see anything.”

KAREN:

He believes that it's a form of punishment for speaking out.

Archival tape -- Farhad Ramati:

“In my case, 100 per cent. I'm sure these movements and punishments happens to me because of me being outspoken, I'm trying to make awareness.”

KAREN:

The government denies this, but he points to a number of occasions, And he says he's worried that it will happen to him again, but he's not going to stop speaking out.

RUBY:

So Farhad says he’s being punished for speaking out about the way he’s being treated. And as you said, he’s part of a group of refugees that were brought to Australia under medevac legislation. Can you take me back to when that law was established and remind me of the purpose of it?

KAREN:

Yes, the law was designed to make it easier for people in offshore detention to be brought to Australia for medical attention. It came about as a result of a number of crossbench members pushing that legislation, particularly in the House of Representatives.

Archival tape -- Kerryn Phelps:

“Extraordinary events, personal and political have coalesced to bring me here to take my seat.”

KAREN:

And the momentum really came from Kerryn Phelps, the doctor in the seat of Wentworth.

Archival tape -- Kerryn Phelps:

“Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers is a source of shame and sorrow and for me and for many thousands of my medical colleagues and other Australians.”

KAREN:

She is the independent who won that seat after the retirement of Malcolm Turnbull from politics. So she took it off the Liberal Party and then pushed very hard on refugee issues.

Archival tape -- Kerryn Phelps:

“No longer can we tolerate our government holding the lives of these children and these families to ransom to make a point about maritime arrivals.”

KAREN:

And the combination of the numbers in the House of Representatives and the numbers in the Senate meant that that legislation was able to pass in February of 2019.

Archival tape -- sounds of the vote passing - people cheering

KAREN:

It was the first time since, I think, the late 1920s that a government had had a piece of legislation like that passed against its will. So it wasn't very happy about it.

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison:

“What is true today, is as a result of what happened in the parliament yesterday and what is happening in the senate now is our border protection laws are weaker than they were two days ago. That’s a fact.”

KAREN:

It didn't stay in place for very long. The federal coalition won the May 2019 federal election and went about repealing that legislation

Archival tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“The Prime Minister has scored a big parliamentary win on its penultimate day, with the government repealing the refugee Medevac laws.”

KAREN:

...and it was repealed with the support in the Senate, particularly of Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie in December last year.

Archival tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“The fiery senate showdown quickly igniting questions about whether the government struck a secret deal with Jacqui Lambie…”

KAREN:

So it only existed from February to December. And people like Farhad Rahmati came to Australia in that period under that law.

RUBY:

So the government was was able to repeal the legislation with the support of Jacqui Lambie and at the time she spoke a lot about a deal that she had made, she said she had gotten something in return but she wouldn’t say what, I think, because of national security, so can you tell me about that and what we know about that now?

KAREN:

Yes.

Archival tape -- Jacqui Lambie:

“So I put to the government a proposal, and since then we have worked together really hard to advance that proposal…”

KAREN:

Jacqui Lambie had said she'd given an undertaking to keep that deal secret and that she was going to hold the government to its side of the bargain.

Archival tape -- Jacqui Lambie:

“I don’t like holding things back like this, but when I say I can't discuss publicly due to national security concerns I am being 100 per cent honest to you.”

KAREN:

She talked about it existing, but she wouldn't say what it was.

Archival tape -- Jacqui Lambie:

“My hand is on my heart. And I can stand here and say I would be putting at risk Australia’s national security and national interest if I said anything else about this.”

KAREN:

It's been widely speculated and not denied that it is related to the New Zealand offer that's been on the table for several years to take 150 refugees per year from that cohort of people who've been offshore at Manus and Nauru. Advocates make the point that if that New Zealand deal had been accepted at the time, then we could really have seen most of the refugees offshore transferred to a new home in New Zealand by now.

The government has resisted accepting that deal. It said it was concerned that it would become a backdoor way into Australia because of the relatively free movement of New Zealanders in non Covid times anyway into Australia and vice versa. It's now been a year since the repeal of the medevac legislation. And Jacqui Lambie appears to be getting a little frustrated that the government hasn't done anything yet and is wanting to hold the government to account.

RUBY:

Right, and so has she been doing that - holding the government to account over this deal she seems to have made?

KAREN:

Well, it's interesting. She's being very careful about this and she still won't speak publicly. But there was a group of advocates who came to Canberra in October and again, very recently, to press the case for the New Zealand deal.

Archival tape -- Craig Foster:

“So we’re here with Sonny Bill Williams at parliament house in Canberra this morning for the Game Over campaign, calling on Scott Morrison to accept the New Zealand offer…”

KAREN:

They were led by sports celebrities, if you like, broadcaster Craig Foster and footballer Sonny Bill Williams and Graham Thom from Amnesty International. And they did the rounds of a number of MPs senators in October.

Archival tape -- Unidentified Speaker:

“There’s a solution, New Zealand want to take them. We just need the people in power to say yes and let them go.”

KAREN:

Interestingly, though, they came back last week in the second last sitting week of the year. And amongst those others, they met Jacqui Lambie and they made a big deal of that on social media.

Archival tape -- Unidentified Speaker:

“So we’re also talking to all these MPs about a long term solution for all these people, they’ve been suffering for eight years, it’s just too long.”

KAREN:

They posted photographs of meeting with her. And she was also unafraid to say she met with them and to talk about particularly the New Zealand deal. So you could interpret that as making a public statement that she is still concerned about it and that she still believes that it's important that that deal be accepted eventually. And so certainly in the advocacy community and amongst some of her colleagues, it's being seen as a bit of a message to the government that they really need to get on with it.

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Karen, Farhad Ramati is one of the refugees who might be able to go to New Zealand if a deal was struck, but the last we heard from the government was that they were reluctant to do that. What do we know about where things are at now?

KAREN:

Since then, it's changed its tone a little bit and has said it first wants to complete the agreement that it's forged with the US administration initially under the Obama presidency and then under Donald Trump to transfer 1250 refugees to America. Now, that's been a slow process and only eight or 900 people have been transferred so far. And there are still people being interviewed for that transfer arrangement, including Farhad Rahmati, who's had an interview and is waiting for the result.

So it looks on the face of it like he shouldn't be a security threat, which would mean that he might be eligible either for the American transfer or for the New Zealand transfer. And he makes the point and so do advocates on his behalf that, again, the federal government could have stopped him coming to Australia under the medevac legislation if it had national security concerns about him. But it didn't do that. Now, it has not answered his questions when he has asked why he hasn't been released into the community, because he's been accepted as a refugee and on that basis because Australia has obligations to refugees. He should, theoretically, at least be allowed into the community.

Archival tape -- Farhad Ramati:

“We have some people who don't have any option and they are trapped in this hotel in detention. So it's not about my own personal problem. It's about a group of people, a cohort of people, who have been trapped in a situation that they can't do anything. We are in a catch 22 situation…”

KAREN:

So he, he is stuck.

Archival tape -- Farhad Ramati:

“They never respond to someone like me. Who am I to them? I am not even a person to them, I am a number. They will never answer to me.”

KAREN:

He's been moved around, I think it was eight times, since July last year between Brisbane and Sydney, back and forth between different centres. And he's just he just wants to know why he is being treated this way and why others are being treated the same. He just thinks it's cruel treatment.

Archival tape -- Farhad Ramati:

“I always hate these bars and I want to get out. And every day I have this hope that this stage is going to be the last day of my life in this situation.”

RUBY:

Does Farhad have any sense of why he, and others in a similar situation to him are being treated like this?

KAREN:

Well, he thinks it's because they came here under the medevac legislation and that the government has a particular set against the people who came under that legislation because it never wanted the law in the first place and it was imposed upon it. And as soon as it was able to, it had that law repealed.

Archival tape -- Farhad Ramati:

“...they are punishing us because we were brought here based on medevac, which medevac wasn't something that the government wanted. They just punishing us because. Because of that.”

KAREN:

So Farhad Rahmati believes that it's punishment effectively, and he says he thinks he's had extra because he's been willing to speak publicly about it.

Archival tape -- Farhad Ramati:

“So I’m saying this is a standoff between parties, they are taking revenge of each other by sacrificing our lives.”

KAREN:

Now, I've spoken to the Home Affairs Department. They say that it is not punishment for medevac people, that the two things are completely unconnected, that people are transferred for a range of reasons, for health reasons, for logistical reasons, for security reasons, and that it's not because they came under Medivac.

They won't talk about individual cases. So, you know, it's not possible to get answers out of them on his case in particular. But other advocates for refugees and asylum seekers like Jana Favero from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre say they have come to the conclusion that it is somehow associated with coming here under Medivac.

Archival tape -- Jana Favero:

“There's really no other way or other conclusion, reasonable conclusion, to come to because it’s such a difference in treatment of expierence between those who came under Medivac and those who didn’t.”

KAREN:

It's a pretty big coincidence that so many of those Medivac people have been transferred and where other people are being released into community detention.

Archival tape -- Jana Favero:

“It just comes down to ideology, political point scoring. And I think a real belief by the prime minister and Minister Dutton that people don't deserve to be treated fairly, if you did arrive in Australia seeking safety by boat.”

RUBY:

Hmm, and Karen, what do you make of all of this, if it is the case that the parliament has passed a law the government doesn't like, it repeals it. But in the end, a group of refugees say that they're being punished as a result of the politics of that?

KAREN:

If it's true, it would be incredibly spiteful. And I don't know what the point of it would be other than to cause harm and hardship to people already in a difficult situation. Now, I have no way of determining who is right in this circumstance, whether the advocates and Farhod Rahmati suspicions are correct or whether the government is correct, because we just don't have transparency on the reasons these decisions are made.

But what we can say is a number of people are being transferred without warning in forceful circumstances between these centres at strange times of the day and night, some people are being transferred from centres in eastern part of Australia across to the Yongah Hill Detention Centre in Western Australia. And that's being used as a staging point to send people to Christmas Island.

So the government is moving people around for a range of reasons, but it does seem that the medevac people are being moved particularly frequently, and it's really difficult to know why that is. And that's what these advocates say they think is the reason.

Archival tape -- Farhad Ramati:

“The only reason that I keep myself sane is I know out there that is something waiting for me and hope is alive for me. I know one day I will be free and I will be in charge of my life and I can make it.”

RUBY:

Hmm. Karen, thank you so much for your time today.

KAREN:

Thanks, Ruby.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

The federal government has introduced a raft of proposed changes to workplace laws to the parliament, but is facing stiff resistance to some reforms.

Industrial relations minister Christian Porter says the proposed changes are about helping businesses respond to the pandemic while Labor argues the new laws could see workers worse off.

And Tasmania has recorded its first new coronavirus cases in four months, in hotel quarantine. A woman and two children, who arrived from overseas, tested positive.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See ya tomorrow.