With Senate expected this week to vote whether Medevac should be repealed, Armidale residents held a torch-lit vigil in Central Park to show their support for the bill.
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More than 30 people attended the Armidale Rural Australians for Refugees' event, which ran from Sunday evening to Monday morning. Four members - Bar Finch, Liz O'Hara, Patsy Asch, and Jan Wyles - stayed at the vigil overnight.
"Medevac is part of a campaign to rectify some of the truly evil things that we're doing to asylum seekers and refugees," Ms O'Hara said. "It offers people with serious medical or psychological problems the same sort of assistance that we could expect. To have that taken away is just unconscionable."
Medevac allows asylum seekers and refugees in offshore detention to be brought to Australia for life-saving medical treatment - but the Coalition and right-wing parties want to repeal it, claiming it would allow illegal immigrants and criminals to enter the country.
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Tasmanian Independent Jacqui Lambie holds the casting vote. ARAR will send Ms Lambie a book of letters written by people at the vigil expressing their concern for detainees on Manus Island and Nauru, and arguing that Medevac should be maintained.
The national co-ordinating body held similar events across the country, including outside Parliament House in Canberra. The Armidale group were twice in contact with the Canberra meeting, and spoke to the organisation's national president Louise Redmond, and Kristina Keneally, Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, Immigration and Citizenship.
Patsy Asch said every human being should have access to good health and an open life. "We as Australians are responsible for those people who come to our shores seeking support, many of them fleeing really frightening experiences. Instead, we lock them up far away so we don't have to think about them, and in many cases deny them simple, good medical care."
Jan Wyles felt that locking people up for six and a half years on Manus was inhumane. "Those who care have achieved so little compared to the largely indifferent population of Australia; to turn Medevac back again is terribly disappointing."
UNE medical students attended last night from Crossing Borders for Health, an international network that wants to remove barriers to healthcare for refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants.
Others were inspired by their religion.
"Quite frankly, humans are humans," student Callum Dowling said. "We've all been made in the image of God. And if we reject that, if we say our political gain, our political happiness, our sense of comfort is more important than somebody's life, that's repulsive..."
"A vote to repeal Medevac is a vote against our national conscience," Joanna Appleby said. "We have so many resources and so much that we can offer the international community - and we have consistently denied that to people, and denied them the basic Humanity of being treated like humans, just as we are."
Medevac has brought 130 detainees to Australia for treatment; a report this year showed that 91 per cent have mental health problems (severe depression, PTSD, and suicidal ideation) and 97 p.c. have physical health conditions.
The Coalition, One Nation, and Cory Bernardi want to repeal Medevac. Morrison and Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton argue it would allow paedophiles, rapists, murderers, and other criminals to enter the country, or that detainees would fake illness to enter the country. While the minister can block transfers on national security grounds, Dutton believes these discretionary powers are too narrow.
A Coalition-led government committee also claim the policy is flawed, arguing, for instance, it contains no process to return transferees, and that the time frame to assess security and character concerns is unrealistic.
Labor, the Greens, and the Centre Alliance want to maintain Medevac. The Australian Medical Association, the Australian Human Rights Commission, and other medical bodies have also urged that Medevac should continue on humanitarian grounds.