Critical crossbencher says first she knew of possible move was in media and government should show ‘bloody manners’

The critical Senate kingmaker on the medevac repeal legislation, Jacqui Lambie, has issued a pointed warning to the Morrison government to get its act together, saying they should “use your bloody manners”, after an unexpected signal that the vote could be brought forward to next week.

The medevac repeal legislation has already passed the House of Representatives and is now subject to an inquiry by the Senate’s legal and constitutional legislative committee with a report date of 18 October.

But amid the intense controversy triggered by the attempted deportation of a Tamil asylum seeker family over the weekend, the government suddenly flagged bringing the medevac repeal vote forward to the September parliamentary sitting rather than waiting until the conclusion of the Senate inquiry.

Abandoning medevac would be 'disastrous', former home affairs official says Read more

The Coalition does not have the numbers to scrap the medical evacuation procedures if Lambie votes against it. A deeply irritated Lambie told Guardian Australia on Monday she wants the Senate inquiry to proceed in order to help guide her decision, and when the inquiry had been set up, the government had not objected to the late October reporting date.

“They said they wouldn’t bring it on until late October, and that’s what should happen,” Lambie said on Monday. She said the first she knew of the possibility of fast-tracking the vote was when she read it in the Australian, and maybe the government could “show a few manners”.

Lambie said with a week to go before the resumption of federal parliament after the winter recess, the Coalition had not given her any indication about what legislation would have priority in the looming sitting. She said the government was beginning to look “chaotic”, and should give more priority to implementing legislation giving effect to recommendations of the banking royal commission than to repealing medevac.

The Centre Alliance senator Stirling Griff is also perturbed by the signal that the vote will be fast-tracked. He argues any move by the Morrison government to repeal the medevac regime before late October would show “scant regard” for proper parliamentary process.

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Griff has already warned the government that repealing medevac – a regime imposed by the crossbench with support from Labor and the Greens in the last parliament, when Scott Morrison governed in minority – would “sully the relationship” between him and the Coalition.

He told Guardian Australia on Monday: “You have committees and inquiries in place to ensure that proper process is undertaken. To circumvent that would show scant regard for proper parliamentary process”.

The inquiry has taken evidence from medical groups insisting the regime is working as intended.

The Department of Home Affairs has told the Senate inquiry it is “concerned that self-harm is perceived as the most expedient means of accessing medical transfer under the provisions”. But a former department official, Shaun Hanns, who quit his job in the refugee processing area to argue publicly for an overhaul of Australia’s border protection regime, says abandoning the medevac procedures would be “disastrous”.

The former lower house independent Kerryn Phelps has also appealed to Senate kingmakers not to repeal the medevac procedures. She warns, in her submission to the inquiry, scrapping the current law will mean a return to the “slow, unpredictable and dangerous” transfer system for asylum seekers in need of urgent medical attention.

Phelps says if the crossbench backs repeal “the transfer of sick refugees will again be in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats, and we will return to the previous situation, when court orders and legal intervention were required to ensure critically sick people received the medical treatment they needed”.