Bill Shorten has taken aim at Malcolm Turnbull over a decision to cut support for asylum seekers transferred to Australia from offshore detention for medical reasons, declaring him a “weak prime minister trying to look tough”.



The Labor leader took to Facebook on Sunday to blast the proposal to cut income support worth $200 a fortnight, and force asylum seekers to find their own accommodation, characterising it as Turnbull’s “weakest move yet”.

Shorten said the government’s action had “nothing to do with strong borders or stopping people smugglers”.

“It’s a weak prime minister trying to look tough. That’s it,” he said.

“Kicking people onto the streets with no support is needlessly cruel and really, really dumb. It won’t fix anything. It’s just hurting vulnerable and sick people for the sake of it.

“These people should be eligible for settlement in the United States or other countries in our region – so they have a permanent home.

“That’s what Turnbull and Dutton should be focusing on.”

The government will cut income and accommodation support for up to 100 asylum seekers who have been transferred to Australia from offshore detention for medical reasons, leaked documents show.

The group will be issued on Monday with what’s called a “final departure Bridging E Visa” that cuts the $200 a fortnight that they had been receiving and gives them three weeks to find their own place to live.

The decision has also been blasted by the Greens, with the party leader Richard Di Natale characterising the move as “just unspeakable cruelty”.



It has also been attacked asylum seeker advocates, and the Human Rights Law Centre – but government ministers on Sunday defended the move.

The human services minister Alan Tudge said it was not unreasonable to withdraw taxpayer support for healthy people refusing to return to offshore immigration detention, or to their country of origin.

“These are people who were on Nauru or Manus Island who have been taken to Australia because they have a medical condition which needed to be treated,” Tudge Sky News.

“In these cases the medical condition has now been treated and they are now healthy and can return back to Nauru or Manus Island and indeed back to their home country.

“And that’s what we are requiring them to do, that’s what they need to do and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for us to therefore withdraw taxpayer support if they refuse to return back to those countries.”