Bill Shorten poised to win Labor conference support for boat turnbacks
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Version 0 of 1. Bill Shorten is set to prevail in the show-stopping debate of the 47th national conference after gaining critical support from left-aligned unions on boat turnbacks. The shadow cabinet ahead of the national conference endorsed a $450m package of measures including an increase in Australia’s annual humanitarian intake to 27,000, an increase in funding for the UNHCR, a new children’s advocate to safeguard the interests of children seeking asylum, and mandatory reporting of child abuse in all offshore and onshore immigration detention facilities. Related: Asylum seeker policy and boat turnbacks are breaking Labor's heart The package endorsed by shadow cabinet also includes a commitment authorising a future Labor government to turn back boats “when it is safe to do so”. Shorten will announce all the refugee policy measures on Saturday morning in an effort to frame the afternoon debate on asylum policy. In a statement, Shorten said he understood this was “an incredibly difficult issue for many people.” “No one wants to see people drown at sea and I firmly believe this is the best way to avoid that happening again,” the Labor leader said. “There must be absolutely no incentive for people smugglers to put vulnerable people on unsafe boats.” Shorten’s decision to shift Labor’s policy to allow for boat turnbacks has met stiff resistance from the progressive left and from some trade union representatives aligned with the Labor right. The left faction has been deliberating on options for Saturday’s debate. Labor for Refugees had been expected to move a platform amendment in the debate which would have expressly prohibited boat turnbacks. As of late on Friday night, no such motion had been lodged. The left faction was contemplating various fall-back options, including moving a resolution that would criticise the leadership’s positive position on boat turnbacks – but any such resolution would only be a gesture of protest. The leadership wants to emerge from this conference with Labor’s policy platform silent on the question of boat turnbacks. A resolution from the conference floor would not make any concrete adjustment to the platform, as opposed to an amendment that would alter the platform. Shorten has gained ground in the debate over the last 48 hours. Party insiders say delegates from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and United Voice – two left-aligned unions – have signalled in-principle willingness to vote with the right against any platform amendment that would prohibit a Labor government using boat turnbacks in the future. Labor’s senate leader and senior left member Penny Wong declined to reveal her view on boat turnbacks on Friday, only saying she had expressed her view in shadow cabinet. Another key left figure, Anthony Albanese, has criticised Shorten’s handling of the issue and has not said which way he will vote when any debate is under way. Albanese faces competition from the Greens in his inner city seat of Grayndler in Sydney. Shorten is likely to participate in the debate on Saturday. At a conference event on Friday, Labor’s immigration spokesman Richard Marles foreshadowed the boost in the humanitarian intake. He said he would announce an “offering” on refugee places on Saturday that represents the “most generous that any potential Australian government” and the biggest offering of any country in the world. Marles faced a largely hostile audience at the Labor fringe event on Friday held argue the case for Labor’s asylum seeker policies. He said there were 10,000 people who required permanent resettlement and between 50-60m people displaced worldwide. He said government could offer 30,000 places – as the Greens have promised - and it would still “represent a position saying no to almost everyone in the world seeking permanent resettlement”. “Who you say no to and the circumstances in which you say no and how you do it are the questions that no one wants to ask or answer,” said Marles. “It is a complex issue because that is the wicked problem that underpins it.” Marles warned if Labor returned to its old policies that didn’t allow discretion for turnbacks: “You can forget about a future Labor government being remembered for anything else. You will be condemned by history.” Labor senator Lisa Singh said the coalition had demonised asylum seekers. “I believe we do need to find a better way other than accepting the Coalition’s idea of turning the boats back,” Singh said. “Its easy for me to say, it’s another thing to make a different policy direction to make that happen and I acknowledge that.” Marles said Labor’s “mission statement” on refugees should be making an “objectively generous offering” by global and Australian standards, which has “the greatest maximum effect in reducing the sum of global human misery”. Marles faced a number of questions, including the suggestion that Australia take 250,000 people – (1% of Australia’s population) and he was also asked why Labor would not agree to bringing the 2000 in detention back to Australia. “If we brought the 2000 asylum seekers from PNG/Nauru, there would be boats on the water the following day,” Marles said. Other issues up for debate on Saturday at the conference include the climate change debate, education and potentially same sex marriage. |