Bill Shorten at Sydney University on Monday. Credit:Edwina Pickles While the Labor Party was pro-immigration and pro-refugee, Mr Shorten said there was room for debate about where and how refugees came to Australia. "I have no disagreement with some of the reports, which are shocking, about the way people are being treated at Manus and being treated at Nauru," he said. "But I cannot also lie to myself, and I will not live in an intellectually dishonest world where I say that if we have policies which drag people here to hop on unsafe boats and drown at sea, well I'm not going to be party to that either." "How do I ask people to fish people out of the sea, and not be prepared to deal with the policy consequences of it?"

Hardening line on asylum seeker policy: Labor leader Bill Shorten and deputy Tanya Plibersek. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles is leading the formulation of the party platform at present, in concert with Labor MPs including Gai Brodtmann, Matt Thistlethwaite, Lisa Singh and Lisa Chesters. One Right faction MP, who asked not to be named, said there was "no way we can dismantle the policies that have stopped the boats" and vowed to resist any push from the Left to wind back sections of the party's platform at national conference, such as the provision which was inserted in 2011 that allows turn-backs. Another Right faction MP said that "gay marriage and Palestine [two other contentious policy issues] are interesting but they won't stop us winning an election" whereas a softening of the Coalition's hardline boats policy could. "It [turning back boats] will never be in the party platform, but the platform needs to be broad enough for it to be able to happen. Hopefully, we never have to do it."

A senior figure in the Left faction expressed surprise at Mr Shorten's comments and described them as marked shift from October last year. At the time, Mr Marles said the Labor "might" continue the Coalition's policy of turning back boats if returned to government - drawing a sharp rebuke from Mr Shorten who declared "Labor's policy on boat turn-backs has not changed. It remains the same." Immigration Minister Peter Dutton criticised the Opposition Leader for not clearly stating whether he would keep the tow-back policy. "If Bill Shorten is really Labor's leader he needs to clearly state that he will maintain Operation Sovereign Borders," he said. "Today he was unable and unwilling to do that."

The government also claimed on Monday a $500 million saving in the 2015-16 budget from its success in stopping the flow of asylum seeker boats to Australia. It attributed that saving to the success of its hardline policies, which had "halted the flood of Illegal Maritime Arrivals that were continually filling detention centres across Australia under Labor". Follow James Massola on Facebook Follow us on Twitter