Federal Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese has downplayed suggestions a union movement policy to end offshore detention could open the door to people smugglers.

A motion passed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress on Wednesday condemned offshore processing of asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island as discriminatory.

But Mr Albanese said the ACTU was reaffirming its position from the last congress three years ago.

"Much ado about nothing," he told Sky News on Friday.

He doesn't expect the issue to be debated at the ALP national conference, with Labor also set to maintain its policy supporting offshore processing and boat turn-backs.

Labor's 2015 national conference voted down a motion to reject the policy of turning back asylum seeker boats after an emotional debate.

New ACTU president Michele O'Neil spoke in favour of scrapping boat turn-backs in 2015 when a delegate at the conference.

She says her position hasn't changed.

"The ACTU has a strong position about refugees and asylum seekers," Ms O'Neil told AAP this week.

"I'm confident those policies are ones that will be in keeping with what I personally believe."

Mr Albanese supports Labor's existing position, which criticises the government for allowing people to languish on Nauru and Manus Island for five years.

"The government should have settled these people who have been found to be refugees in third countries and they've been far too slow on it," he said.

The ACTU policy document calls for a humane refugee policy and an end to "off-shore solutions".

It mirrors the policy document passed at the 2015 ACTU Congress.

Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne used the ACTU policy to warn a Labor government would end the coalition's successful policy to stop the people smuggling trade.

"As usual, the union movement has let people know that Labor will be soft on border protection if they get elected," he told Nine Network.