Labor Left MPs accept party will not change its policy on boat turnbacks at party conference

Senior members of Labor Left have called for Australia to increase its refugee intake while accepting the party will not change its policy on boat turnbacks at this weekend’s conference.

With a push by Labor for Refugees activists to overturn turnbacks expected to fail, Labor Left MPs are instead focused on tweaks including enshrining principles for medical evacuations from offshore detention in the platform and providing a second chance for review of refugee cases determined under the “fast-track” process.

On Tuesday Labor’s deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, told reporters in Melbourne that Australia must be “a more generous country” and Labor is committed to “ensuring we bring more people to Australia from countries of first asylum”.

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Labor’s shadow immigration minister, Shayne Neumann, has proposed increasing the refugee intake from 18,750 to 27,000.

The assistant shadow schools minister, Andrew Giles, told Radio National that an intake above 30,000 was “within range” but said Labor should be “guided by the numbers” because settlement services must be in place to accommodate more refugees.

Plibersek said that she “supports Labor policy”, after noting that the change to allow boat turnbacks had been determined at the party’s 2015 conference.

Labor’s shadow infrastructure minister, Anthony Albanese, who publicly backed away from his opposition to turnbacks in July, confirmed on Tuesday that: “The existing policy in terms of deterrence of actions of people-smugglers is one that I support.”

Giles said he is “not a proponent of change” because in his view the question was “settled” at the last conference, and predicted it would not be a major issue this year.

Giles is on a cross-factional working group considering the refugee chapter of Labor’s platform ahead of the national conference, to begin on Sunday.

One of the outstanding issues is how to handle the legacy of more than 6,000 asylum seekers whose applications were refused in the “fast-track” assessment process that Labor has labelled unfair.

While many of that number may have returned to their country of origin, Giles believes where possible those people should have the right to a full merits review of their asylum claims.

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“What we are saying is that people should be processed fairly, they should be able to have their claims tested and obviously if [those claims are] found to be warranted, to be granted protection,” he said.

“We believe in the rule of law and that carries with it a range of procedural rights and safeguards – at the moment they aren’t there.”

Others believe it is impractical to create a new review process and it would undermine the finality of earlier decisions.

Last week Labor agreed to Kerryn Phelps’s bill to ensure medical decisions determine whether to evacuate people from offshore detention, subject to conditions that preserve ministerial oversight of the process.

On Tuesday, Plibersek said Labor had moved its own bill “to make it more certain that if children on Nauru need medical transfer at the doctor’s suggestion that that could happen more easily and more certainly”, which had then been “built on with the co-operation of crossbenchers and minor parties”.

“I think it’s timely that we update the platform to reflect Labor’s position in the parliament last week.”

Giles agreed it would be “a good step” to see the changes reflected in Labor’s platform.

The Phelps bill would require the immigration minister to approve transfer to Australia within 24 hours unless he or she believes the transfer is not necessary or would be prejudicial to national security.

If the minister refuses a transfer, the case will move to an independent health advice panel to conduct a further clinical assessment, requiring the minister reconsider his or her decision. If that panel recommends transfer, its medical advice could only be overturned by an adverse security assessment.