Labor commits to increase in refugee intake and boost in funding for regional processing and resettlement

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Labor has committed to increasing the community sponsored refugee program intake by up to 5,000 places per year, and boosting funding for regional processing and resettlement. However, the national conference has voted down an amendment that would have given asylum seekers rejected under the Coalition’s fast-track process access to a full merits review.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, moved ahead of Monday afternoon’s debate to beef up the offering on refugee policy, flagging the ALP would boost the annual intake but without specifying when. He also pledged $500m to the UNHCR, and a special envoy for refugee and asylum seeker issues to advance Australia’s interests on refugee issues within the region.

The afternoon debate strengthened the party platform further by incorporating an amendment specifying that people seeking asylum would have “means-tested access to funded migration assistance, and to appropriate social services, including income, crisis housing, healthcare, mental health, community, education and English as a second language support during the assessment of the claim for protection”.

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The party platform also incorporated the key components of independent MP Kerryn Phelps’s recent private member’s bill facilitating medical transfers from offshore detention, including establishing an independent health advice panel to provide medical advice.

But an amendment that would have given asylum seekers processed under the Coalition’s fast-track system access to an independent merits review was lost on the floor.

The shadow immigration minister, Shayne Neumann, opposed the motion on merits review moved by Victorian leftwinger Andrew Giles, telling delegates a future Labor government “cannot review every rejection that has been made”. Despite the left faction backing the amendment, it was lost on the voices.

The merits review amendment was the first instance of open debate in a national conference where factional powerbrokers have worked overtime to produce consensus positions in order to minimise flashpoints considered to be politically embarrassing for Shorten.

The loss in the asylum debate was followed later in the afternoon by the left pushing an amendment floating a federal statutory charter of human rights, which is opposed by large sections of the Labor right.

Rather than accepting a loss on the voices, left delegates insisted that issue go to a formal count. The amendment was lost 195 to 192.

Ged Kearney, who held out the Greens in Melbourne’s inner city earlier this year in the Batman byelection, and telegraphed her intentions during that campaign to push for changes to Labor’s asylum policy, told conference delegates the refugee platform had been strengthened as a consequence of internal and external lobbying.

But she said refugees on Manus Island and Nauru could not be permitted “to languish indefinitely, not knowing their fate”.

“We cannot continue to sit by while this government tortures people on Manus and Nauru with indefinite detention, and it must be condemned,” Kearney told the conference. “Enough is enough – the cruelty of [Peter] Dutton and [Scott] Morrison is intolerable.”

Kearney said a Labor government must “make it an absolute priority to settle refugees on Manus and Nauru to safe and permanent homes” and she said the ALP would “ensure all refugees and asylum seekers are treated with respect, their dignity is maintained and they are kept safe”.

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“That is their human right,” she said. “It is not too much to ask. This is our commitment to them. I am so proud to stand here today and say that.”

Labor has previously committed to a humanitarian intake of 27,000. The language on boosting community sponsored migration added to the platform on Monday gives no clue to the timeframe for the increase.

It says: “We will reform the community sponsored refugee program to, over time, allow up to 5,000 refugees to resettle in Australia annually.”

Dutton, the home affairs minister, nonetheless blasted the day’s events.

“Bill Shorten is promising to do this and he’s promising to do that but what he won’t promise to do is maintain the Coalition’s strong border polices that have stopped the boats,” he said.

“In fact what he has committed to is unravelling Operation Sovereign Borders – the Coalition’s successful policy – that stopped the boats after Labor’s last disastrous term in government.”