Labor MPs move to scrap support for processing asylum seekers offshore
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Version 0 of 1. Labor MPs and senators are debating whether to scrap the party's support for the offshore processing of asylum seekers. The West Australian MP Melissa Parke, backed by the former speaker Anna Burke, gave notice to colleagues of the planned motion last month, but the caucus debate was deferred until Tuesday. The motion was expected to say that Labor “shall no longer support the transfer of asylum seekers by Australia to Manus Island or Nauru and shall call for the detention centres in those places to be closed down forthwith”. Late last month, Labor's immigration spokesman, Richard Marles, reaffirmed the party's support for offshore processing, saying it and the Papua New Guinea arrangement were “central to our position”. Ahead of Tuesday's caucus vote, Jim Chalmers, the shadow parliamentary secretary to the opposition leader, played down the perception of Labor division over the issue. “There is a world of difference between the open revolt in the Liberal party over this unfair budget and the conversation that we will have in our party room about asylum seeker policy,” he said. “I do support our current policy. But I’ll say this about our caucus processes. Everyone in the Labor party – including Melissa, including Anna, everyone – comes to this conversation with a good heart. They come to this with the right motivations. They come to this with an eye to getting the policy right. “I support our current policy. I’ll be supporting it in the party room. But I also support the chance that people like Melissa and Anna and others have to raise their views in the caucus room, and in that spirit that’s all I’ll say on the matter.” A version of Parke’s motion, presented to Labor colleagues last month, highlighted “the killing of Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati and the injuries done through violence to many others at the detention centre on Manus Island in February 2014 for which no person has yet been held responsible”. It pointed to “reports of inhumane, unsafe and completely unsatisfactory conditions for asylum seekers detained on Manus Island and Nauru” and said the circumstances were inconsistent with the ALP national platform commitment to treat asylum seekers with dignity and compassion and in accordance with international obligations. Victorian Labor MP Maria Vamvakinou told Fairfax Media the party could not ignore the “vexed” issue, arguing Nauru and Manus were “not sustainable” and had become “nothing but a place where people are left and possibly even abandoned”. Since the election, the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, and Marles have largely confined their attacks on the government in this portfolio area to secrecy surrounding asylum-seeker boat turnarounds and the return of people to Indonesia on Australian-supplied lifeboats, and the deterioration in the relationship with Indonesia. “We support offshore processing at Nauru and Manus Island as a step which has saved lives,” Marles said in a speech at the National Press Club last month. “But this does not absolve the government from their obligations to ensure that Manus Island is a place which is safe, humane and dignified.” Marles said at the time that those calling for an end to offshore processing spoke “from compassion” and he recognised “the humanity they bring to a terrible debate”, but he could not see how Australia did not accept an obligation surrounding the “terrible journey” that asylum seekers took in dangerous boat journeys. “While it would have been far from the magic fix in stemming this tide of asylum seeker vessels, I believe had we maintained offshore processing – it would have removed any element of incentive,” Marles said. The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, said Australia was “now approaching six months without any successful people-smuggling ventures”, despite past Labor criticism of the Coalition’s ability to fulfil its “stop the boats” promise. “The policies they said would never work … are working,” Morrison told parliament on Monday. |