Shaun Carney: Refugees a problem for Labor

LABOR isn’t any closer to healing its open wound over border protection and asylum-seeker policy — and the split in party ranks on refugee policy is the biggest threat to their poll lead over the government, writes Shaun Carney.

IN the hand-to-hand combat of federal politics, you grasp any advantage you can. The Turnbull Government understandably thought it was on a winner when it set down July 28 for the five by-elections caused by four more citizenship snafus and one resignation.

Surely, this was too good to be true — July 28 was the date of Day One of the ALP’s national conference, an event that’s always good for a display of passionate internal Labor division, especially over asylum-seeker policy.

For the Coalition, the undercurrent of disagreement within the Labor Party over offshore detention and turning back the boats is the gift that keeps on giving.

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Labor is in danger in a couple of the by-elections and there was a real prospect that the sight of frontbenchers posturing and disagreeing in the lead-up to the conference could have tipped the scales and handed a victory or two to the government.

But if the Coalition does manage to snag any seats from the ALP, it won’t be because of the national conference — because there won’t be one.

Labor is divided over the treatment of refugees seeking asylum in Australia.

Obviously, it wasn’t the government’s intention to help Bill Shorten but ultimately that’s what it did. By grabbing that date, obviously designed to embarrass and hurt the ALP leader, it prompted Labor to postpone the conference until after the next general election whenever it’s held.

So that’s one short-term problem avoided by Shorten. But it doesn’t get Labor any closer to healing its open wound over border protection and asylum-seeker policy. For more than 18 months, Labor has led the government in the opinion polls. The sure-fire way to kill that lead is for federal Labor to alter its position on border protection. The current stance, which includes boat turnbacks and offshore detention without exceptions, was established at the party’s national conference in 2015 under Shorten’s guidance.

It was the subject of spirited debate. Shorten’s judgment was that Labor could not be electorally competitive if it didn’t acknowledge the success of the government’s turnbacks policy and promise to maintain it.

Labor had already, under Kevin Rudd’s second period as prime minister in 2013, implemented the policy of mandatory offshore detention. At that 2015 conference, Shorten’s leadership rival, Anthony Albanese, voted against boat turnbacks, as did the deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek.

Essentially, Labor’s position is to continue the government’s approach while also increasing Australia’s refugee intake and seeking partnerships with other countries in the region.

A young boys stands on the rocks by the tents in camp PC2 at Nauru.

In its real-world application, that means potential indefinite detention on Manus Island and Nauru for people who manage to land on Australian territory because anything less will be seen by people smugglers as a green light.

This is all too much for some on the Labor side. A motion calling on a Shorten government to commit to closing Manus and Nauru within 90 days of taking office was put on the notice paper at last weekend’s state ALP conference but in the end, was not debated.

It came after two interventions last week. One was a strange television interview given by frontbencher Linda Burney, who started referring to unnamed people working on a change to policy that would set down a time limit for asylum seekers to remain in detention. It was completely contradictory to Labor policy.

Burney’s office then doctored a transcript of the interview, removing the most embarrassing parts. Burney is from the NSW Left, home to Albanese. There, reflexive discomfort with Labor’s (read Shorten’s) stance is standard operating procedure.

The other contribution was the first speech by Ged Kearney, who won the Batman by-election for Labor in March. In a heartfelt recounting of her political journey, Kearney described the plight of asylum seekers as “a passionate and emotional issue for voters in Batman’s community”.

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It is, and Kearney during her campaign did a good job of explaining to Batman’s inner-city constituents that while they felt the pain of asylum seekers, many voters in Australia felt differently.

But in her speech to parliament, she delivered a more conventional inner-city take: “Racist dog-whistling has demonised and vilified a community that has everything to give to Australia — and the sacrifice of this human potential has been made solely for political gain.” Australia must move asylum seekers off Manus and Nauru to permanent resettlement and ensure indefinite detention never happened again, Kearney said. Her comments certainly looked like a challenge to Shorten’s policy — and catnip to the government.

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Labor’s tragedy on asylum seekers is that its handling of the issue in the Rudd and Gillard years was a catastrophe and that is the judgment of a solid majority of voters. Its attempt at a more humane policy turbocharged the people-smuggling trade, with 50,000 asylum seekers reaching here by boat and 1200 dying at sea.

Shorten’s policy acknowledges those truths. In the eyes of many, Labor had its chance but blew its credibility on refugee policy.

Restoring that credibility is the challenge facing the next two or three generations of Labor politicians at least. Indulging in the politics of the warm inner glow from the vantage point of Opposition feels comforting. But in this instance, its ultimate result will be an eternity spent in Opposition.

— Shaun Carney is a Herald Sun columnist