ALP to put women at heart of agenda

Anthony Albanese will make sexual violence and women’s safety a focus at this week’s national conference.

Anthony Albanese at Jarvie Park in Marrickville, in Sydney’s inner-west, on Sunday. Picture: Flavio Brancaleone

Anthony Albanese will make sexual violence and women’s safety a focus at this week’s national conference, as blue-collared unions clash over whether a future Labor government should consider backing nuclear energy as a low-emissions fuel source.

Ahead of the first online nat­ional conference beginning on Tuesday, senior Labor figures at the weekend were in negotiations with union leaders over proposed amendments to the policy platform, which will form the basis of policies if Mr Albanese becomes prime minister.

The key sticking points are an anti-free trade motion being pushed by the Electrical Trades Union and a move by the Right faction to water down the party’s push to recognise Palestine as a state and to call out issues with China’s policies on Hong Kong, Tibet and the persecution of ­Uighurs.

Labor sources say a “solution” was being negotiated with unions that would allow an Albanese government to strike free-trade deals in a move that would avoid a contentious vote at the conference

The Australian has obtained a proposed amendment from the Australian Workers Union that calls for a future Labor government to consider legalising ­nuclear energy, while the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union submitted its own amendment calling for the party to take a firmer opposition to the fuel source.

The AWU amendment would also require a Labor government to commission a pilot program that involved the installation of “at least one” small-modular ­reactor in Australia.

As the Morrison government deals with a crisis over the treatment of women in politics, a resolution is likely to be backed by the conference of 400 delegates committing the next Labor government to deal with sexual violence against women with “urgency and ambition”.

The resolution, formed with the input of female MPs, party members and union figures, would commit an Albanese government to creating a national plan to prevent violence against women, with sexual violence being the central focus.

An Albanese government would also work with state and territory governments to fund “age-appropriate programs educating people about respectful relationships and consent”.

The next Labor government will lead a “law reform process to consider harmonisation of criminal laws governing consent”.

“Violence against women must end so that women and their children can be safe at work, in their homes, on the street, in their communities, when socialising — everywhere,” the resolution says.

The opening session of national conference will focus on the chapters of the platform that have policies on family violence, sexual assault and women’s issues.

Labor senator Jenny McAllister, who is the party’s spokeswoman for the prevention of family violence, said there needed to be an “absolute focus” to lower levels of sexual, family and domestic ­violence.

“It needs urgency and ambition, both things that are lacking from this current government,” she told The Australian.

The amendment proposed by AWU national secretary Daniel Walton would force a Labor government to “assess the role that nuclear power technologies can play in Australia’s energy mix including the role it can play in lowering carbon emissions”.

The amendment by AMWU national secretary Steve Murphy says uranium mining “poses a significant, unprecedented threat to human health”.

The amendment from the Left faction union calls for environmental protections for uranium mining to be “strengthened or ­retained”.