Labor Left to push Anthony Albanese on free abortions and to close Nauru

The PM will be urged to provide free abortions, end offshore processing and close Nauru at a politically fraught national conference.

​Anthony Albanese will be urged to provide free abortions across Australia, end offshore processing and close Nauru at a politically fraught national conference in August.

Anthony Albanese will be urged to provide free abortions across Australia, end offshore processing and close Nauru at Labor’s upcoming national conference, as the party membership pushes to government to adopt a more left-wing agenda.

The Australian can reveal the motions that will be put up by Labor for Refugees and the influential women’s group Emily’s List, which is co-convened by NSW Left faction MP Sharon Claydon.

With the Prime Minister reluctant to pursue abortion reform after the issue hurt Labor with faith communities in the 2019 election, Emily’s List will call for the ACT model of free abortions to be implemented nationally.

“For all residents regardless of whether they have a Medicare card or not,” one motion says.

Emily’s List – which successfully pushed for Labor to adopt gender quotas – says medical abortions cost between $75 and $150 and a surgical terminal can cost between $300 and $700.

The motion will also ask the government to pay for “travel costs for anyone living regionally and remotely when they are unable to access the service locally”.

The group is pushing another motion demanding that all publicly funded hospitals provide abortion services, while a third motion would allow nurses and midwives to prescribe the “abortion pill”.

If the motions win the support of a majority of delegates at the national conference in August, they will become part of Labor’s policy platform for the next term of parliament.

The National Labor Women’s Conference – held in Perth earlier this month and attended by Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher – resolved that medical and surgical terminations should be fully funded and that nurses and midwives should be allowed to prescribe the abortion pill.

Labor in 2019 promised to make abortions more accessible, with then-opposition spokeswoman for women, Tanya Plibersek, unveiling a plan to make public hospital funding dependent on termination services being provided.

But the idea prompted anger from pro-life groups, and then-prime minister Scott Morrison said the debate would not be “good for the country”.

Labor has been ‘quietly emptying and upgrading’ Christmas Island detention facility

Following the disastrous 2019 loss, Labor dropped the idea and has sought to keep the debate away from the issue of free abortions and focused on “equitable access” to terminations between cities and regional areas instead.

In a motion expected to be put forward by Labor for Refugees at the ALP conference, obtained by The Australian, the group will call on Labor to agree “indefinite detention and boat turnbacks represent inhumane violations of Australia’s obligations under international law”.

The group – made up of ALP members and unionists at the ALP conference – will call on the Prime Minister to close all Australian facilities on Nauru and ­resettle any asylum seekers remaining there or in Papua New Guinea, and also urge him to commit to never re-establishing, expanding or promoting offshore detention.

It will also agitate for Labor to release all asylum seekers currently held in detention into a community-based processing system, and commit to resettle all newly arrived refugees in “urban-based reception centres”.

The push to weaken Labor’s commitment to Tony Abbott’s Operation Sovereign Borders comes despite the arrival of 44,738 asylum seekers and the deaths of more than 1100 people at sea under the Rudd policy to scrap offshore detention.

With Labor so far resisting replicating the Rudd government’s policy blunder, opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan said the national conference would be a “real test” for Mr Albanese’s leadership.

With the Left faction likely to have a majority of delegates at the national conference for the first time in 70 years, Mr Tehan warned softer border policies would be “just one of many disastrous policies that they will seek to get the Albanese government to implement and it is of grave concern for the nation’s future”.

“As a result of Labor’s legacy, we had to deal with 5000 children in detention when we came to government – that is the price that this country will have to pay if Anthony Albanese does the wrong thing,” Mr Tehan told The Australian.

“The fact that the Left have got control of the Labor Party federally should start alarm bells ringing right across the nation.”

The Australian last week revealed the government will spend up to $350m a year to keep the Nauru detention centre open even when it is empty.

Labor has also been quietly emptying its Christmas Island detention facility since it was elected, prompting security experts to warn that a “flood” of ­asylum seekers could arrive on Australia’s shores at any time.

Labor for Refugees said boat turnbacks “violate Australia’s non-refoulement obligations and has led to the deaths at sea it claims to prevent”.

The push for free abortion follows the ACT in April becoming the first state or territory to offer taxpayer-funded abortions.

Labor’s current platform recognises the legal barriers and lack of affordability and accessibility for terminations and commits the party to “improve sexual and reproductive health for all”.

“Labor will … work with states and territories to improve legal protections, such as safe access zones for women seeking termination services, as well as expand service provision in the public system,” the 2021 platform states.

Peak health bodies including the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal Australian College of GPs have called for Labor to put fully funded abortions back on the agenda.

A Senate inquiry that reported last month also called for improved abortion access.