Anthony Albanese: Labor stands by offshore processing

Anthony Albanese has reaffirmed that a Labor government would not dismantle offshore processing if he were elected on May 21.

Anthony Albanese has reaffirmed that a Labor government would not dismantle offshore processing if he were elected on May 21, after being forced on Thursday to clarify his position on border protection.

With senior Labor figures conceding the first week was a “write-off” after the Opposition Leader incorrectly guessed the unemployment rate at 5.4 per cent, Mr Albanese on Thursday threw Labor’s border protection policy into doubt and opened up a fresh line of attack for Scott Morrison.

Campaigning in the Hunter in NSW, Mr Albanese was quizzed on how he would respond to any attempt by people smugglers to test a new Labor government.

“We will turn boats back,” Mr Albanese said.

“Turning boats back means that you don’t need offshore detention.”

The position was at odds with the ALP platform, which maintains support for “an architecture of excised offshore places” to ensure that boat arrivals are prevented from making valid visa applications.

The government also questioned whether Mr Albanese was proposing a fundamental rewriting of Australia’s existing border protection policies on the fly.

Defence Minister Peter Dutton seized on the comment during the week, saying it would be a “remarkable departure from the Labor Party policy”.

Mr Albanese was forced to clarify his remarks on Thursday, saying he was not suggesting offshore processing would be removed – only that the success of boat turn-backs meant there were fewer arrivals.

“At the moment, there aren’t people who have gone into offshore detention in recent times because the boats have been turned back. It’s been effective,” he said.

At the 2015 ALP national conference, there was a major factional fight over Bill Shorten’s push to embrace boat turn-backs in a bid to neutralise the Coalition attack on border protection.

Mr Albanese voted in person for a Left motion to insert a line into the national platform declaring Labor “rejects turning away boats of people seeking asylum”.