Labor leader Anthony Albanese on back foot over border protection
Anthony Albanese has again been forced to clarify Labor’s border protection policy, reaffirming it does not support temporary protection visas.
Anthony Albanese has again been forced to clarify his comments about Labor’s position on border protection, reaffirming that his party does not support temporary protection visas.
After initially saying he would retain them if he won the May 21 election. a position at odds with the ALP platform, the Opposition Leader told The Australian neither he nor opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers heard the full question at a doorstop in Cairns that asked whether Labor would continue Operation Sovereign Borders and keep TPVs in place.
Correcting the record, Mr Albanese said: “Earlier on I heard half a question. I didn’t hear all of it.
“Labor’s policy is to support Operation Sovereign Borders. We support offshore processing.
“We support resettlement in third countries. We don’t support temporary protection visas.”
The ALP platform says TPVs place refugees in an ongoing state of uncertainty and prevent meaningful settlement, creating hardship and denying Australia the benefit of their contribution.
“Labor will abolish temporary protection visas and safe haven enterprise visas and transition eligible refugees onto permanent visa arrangements,” the Labor platform says.
Scott Morrison said on Sunday that Labor’s opposition to temporary protection visas would give greater encouragement to people-smugglers, arguing that the policy is the third pillar underpinning Australia’s tough border protection arrangements alongside boat turn-backs and offshore processing.
The Prime Minister said the government’s border protection policy had always had three elements, arguing that he wrote the policy and implemented it.
“Turning boats back under Operation Sovereign Borders and the command system we put around that,” he said. “Offshore processing, ensuring that people are not having the opportunity to be able to come and settle in Australia. And, thirdly, temporary protection visas that deny access to permanent residency.
“They are the three elements required to run a successful border-protection policy. A three-strand cord is not easily broken.
“The Labor Party have never believed in it. They have never supported it. They have never understood it and that’s why they can’t be trusted to keep it.”
Mr Albanese’s latest clarification came days after he provided a reassurance last week that a Labor government would not dismantle offshore processing after he provided an ambiguous response to a question on the hustings in the NSW Hunter region.
“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.
He later clarified, saying that he was not suggesting offshore processing would be removed – only that the success of boat turn-backs meant there were fewer arrivals.
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 for a Left motion to insert a line into the national platform declaring Labor “rejects turning away boats of people seeking asylum”.
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