Labor MPs narrowly survive free-trade expulsion motion

Three Labor MPs narrowly survived a motion that could have seen them expelled from the party.

Anthony Albanese attends a Sydney festival on Sunday. Picture: Nikki Short

Three Labor MPs — Warren Snowdon, Luke Gosling and Malarn­dirri McCarthy — narrowly survived a motion that could have seen them expelled from the party because of Anthony Albanese’s decision to support the ­Indonesia and Hong Kong free-trade deals.

The motion against the trade agreements, tabled at Northern Territory’s Labor conference at the weekend, was defeated by 67 votes to 64. It included a provision that MPs who voted for policies against the national platform be expelled from the party.

The ACTU and some Labor MPs argue that the free-trade deals, which the Labor leader and federal caucus backed last week, are a violation of the policy platform.

The motion was proposed by the Electrical Trades Union and backed by the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union. CFMEU Queensland and NT secretary Michael Ravbar spoke in favour of the motion.

The Australianhas been told Senator McCarthy abstained from the vote because she was aligned with left unions that supported the motion. An opponent of the motion attacked the unions involved, saying two of those who spoke in support of it “were leading union officials from Queensland, not members of the NT branch”.

The Opposition Leader yesterday defended supporting the agreements, saying they were “good for Australian jobs”.

“And we’ve written to the government making a number of demands consistent with what the unions want, consistent with protecting Australian jobs, consistent with ensuring that privatisation is ruled out, consistent with making sure that there can be no replacement of Australian workers with foreign workers,” he said.

“They’re our demands. I expect they’ll be met,” Mr Albanese said.

The move came as the party’s NSW Left faction held an emergency meeting at Trades Hall in Sydney to get member feedback on how state Labor should reform amid the crisis over the donations scandal.

With Labor divided over climate change policy, the Morrison government will block Mr Albanese’s motion that parliament should recognise there is a ­“climate emergency”.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor said the motion would put Labor in the same league as anti-resources activist groups that have made “climate emergency” declarations. “Labor’s approach is anti-jobs, it’s bad for the economy and will do absolutely nothing to improve the climate,” he said.

Victorian Premier Daniel ­Andrews said in state parliament last week he was opposed to federal Labor’s motion, which will come to a vote on Monday.

“What we are about is not ­motions and words, but ­actions,” Mr Andrews said. “No such ­motion has been moved in this parliament, and that may be a point of difference between our government and the opposition in Canberra. Action is always better than simple posturing.”

The Weekend Australian revealed a new push by the Australian Workers Union on Labor to adopt the government’s 2030 emissions reduction target, a proposal that was first flagged this month by opposition resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon.

Opposition climate change spokesman Mark Butler, a Left faction heavyweight and close ally of Mr Albanese, swiftly rejected the AWU’s push. “The problem with the government’s emissions targets, which were pulled out of thin air by Tony Abbott several years ago, is they are fundamentally inconsistent with the core principles … of the Paris Climate Agreement, which is to avoid dangerous climate change impacts for future generations,” he said.