Bill Shorten refuses to place time limit on offshore detention

Bill Shorten says Labor will not place any time limit on how long asylum seekers are able to stay on Nauru and Manus Island.

Shorten said Labor will put more energy into resettlement. Picture: AAP

Bill Shorten says Labor will not place any time limit on how long asylum seekers are able to stay on Nauru and Manus Island, despite a draft party platform released ahead of July’s national conference calling for a 90-day limit.

A fortnight ago Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull accused Labor leader in the Senate Penny Wong of “rolling out the welcome mat to the people smugglers” after she said the party should be advocating for detention processing purposes to be limited.

Asked whether a Labor government would place any time limit on how long asylum seekers should stay on Nauru or Manus Island, Mr Shorten said: “The answer to that is no.”

However, he said Labor would not accept asylum seekers being placed in indefinite detention.

“The more positive approach we would adopt is putting more energy into resettlement,” the Labor leader said.

“We’ve sent this message to the people smugglers: we’ll turn back the boats.

“That policy is a policy which I think has demonstrated that it saves lives and we recognise that and we will work with that.

“What I have never accepted is that you have to keep people in indefinite detention in Manus and Nauru as a deterrent to people smugglers.

“We certainly think the government needs to put more effort in, although I want to acknowledge that I think I the government is doing the right thing with the American arrangements.”