Federal Labor frontbenchers fail to back SA colleagues over Nauru, Manus detention centres

Federal ALP frontbenchers agree policy changes are needed so refugees sent to Nauru and Manus Island are resettled faster.

Children on Nauru.

Federal ALP frontbenchers have stopped short of backing a call by South Australia’s Labor leader to close offshore detention centres but say policy changes are needed so refugees sent to Nauru and Manus Island are resettled faster.

Peter Malinauskas, a Right-aligned state MP who replaced Jay Weatherill as state leader, yesterday sparked debate by going further than his Left-aligned colleagues in saying that he “absolutely” wanted the offshore processing centres closed down.

He vowed to use the ALP national conference, due in Adelaide from December 16-18, to “get this policy right” and push for federal Labor to soften its stance.

But today Left-aligned South Australian federal Labor frontbencher Penny Wong said while the ALP supported the government’s offshore detention policy, there needed to be changes to the way it was implemented.

“We maintain our support for this framework but not for the way the government is running it ... we need to deal with children in a much more humane way, particularly when it comes to the issue of medical treatment,” she said.

Labor’s national security spokesman Mark Dreyfus rejected suggestions the party would lack credibility by going to the next election with a policy to maintain offshore processing with just a “vague promise to find third countries” to take refugees who arrived by boat.

Mr Dreyfus said the Coalition’s handling of Nauru had been “chaotic and confusing and inconsistent in relation to medical transfer processes”.

“These centres on Nauru and Manus were established in 2013 as temporary processing centres,” he told ABC radio.

“They were never intended to be places of indefinite detention. There has been a failure of successive Liberal governments over five years ... to negotiate with third countries, and that’s resulted in them being in places of indefinite detention.

“That’s got to be brought to an end, but in particular, we need to have much better processing in relation to medical transfers.

“It shouldn’t be necessary for children to apply to the Federal Court of Australia to get an order just to be brought here for medical treatment.”

Labor frontbencher Brendan O’Connor, a former immigration minister, said the ALP “would like to see faster settlement of people who are in off-shore centres” but conceded it was “hard to put a time limit on” this.

Labor and crossbenchers have drafted legislation that would give asylum seeker children on Nauru speedier medical transfers to Australia.

Three Liberal MPs have also taken the extraordinary step of demanding Scott Morrison get children off the Pacific island, citing serious fears about their health.

The Prime Minister today said he had been meeting with those MPs and relevant ministers and “we have been acting on those issues”.

“We haven’t been doing it by making public statements about it every day but we will always consider each and every case on its merits and in the interests of the child and we will continue to do that,” Mr Morrison said.

“I did make the point yesterday in relation to the New Zealand arrangement that there is a bill still sitting in the Senate from 2016 that would close the back door for New Zealand to Australia which is opposed by the Labor Party and the Greens and the crossbench senators which is preventing that protection being put in place.

“I would urge them to reconsider their position on that.”