Labor says Coalition government’s action to stop boats is ‘fundamentally a good thing’

Action taken to stop asylum-seekers drowning at sea is ‘fundamentally a good thing’, Labor concedes, admitting to past errors.

Labor frontbencher Jason Clare says the action governments take to stop asylum-seekers from drowning at sea is “fundamentally a good thing” as he recalls seeing “too many” photos of dead bodies floating in the ocean.

Mr Clare, who was home affairs and justice minister under the former Rudd and Gillard administrations, said politics needed to be “stripped” out of the debate on how to stop the boats.

The Labor Party, which is yet to confirm whether it would continue the Coalition’s boats turn back policy if it was elected, will hotly contest the issue at the July national conference.

“Governments should be given the powers they need to enable them to stop people dying at sea,” Mr Clare told Sky News’s Australian Agenda program.

“Too many times I had to see photographs of dead people floating in the ocean, sometimes bits of people floating in the ocean and I wanted to do everything I could to stop that happening.

“I’m glad that it’s not happening anymore. The actions that government take to make that happen, to stop people dying at sea, is a fundamentally good thing.”

Fellow frontbencher Anthony Albanese said Labor had its asylum-seeker policy “right at the moment” but acknowledged the party had to address “what we did right and what we did wrong” while in government.

More than 50,000 asylum-seekers arrived by boat and 1200 drowned at sea after Labor dismantled the Howard-era offshore processing policy.

Kevin Rudd reinstated offshore processing for all asylum-seekers before the 2013 election and announced those found to be refugees would not be resettled in Australia.

“One place where we made an error was we underestimated the pull factors as well as the push factors,” Mr Albanese told the Ten Network. “We need to say that very clearly.

“I’m one of the people who accepts my responsibility for that and we, as a party, need to acknowledge that.”

Mr Clare also said governments should not talk about on water or operational matters if security agencies are involved, amid allegations Australian officials paid people smugglers to return 65 asylum-seekers to Indonesia.

However Mr Clare accused the Abbott government of using operational matters as an “excuse to about nothing” in this instance.

“I think the secrecy’s unnecessary,” Mr Clare said. “When I was the minister no one in uniform or in a suit for that matter ever told me that any of the statements that the government was making, it shouldn’t make.”