ALP national conference: Shorten scrambles for asylum peace

Bill Shorten scrambles to prevent policy spot fires from pro-refugee supporters and union chiefs.

Bill Shorten is confronted by an Adani protestor. Picture: AAP

Bill Shorten was last night ­attempting to prevent policy spot fires as pro-refugee supporters and union chiefs pressured him to support overhauls of Labor’s asylum-seeker and industrial relations policies.

The push to secure deals to avoid division on key policy issues came ahead of the second day of the ALP national conference aimed at projecting Labor as a government in waiting.

The Opposition Leader, who yesterday had to wait several minutes to begin his address to the conference after he was interrupted by anti-Adani protesters, used a headland speech to call for unity and support ahead of a possible May election. He also pressed Labor’s environmental and social credentials, while promising to restore confidence in the political system.

“Our Labor mission is not just to win-back government, it is to rebuild trust in our very democracy, to restore meaning to the fair go,” Mr Shorten said. “This is why, in a very real sense, our ­opponents at the next election are not just the Liberals and the ­Nationals, One Nation or the Greens. Our deeper opponents are distrust, disengagement, scepticism and cynicism.”

Mr Shorten was able to secure deals with unions on economic, social and environmental policies yesterday but was last night facing potential outbreaks on refugees and workplace relations.

Ahead of the conference ­debate on asylum-seeker policy today, Labor Left figures were last night trying to secure a deal to neutralise amendments to the party’s platform by Labor for ­Refugees, which calls for the abolition of offshore processing and scrapping of boat turnbacks.

The Australian understands Labor’s Left faction wants a commitment to increase Australia’s humanitarian intake, implement a formal process to bring refugees from Indonesia, introduce a stronger safety net for asylum-seekers on bridging visas and offer a fairer system for them to appeal cases through a revived refugee review tribunal.

Mr Shorten — who yesterday announced a raft of new policies, including enshrining superannuation as a minimum entitlement in the Fair Work Act — came under attack over plans to establish a federal environmental protection agency. The Minerals Council of Australia said the ­industry, which is propping up the economy, was already struggling to navigate red and green tape.

The industry group warned a one-year delay could reduce the value of a major mining project (valued at $3 billion to $4bn) by up to 13 per cent and cost up to $1 million a day. “Rather than making existing environmental regulation more effective and efficient, Labor will add another layer of green ­bureaucracy which will cost jobs, discourage investment and make it easier for activists to disrupt and delay projects,” MCA chief executive Tania Constable said.

With the national conference set to debate Labor’s industrial ­relations platform tomorrow, The Australian understands negotiations were under way ­between the ACTU leadership and senior party figures, which were described as a “battle of ­attrition”. The negotiations were believed to have been ­focused on the degree of support Labor gives to industry bargaining by unions. The disputes were understood to be the only major speed-bumps for Mr Shorten during the national conference, after Labor figures successfully secured agreements with unions on other contentious issues.

Opening the conference yesterday, Mr Shorten outlined his “Fair Go for Australia” plan, pitched to middle-class families, women, parents and workers.

Outlining his plans if he is elected prime minister, Mr Shorten said Labor would make enshrining a “voice” for First Nations people in the Constitution a priority. A $6.6bn affordable housing plan was the centrepiece announcement of the first day, with Mr Shorten committing to 250,000 new homes at reduced rents.

The Labor leader committed his party to reviewing Newstart ­allowances, with calls for Labor to increase the dole payment. “That system should support people back into work, not punish them in poverty,” he said.

On education and skills, Mr Shorten said over the next four years, “nine out of every 10 new jobs will need either a university degree or a TAFE qualification”.

“And I want 10 out of every 10 young Australians to be prepared for that economy and for those new jobs. So Labor will uncap university places, meaning that in the next decade alone another 200,000 children and adults from the regions and the suburbs can become the first in their family to get a degree.” On emissions, he said “climate change is real” and ­described it as a threat to “our economy and environment”. He said Labor would cut pollution by 45 per cent and deliver 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030.

He said Labor would come down like a “ton of bricks on companies using and abusing 457-style work visas to merely avoid employing local workers and paying fair wages”. He also pledged that “wherever there is a commonwealth dollar being expended in infrastructure, one in 10 people employed on the site will be an Australian apprentice”.

Scott Morrison yesterday said under Labor Australians would see a “weaker economy because we will have higher taxes” and a $5bn-a-year “slug on retirees’ savings. “Everything you hear Bill Shorten say, understand this; it comes with higher taxes,” he said. “The surplus we will hand down on 2 April next year, comes without higher taxes. The stronger economy that pays for Medicare, for schools, for hospitals, for affordable medicines, all of this comes from the Liberal ­National government without higher taxes.”

Mr Shorten said for most Australians, “politics is just another part of the problem: unhelpful, ­irrelevant, out-of-touch with their daily lives”. He framed a future Labor government around the themes of tackling inequality and restoring public confidence.