Shorten will prevail on boats insists Stephen Conroy

Stephen Conroy has recalled forecasts of the cost of processing asylum seekers exceeding the entire education budget.

Stephen Conroy. Picture: Aaron Francis.

Labor Party elder Stephen Conroy has recalled sitting in cabinet meetings during the Rudd-Gillard years and forecasting the cost of housing and processing asylum seekers would exceed Australia’s entire education budget.

The former Labor senator said he was confident Opposition Leader Bill Shorten would prevail at the party’s national conference in July, amid a push from the Left faction to weaken border protection policy.

“The Labor conference back in 2015 or so, absolutely shut the door on this one,” Mr Conroy told Sky News last night.

“We had a very robust debate and Bill Shorten prevailed. Bill Shorten will prevail at the next conference and he will not be changing the position that we took to the last election which is supporting turning back the boats.”

“I’ve sat in cabinet where the numbers have been coming in, in terms of the amount of refugees, the amount of boats coming across and we have ended up with forecasts of spending more in one year processing and housing refugees than we were going to spend on education.

“When you start hitting those sorts of numbers you realise it is utterly unsustainable, so anybody out there who thinks we can change our position will utterly destroy the fabric of the government and the budget into the future.

Stephen Conroy: I have sat in Cabinet where the forecasted spending amount on processing and housing refugees was more than education.

Anyone who thinks Labor can change its position will utterly destroy the budget into the future.

MORE: https://t.co/ykweMevBOK #pmlive pic.twitter.com/RmREJ0331J

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) May 16, 2018

“You’ve got to be tough to protect people’s lives from being lost at sea themselves, and also to ensure that we can maintain an orderly immigration program, and help the many tens of thousands of refugees that we do help every hear.

“There is no win in this for Labor and Bill Shorten will prevail.”

On Tuesday Mr Shorten said Labor would 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 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.