The fight over Labor’s refugee policy is gearing up, with the new Batman MP, Ged Kearney, expected to lay the first signpost for where the debate is headed in her maiden speech to parliament on Monday.
With Labor’s national conference approaching in July, the battlelines over numerous policy positions are being drawn up. Left-aligned members plan to push for a Buffett rule on minimum tax rates for the wealthy, and for branch members to have a say in Senate preselections.
But it’s refugee policy, a flashpoint of the fight between the left and the right at the 2015 national conference, which Bill Shorten and the right ultimately won, that is shaping up as one of the biggest battles.
A draft proposal put together by the immigration spokesman, Shayne Neumann, restates Labor’s commitment to move asylum seekers out of mandatory detention within 90 days, and to raise the refugee intake from 18,750 to 27,000. But it makes no mention of Manus Island or Nauru.
The 90-day processing rule would not cover refugees on Nauru or Manus, given that they have already been processed.
But Kearney, whose seat is considered one of the most progressive in the nation, will call for action over what has become indefinite detention on Manus and Nauru.
About 1,750 asylum seekers remain in the two offshore camps. While some are being resettled in the US, the process has been slow, with no guarantee of how many will be accepted.
New Zealand has left its offer to accept some of the cohort on the tablebut this has been consistently rejected by Australia owing to the freedom of New Zealand citizens to enter Australia.
Deals with other countries remain one of Labor’s only options to close the camps, after Shorten committed to prevent refugees on Manus and Nauru settling in Australia.
The left may try to wedge the right by setting assessment standards to increase transparency and improve how the camps are run.
A camp that did not meet those standards could be closed down but that would still leave the refugees’ fate uncertain.
Kearney is also expected to call for social security support for all refugees to be reinstated, and to increase funding to the UN human rights council.
Neither side was ready to lay its cards on the table when contacted by Guardian Australia, but the Victorian branch conference at the weekend is expected to firm up the left’s positions.
The Greens have already committed to increasing the nation’s refugee intake to 50,000.
