Labor caucus rejects calls to abandon support for offshore processing

Labor MPs and senators have rejected calls to abandon the party’s support for the offshore processing of asylum seekers, instead endorsing a position that refugee claims be assessed in a timely and humane manner.

The West Australian MP Melissa Parke, backed by the former Speaker Anna Burke, moved a motion at Labor caucus on Tuesday that the party “shall no longer support the transfer of asylum seekers by Australia to Manus Island or Nauru and shall call for the detention centres in those places to be closed down forthwith”.

But the opposition spokesman on immigration, Richard Marles, moved an alternative motion that stopped short of withdrawing support for offshore processing.

The alternative motion, seconded by the former New South Wales Labor secretary Sam Dastyari and endorsed by the caucus, said claims for asylum “must be processed in a timely manner to avoid asylum seekers being left in a state of uncertainty and fear”.

“All asylum seekers should be afforded safe, dignified and humane conditions while awaiting refugee status determinations,” the Marles-Dastyari motion said.

“The Abbott government should strive to ensure its obligations for the wellbeing and safety of all persons at the Manus Island and Nauru detention facilities are subject to independent oversight.

“The Abbott government should ensure that detention facilities provide safe, dignified and humane conditions for asylum seekers in accordance with obligations under the refugee convention and in accordance with relevant human rights standards.”

It is understood the Marles-Dastyari motion was carried “on the voices” and the Parke-Burke motion was similarly defeated without the number of votes being recorded.

Apart from the mover and seconder of each motion, two more Labor members spoke during the debate. It is understood one was in favour of the original motion and the other was in favour of the alternative.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, told the meeting the caucus debate had been conducted in a decent and civil manner, which he argued was a sign of the strength of the party.

The result is not a surprise: last month Marles reaffirmed the party's support for offshore processing, saying it and the Papua New Guinea arrangement were “central to our position”.

In calling for an end to offshore processing, the Parke-Burke motion highlighted “the killing of Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati and the injuries done through violence to many others at the detention centre on Manus Island in February 2014 for which no person has yet been held responsible”.

It pointed to “reports of inhumane, unsafe and completely unsatisfactory conditions for asylum seekers detained on Manus Island and Nauru” and said the circumstances were inconsistent with the ALP national platform commitment to treat asylum seekers with dignity and compassion and in accordance with international obligations.

Ahead of Tuesday's caucus vote, Jim Chalmers, Labor’s parliamentary secretary to the opposition leader, played down the perception of Labor division over the issue.

“There is a world of difference between the open revolt in the Liberal party over this unfair budget and the conversation that we will have in our party room about asylum seeker policy,” he said.

“I do support our current policy. But I’ll say this about our caucus processes. Everyone in the Labor party – including Melissa, including Anna, everyone – comes to this conversation with a good heart. They come to this with the right motivations. They come to this with an eye to getting the policy right.

“I support our current policy. I’ll be supporting it in the party room. But I also support the chance that people like Melissa and Anna and others have to raise their views in the caucus room, and in that spirit that’s all I’ll say on the matter.”

Since the election, Shorten and Marles have largely confined their attacks on the government in this portfolio area to secrecy surrounding asylum seeker boat turnarounds and the return of people to Indonesia on Australian-supplied lifeboats, and the deterioration in the relationship with Indonesia.

“We support offshore processing at Nauru and Manus Island as a step which has saved lives,” Marles said in a speech at the National Press Club last month.

“But this does not absolve the government from their obligations to ensure that Manus Island is a place which is safe, humane and dignified.”

Marles said at the time that those calling for an end to offshore processing spoke “from compassion” and he recognised “the humanity they bring to a terrible debate”, but he could not see how Australia did not accept an obligation surrounding the “terrible journey” that asylum seekers took in dangerous boat journeys.

“While it would have been far from the magic fix in stemming this tide of asylum seeker vessels, I believe had we maintained offshore processing – it would have removed any element of incentive,” Marles said.

The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, said Australia was “now approaching six months without any successful people-smuggling ventures”, despite past Labor criticism of the Coalition’s ability to fulfil its “stop the boats” promise.

“The policies they said would never work … are working,” Morrison told parliament on Monday.

Dastyari, who backed the compromise motion, used his first speech to the Senate last year to argue Australia's debate about asylum seekers lacked a real sense of compassion and condemn politicians for exploiting the public's “natural fear of difference”.

At the time the key NSW Right figure said politicians should be the voice of those who could not always speak for themselves and had a “duty to do not just what is easy or popular but what is right”.