Labor more united than ever: Shorten

Australia’s opposition leader Bill Shorten endorsed Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s hard-line anti-asylum seeker policy Wednesday – a policy broadly condemned internationally as mired with human rights abuses.

October 2014: Asked if turn-backs were having an impact on stopping deaths at sea, Mr Shorten said: “No, we don’t see that the argument has been made or the evidence has been made out about boat turn-backs”.

“Over the last two years, since I became leader, the Labor Party has been far more united than ever”, he told ABC television on Wednesday.

In January 2014, Indonesia’s military said it had reached a private agreement with the Australian Defence Force to accept turned-backs boats to defuse the diplomatic row over the policy.

A potential turn back policy will be debated at the ALP national conference later this week and Mr Shorten hopes his colleagues will back his new position.

Labor leader Bill Shorten says his leadership has resulted in greater unity among his party.

While revealing his new position, Mr Shorten admitted Labor made errors on asylum-seeker policy when in government and conceded the coalition’s policy appeared to be working.

Current Immigration Minister Peter Dutton today confirmed the Government was anxious by the electoral reaction to the Labor switch when he attempted to undermine Mr Shorten’s commitment. “We have had Indonesia from day one saying that they won’t accept tow-backs”.

While Shorten expects to win a close vote on the issue at the conference, he is also likely to prevail on the issue of marriage equality after warning advocates of a binding vote for Labor MPs they could set back their cause if they were to get their way at the conference.

“Bill Shorten has been opposed to and now says he is in favour of turn-backs. Labor’s policy hasn’t changed”.

“Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey hate windfarms; Labor will ensure renewable energy is a big part of the future for our country”.

Right faction powerbroker Stephen Conroy believes that measure will just get across the line at the conference.

Those voters prepared to give Bill Shorten the benefit of the doubt – increasingly few of whom are left, according to opinion polls – can take some satisfaction from the Labor leader’s vigorous performance this week.

However, Mr Shorten is expected to be less ambitious in his internal reform plans, settling for a trial of candidate selection “primaries” and making joining the party easier and cheaper.

Its attraction is threefold: it will enhance Labor’s progressiveness (while highlighting the Coalition’s idiosyncratic and out-of-step aversion to renewables such as wind power); it will lessen the need for an aggressive and therefore politically charged emissions trading scheme in future; and it will nurture new skills and industries at a time when Australia’s economy desperately needs diversification.

Labor’s previous long-term renewable target, outlined for the 2010 election, committed it to “40 per cent of generation in 2050” whereas this policy goes harder at 50 per cent and over a much shorter time-frame of just15 years rather than 40.