Shorten changes direction on boat turn-back policy

In a speech some saw as an election campaign kick-starter, Mr Shorten said Queensland and Victoria’s Labor election victories would go a long way towards making the Abbott Government Australia’s first one-termer in 86 years.

Shorten began his address by describing marriage equality as a “simple overdue change that sends a powerful message” and a matter that should not be subject to political partisanship.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott insists Labor is “dangerously divided” on border security and can’t be trusted to maintain it.

The admission comes ahead of the Labor party’s national conference Saturday, where Shorten is expected to call on the party to officially back the government’s asylum seeker policy.

THE Labor Party conference will today consider whether to force its members to vote for same sex marriage.

Despite mad protesters, who interrupted proceedings by unfurling a banner on stage reading “No refugee towbacks”, the left faction’s push to quash the turn-back policy and close offshore detention facilities, if they don’t meet “humane and safe conditions”, didn’t carry.

A DEBATE over Labor’s position on turning asylum seeker boats around at sea seems bound to dominate the party’s national conference this weekend.

Labor has sought to brush off claims of disunity around the turn back policy after frontbenchers Tanya Plibersek and Penny Wong avoided personally voting on the proposal, instead handing their votes to a proxy.

Labor’s national conference is the place where the policy direction for the next three years is determined.

“Either they vote against their conscience – or they vote against the party they’ve dedicated their working life to serving”, he writes.

‘We understand renewable energy is the future and we will take Australians there, ‘ he said.

But delegates, what I say is this: this resolution does what we want, which is to end the conscience vote and you have the alternative prime minster of Australia giving you the commitment of what a Labor government would do: within 100 days, a marriage equality bill. Mr Marles said it asylum seeker policy was the “hardest debate” in the Labor party and in public policy.

She predicted that the numbers would be “very tight” if Rainbow Labor backed a binding vote.

“We can build an economy where growth is strong, where prosperity is shared and opportunity belongs to everyone”, he said, adding that Labor would deliver tax reform without changing the GST. Did he do enough to cement his authority over the party and his position as leader?