ALP conference: left loses vote on motion to prohibit boat turnbacks – politics live

Well that was quite a day and another looms tomorrow. Sunday will also be lively – Sunday at national conference is same sex marriage, Palestine and the party rules debate, amongst other issues.

But first, let’s wrap Saturday.

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• Bill Shorten outlined Labor’s asylum policy for the next election, pledging more funds for the UNHCR, more oversight of detention facilities, an end to temporary protection visas – and boat turnbacks “when it is safe to do so.”

• The left had a convulsion about how to proceed in the asylum policy debate that went on until lunchtime. Eventually the faction resolved to bring forward a platform amendment banning turnbacks in government, but the delegates weren’t “bound” to vote in favour. Left votes had already bled right and the right had largely neutralised its internal dissenters. It was pretty obvious the effort to prohibit turnbacks was not going to succeed.

• But the debate proceeded in any case. It opened with protestors taking the stage. After they were cleared speakers on both sides of the debate put their views, for and against turnbacks. The debate that had raged in the private rooms of the conference for 48 hours played out briefly in public. Bill Shorten’s speech supporting his own position was the least compelling contribution in the debate, but he won the day anyway, because of the work in those private rooms.

• Anthony Albanese, Tanya Plibersek and Penny Wong voted with the left. Albanese by his own hand. Plibersek and Wong via proxies.

• The party also settled its climate change policy with an amendment that locks in Labor’s ambition on targets for the UN-led Paris talks, and sets an aspiration to boost renewable energy. Old Labor and new Labor was firmly on display – the CFMEU said workers would be banging on the door of a future Labor government for assistance when they lost their jobs, and the progressive grassroots advocacy group LEAN succeeded in locking in the leadership behind a climate policy that includes various things it would not have included without their intervention.
  

That was Saturday. Do join me Sunday. Have a great night.

To be equally clear about that outcome – the leadership team in a future Labor government is not fully behind the said government’s turn back the boats position. Albanese is a no. Plibersek is a no and Wong is a no – via proxies.

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So to be clear about that outcome – the leadership achieved its objective of getting through conference with Labor’s asylum platform silent about turn backs.

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Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese voted with the left.

I think it’s very poor that the vote didn’t go to a full count. Better than Butler’s first position, which was to decide the issue on the voices – but poor not to record numbers.

That’s about defending various sensibilities, it is not about genuine debate.

The left push clearly failed, but better to play the debate right out.

We are now proceeding to the votes. Butler asks all delegates to take their seats so the votes can be recorded. The first vote is on the Giles/Watt motion prohibiting turnbacks.

There’s a vote on the voices. Butler declares the vote lost on the voices. There is a call from the floor for a count.

Butler says he’ll ask for a show of hands.

The yes vote shows hands. The no votes show hands.

Mark Butler:

Delegates, the vote is clearly lost.

Bill Shorten is the last speaker in the debate. He’d like to acknowledge the quality of the debate. All delegates come from the right place. He says while ever he’s leader, there will be no denigration of asylum seekers. But this is about safety. And it’s about Australian identity.

For a moment I ask this conference to forget about Mr Abbott. Please forget about their slogans and their scaremongering that under estimates Australians.

I want to explain my view to you.

He says Labor can’t avoid the debate and the discussion. He thought about an option other than turnbacks. Was there an easy way? Could he avoid this speech?

I would not be the leader I seek to be of this nation if I avoided my own conviction on this matter. People were getting on unsafe boats and they were drowning. There’s no moral one-upmanship here.

Shorten says if we know that people are getting on boats and they sink and people drown, Labor can’t take a policy to the next election that increases the risk of that outcome. He says it’s not the case that I do not care, or there’s some electoral calculus that trumps morality.

He contends he’s pursuing this policy because he cares.

Michelle O’Neill from the Victorian left is the next speaker. She says the language needs to be clear in this conversation. This isn’t a turnback policy.

It’s a turnback of desperate people seeking refuge policy.

O’Neill says all the good things in the platform can’t be built on turnbacks.

When you turn a boat around, you are turning a boat around into a risky, unsafe perilous journey.

You are sending people back often into unsafe circumstances. They will in some cases face torture. They will in some cases face death.

O’Neill says the whole argument that supporting turnbacks neutralises Tony Abbott’s attack is wrong. Let’s learn the lessons of history, she says. Capitulation doesn’t work.

When we were silent about Tampa, did that work?

O’Neill says Labor did fail in the last government, but not in the version of failure shared by Richard Marles and Bill Shorten. Labor failed in making a compassionate case. Leaders take on hard issues and shift public opinion, she says.

Next speaker is Tony Burke from the NSW right – Labor’s last immigration minister.

Thirty three lives were lost on my watch. One of them was ten weeks old.

Burke said he asked officials for the baby’s name. Officials told him they wouldn’t give him the name because it couldn’t be used in the media. Burke said he didn’t want it for public use, he just wanted to know the child’s name. This is the story he told in the Labor Herald this morning, which I linked you to earlier in the day.

Burke says he wants more people to come to Australia, but I want everyone to get here safely. He says when it comes to policies that work, the evidence is in. Deterrence works.

Tony Burke:

Our compassion has to reach everyone our policies affect. If we give hope to the trade, we will end up helping fewer people, and hundreds will start the journey but never complete it.

Next speaker is Linda Scott, supporting the Giles motion. Scott is a former convenor of Labor for Refugees. She says the tagline of the conference this weekend is Advance Australia. Labor can only advance Australia safely and fairly, Scott says. Safety does not include repelling asylum seekers at sea. Scott says Australia’s tolerant multiculturalism is put at risk when the party adopts divisive policies, like turning back boats.

It’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s not legal and it is not the Labor thing to do.

Murray Watt has backed in the Giles position on prohibiting turnbacks, and is also pursuing an amendment that would see detention centres closed down if they failed to keep occupants safe.

Matt Thistlethwaite, from the NSW right, is speaking now to support the position of the leadership. He says when it comes to turnbacks, he appreciates people have different views. He said his own view changed in 2010, when 48 people drowned off Christmas Island. As a surf lifesaver, those images broke my heart, he says. Thistlethwaite says Labor has to accept that deterrence measures work.

Delegates this is a package of reforms that people can be proud of.

Marles says no-one is fleeing persecution in Indonesia. He says there is evidence that the sea journey has been shut. He says people smugglers are not Oscar Schindlers. They are criminals. Labor must keep the sea journey shut.

There is some heckling.

He’s working through the various commitments in the asylum policy: more money for the UNHCR, no more temporary protection visas, the convention back in the migration act, the increase in the humanitarian intake.

This is about opening our door wider, bringing more refugees to Australia and doing so safely.

Marles says he urges the conference in the strongest possible terms to vote against the turnbacks amendment.

The shadow immigration minister Richard Marles follows Giles.

Delegates this issue is as vexed an issue as our party has faced in recent times. Today we can resolve it.

Marles goes back through the history of John Howard and the Tampa. Labor’s panicked response to that with an eye on the ballot box. Labor, he says, has to make decisions based on values.

Richard Marles:

If we can get it right, the politics will follow.

Giles is approaching his task in highly conciliatory fashion. He says the shadow minister Richard Marles has delivered a good platform, one that Labor can go out in the community and support. Marles has done a good job of settling different views.

But.

Andrew Giles:

I do disagree when it comes to turnbacks. I regard them as inherently unsafe. I see them as an impediment to seeking a safe pathway (for asylum seekers.)

He says he hopes delegates will join him in an effort to make a good platform better.

Mark Butler tells delegates Labor has its debates in public. He expects some respect in return. He gets a standing ovation for that.

Mark Butler:

It will be a robust debate because we are a party with a pulse.

Andrew Giles says the debate will not be won by shouting down good people with whom we disagree.

The debate has just got underway with the left’s Andrew Giles at the podium. Protestors have just invaded the stage. The sign reads No Towbacks.

ALP president Mark Butler is attempting to clear the stage.

Boats are coming. I’ve now been able to confirm that Tanya Plibersek will join Penny Wong in proxying out for the turnbacks debate.

Plibersek’s vote will be cast by Terri Butler from the left in Queensland. Butler will vote in favour of the Giles/Watts motion to prohibit turnbacks.

So that’s another plus vote for the left while maintaining the convention of shadow cabinet solidarity.