BY ALISON DELLIT
Departing from the usual carefully stage-managed "shows of unity", designed to sing the praises of federal and state Labor leaders, the ALP's three largest state conferences — NSW, Queensland and Victoria — have embarrassed federal Labor leader Simon Crean by questioning Labor's anti-refugee policies.
The June 1-2 Queensland ALP conference threatened to dissolve into complete farce. At the opening dinner, Crean had to elbow his way through Labor for Refugees protesters — only to have several union leaders walk out while others booed his call to reduce the proportion of union-controlled votes within the party. Less than a third of the room stood for the usually mandatory standing ovation.
If Crean thought it couldn't get worse, he was wrong. Refugees' rights activists were joined by Q-Build workers (who have been locked out by the state ALP government) to protest outside the conference. In an attempt to avoid bad publicity which badly backfired, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie called the police in an attempt to keep the protesters "under control".
Despite what some ALP sources described as "desperate" attempts by Crean, Beattie and Queensland senator Kevin Rudd to prevent it, a motion calling for an end to mandatory detention of asylum seekers was passed by a clear majority.
Behind the breakdown of the ALP public relations machine are growing political tensions. Since its federal election loss, the ALP's leaders have attempted to accelerate the party's further rightward shift, including scrapping Labor's already weak policy of "roll-back" of the GST in favour of employee share ownership schemes and superannuation.
The most public manifestation of this shift is Crean's determination to distance the party from the trade union movement. This has caused anger from union officials who believe their carefully planned parliamentary career paths may be obstructed. Many unionists perceive it for what it is: a move to make it even easier for the ALP leadership to take even harder, more brutal anti-worker positions that favour the corporate globalisers.
But for most workers, the infighting between party and union bureaucrats over "who controls the party" is a big yawn. Regardless of who wins out, it has been clear for many years that the state and federal ALP MPs and the state party machines hacks — including current and former union leaders — are at the beck and call of big business interests.
Polarised
However, many people care about Labor's support for the federal government's anti-refugee policies. The appalling treatment of those who flee to Australia to seek refuge from persecution has become a polarising debate in living rooms across the country.
Since the Australian government refused to let the sick and traumatised Tampa refugees enter Australian waters last year, Australians have become increasingly concerned about the fate of the desperate people in the government's remote concentration camps and urban refugee prisons.
Prime Minister John Howard and immigration minister Philip Ruddock have tried to convince Australian workers that these people are to be feared. However, courageous protests by detainees, condemnation of the treatment of refugees from dozens of charitable, professional and public bodies and the persistent campaigning by growing numbers of refugees' rights activists have begun to win the argument that refugees should be welcomed, not locked up.
For an increasing number of people, the government's persecution of refugees is a moral outrage, which taints all Australians who do not protest against it — and especially political parties which make their peace with it.
As this movement has grown in strength, the ALP has come under increasing pressure from it. The so-called "left" of the ALP is under the most pressure because it is the more left-wing Labor voters who are deserting the party in droves.
The ALP has been forced to make some small concessions. It has agreed to take immigration detention centres out of private hands, to release children into the community and to expand the women and children community release program currently being trialed in Woomera.
Mandatory detention
But the ALP continues to support mandatory detention of asylum seekers.
The strongest motion criticising Labor's anti-refugee policies was passed by the Queensland conference. It called for the replacement of mandatory detention with a "humanitarian and compassionate system", an end to temporary protection visas, scrapping private management of detention centres, an end to the "Pacific solution", full appeal rights for all asylum seekers and a royal commission into the detention of refugees. Explaining the motion, a Labor for Refugees spokesperson told the conference that a "short" period of detention for health and security checks would be acceptable.
Labor's immigration spokesperson Julia Gillard has claimed to be bemused by the media fuss over the state conference refugee motions, pointing out that there is little difference between the policies being discussed, aside from a debate over how to shorten processing times.
Most delegates who voted for the motions at the state conferences are concerned for the future of the party — as support for the Greens and the far left grow, the ALP's refusal to publicly defend refugees is costing it members. While few have illusions that the ALP is a party controlled by workers, many of its supporters still want it to be on the workers' and the refugees' side.
Right now, Crean wants to increase the party's ability to play with the rich big boys, not damage it. He understands that it is the capitalist class and the media barons that make or break governments.
The motions passed at the state conferences are an encouraging sign that the influence of the refugees' rights movement is expanding. But motions alone mean very little in an undemocratic corporate party desperate for greater big business support.
What will have the biggest impact on the ALP will be a big, vocal and convincing mass movement to free the refugees. Such a movement may slow Crean and company's plans to shift further right — or it may make them pay the political price for not heeding it.
From Green Left Weekly, June 19, 2002.
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