https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/unions-demand-bill-shorten-make-chang...POWERFUL union leaders are set to demand Bill Shorten stops turning back people-smuggling operations at sea and ends offshore detention, putting pressure on the politician they helped elevate into the leadership.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the final policy document of the ACTU, the unions’ peak body, voted on by all of its affiliated unions on Wednesday, calls for “an end to offshore solutions” that breach Australia’s international obligations under the UN Refugee Convention, along with stopping the practice of turning around boats full of illegal arrivals.
The ACTU confirmed this policy document will form the basis of a list of demands the unions will make on Mr Shorten at the ALP National Conference in December, ahead of the federal election.
“The offshore ‘processing’ system of asylum seekers in Nauru and Manus Island is discriminatory, and lacks transparency and independent oversight,” the ACTU congress policy document states.
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“Congress rejects other policies of ‘deterrence’ implemented alongside offshore detention, especially intercepting and turning back boats at sea, or transferring refugees to other vessels for immediate return to their countries of origin without a proper assessment of their claims for protection.”
Mr Shorten’s alliance with several powerful unions, including the CFMMEU, Transport Workers Union, Health Services Union, Australian Workers Union and the Shoppies Union was a political strength that helped secure him the leadership.
But there are now growing concerns from Labor MPs, particularly from the Right faction, that Mr Shorten is under pressure to adopt left-wing social and economic policies to appease the unions that backed him into the leadership — and that will see him at odds with the Australian electorate.