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Pressure on Australian Labor Party to alter policy on asylum seekers

Australia's federal opposition leader Simon Crean is coming under increasing pressure to end the Labor Party's policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers.

As Jean Kennedy reports, the party's biggest state branch has demanded an overturn of the the policy, in a decisive vote at this weekend's New South Wales Labor conference.

SIMON CREAN this morning fronts the N-S-W Labor Party conference in Sydney, which late yesterday served up an embarrasing rebuff for him on the issue of asylum seekers. The powerful right-dominated branch voted almost unanimously in support of abandoning mandatory detention for refugees, proposing instead a system of community-based processing. During a brief yet passionate debate, state labor council secretary JOHN ROBERTSON took a swipe at former labor leader KIM BEAZLEY, suggesting that if PAUL KEATING had still been there, things would have been different. "I envisage Paul Keating would have stood up..held a photo of a young woman high in the air..of a young woman being shot by the Taliban and said: "that's what these people are fleeing from..that's what they fear, they're the real terrorists, not the people who seek support of our country."

26/05/2002 16:36:02 | ABC Radio Australia News

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