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Bill Shorten says Labor will not place any time limit on how long asylum seekers are able to stay on Nauru and Manus Island, despite a draft party platform that was released stating just the opposite
This comes as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull accused Labor senator Penny Wong of “rolling out the welcome mat to the people smugglers” after she said the party should be advocating for detention processing purposes to be limited.
In a press conference today that was only televised halfway through before Cameron Smith’s went live with his retirement announcement, Shorten was asked whether a Labor government would place any time limit on how long asylum seekers should stay on Nauru or Manus Island, Mr Shorten said: “The answer to that is no.”
“Life will be just as shit, if not shitter for Asylum Seeker children on Nauru and Manus”
“We were all pro-gay-marriage, but this is as step too far. Not even our hard left factions can wrangle a pro-Asylum seeker angle”
However, he said Labor would not accept asylum seekers being placed in indefinite detention.
“The more positive approach we would adopt is putting more energy into resettlement,” the Labor leader said.
“We’ve sent this message to the people smugglers: we’ll turn back the boats”
“And we’ve sent this message to anyone running from persecution who have the delusional idea that this will be a good place for them to go. It isn’t. We don’t want you here, we don’t even want to think about you. Life will be shit if you choose to come here. Arguably shitter than whatever it is that you are running from”
“That policy is a policy which I think has demonstrated that it saves lives and we recognise that and we will work with that.
“We certainly think the government needs to put more effort in, although I want to acknowledge that I think I the government is doing the right thing with the American arrangements…”
“…and every other policy that they are running with except corporate tax cunts”
Shorten paused for a moment while a staffer whispered something in his ear.
“Wait, up. I’m just being told that a fair few of my party colleagues are pro corporate tax cuts”
“Anyway. Stop cutting down trees you stupid farmers”
