Fed: Kerr seeks shake-up of ALP boat people policy
CANBERRA, Feb 1 AAP - Former Labor frontbencher Duncan Kerr has urged a shake-up ofhis party's asylum-seeker policy.
Mr Kerr, now a backbencher, helped design such a policy before last year's federalelection, but it was shelved amid fears of electoral disaster in the wake of the Tampacrisis.
"We got dragged down a very wrong path through a period of almost Australian McCarthyismby a government that is cynically manipulating Australian community opinion," he toldABC Radio.
"I believe Labor has to get out now and build an account that justifies a new positionto the Australian community three years before the next election, and to do that on allthe hot-button issues.
"I want us to get back into a position where Australia can feel proud of where Labor is standing.
"These events come and go but Australia needs to operate in a way where we don't tearourselves apart and we don't damage the relationships we have between ourselves as Australiansand I believe those relationships have become very strained and very damaged."
Mr Kerr said Labor should seek to dismantle in the Senate all the legislation it supportedthat the government used to underpin its post-Tampa Pacific solution.
He called for offshore detention facilities to be closed, along with the Woomera detentioncentre, and for asylum seekers not considered a risk to be released into community hostels.
Mr Crean has only advocated the release of children and their parents.
Mr Kerr said Labor could not attack the government until it had a contrary position.
"One of the great liberties that flow from being outside the shadow ministry is a capacityto speak freely and to range over all policy areas and that of course is a backbencher,it's a role of a member of the Labor Party," he said.
"It's a commitment that we owe by way of obligation to speak truly, to represent ourelectors, and that of course is what every elector expects of their parliamentarians andI'm certain what Simon would expect of his backbench."
Mr Kerr was recently prevented by the party from quitting his federal seat to contesta Tasmanian seat.
AAP fh/mg/bwl
KEYWORD: BOAT KERR
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