Labor members of the ACT Assembly split on turning back asylum seeker boats at the party's national conference on the weekend, with Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Joy Burch backing Bill Shorten's position on turnbacks, but Yvette Berry and Chris Bourke opposing the move.
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The party's left faction put a motion to the conference to reject Mr Shorten's new policy of turning back asylum seeker boats. The left was defeated, largely along factional lines.
Ms Berry said it was a difficult issue, but she could not support turning back boats.
"Yes, I was sorry that the Labor Party came to that decision and I will keep having conversations with people in my community, with unions, with sceptics, with the broader Labor movement to encourage change," she said.
"The biggest challenge that people face across the country right now is job security. It's not refugees that are taking that work, it's the government policies that need to change. It's that fear and division that's being spread by the federal government that we need to overcome and that's by providing people with more security in their work."
The ACT had seven delegates at Labor's conference, three unionists and the four Assembly members. Ms Berry is from the party's left, and Mr Bourke is unaligned. Mr Barr and Ms Burch are from the right.
Mr Barr supported Mr Shorten on turning back boats last week (his vote was made by a proxy), saying the policy avoided deaths at sea, avoided encouraging people smugglers and was balanced with a big increase in the planned refugee intake.
Canberra senator Katy Gallagher was not a delegate in her own right but held Senator Penny Wong's proxy vote. Senator Wong and Tanya Plibersek did not appear for the vote, leaving it to their proxies to cast their votes against turnbacks.
Senator Gallagher said the response from Canberrans had been "overwhelmingly supportive of the position I took".
She pointed to what she said were improvements in Labor's policy, including doubling the refugee intake by 2025, abolishing temporary protection visas and better oversight of the Manus and Nauru detention centres.
Former Labor leader Jon Stanhope has been a vocal critic of his party's approach to asylum seekers, saying the Greens are the only party to now reflect his reviews on the issue,
Most recently, Mr Stanhope blasted the party for supporting the Border Force Act, which bans doctors, teachers and others working in detention centres from divulging what happens there.
"This new law is, I think, so horribly flawed that I have wondered whether Labor Party support for it was a mistake or an oversight on its part," Mr Stanhope wrote in the City News, rejecting Canberra MP Andrew Fraser's suggestion that workers would be protected by whistleblower laws.
"I doubt Andrew's advice will be of much comfort to any doctor actually arrested and charged," Mr Stanhope said. "This law is truly dreadful. It cannot be defended or justified."
