Australia will send asylum seeker families to Nauru within weeks, Immigration Minister Tony Burke announced, as disquiet grows in Labor ranks over the new policy.
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Mr Burke said Australia would not resile from sending unaccompanied children to island detention centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, and said asylum seekers would be sent to Nauru soon.
He expected the Nauru centre would be ''open'' for family groups, with asylum seekers free to come and go. ''A number of members of Parliament across every party would be uncomfortable with the pathway we have chosen,'' he said. ''I am completely convinced every other alternative carries implications which no one would want.''
The policy of sending all asylum seekers to Nauru and PNG for processing, with no chance of resettlement in Australia, is at odds with the party's policy platform.
Labor members largely support the policy on the grounds that they do not want to see further deaths at sea, a senior Labor source says. But in the past week Labor politicians and candidates have become increasingly emboldened to speak out against Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's self-described ''hardline'' asylum seeker policies.
The concern has not swayed Mr Rudd who told reporters in Cairns on Wednesday that, ''our policy is as stated, and will not change''.
A Labor source said at this stage, no members were facing disciplinary procedures for speaking out. Tasmanian Labor senator Lin Thorp said on Wednesday she did not know anyone in the party who was ''completely happy'' with the offshore processing and resettlement policy announced by Mr Rudd last month.''Our hope is that by this policy people stop coming, and then hopefully we won't have to be in this situation.''
Senator Thorp's comments come after the Labor candidate vying to replace Julia Gillard as Lalor MP condemned the government's latest asylum seeker policy. Joanne Ryan said the policy of resettling all asylum seeker boat arrivals in Papua New Guinea had been ''driven by an agenda I don't subscribe to'' and ''driven by people's fear'' and said she hoped it would be dumped after the September 7 election.
Others to break ranks include candidate for the Victorian seat of Bendigo, Lisa Chesters, and the Labor candidate for Melbourne, Cath Bowtell - also the Victorian ALP president - who said the policy was a ''disappointment''. Ms Bowtell won preselection to challenge the sole lower-house Greens MP, Adam Bandt, against Labor for Refugees Victorian president Harvey Stern in 2012.
Labor's party platform states Labor will ''ensure that asylum seekers who arrive by irregular means will not be punished for the mode of arrival''. But the new regime discriminates against asylum seekers who arrive by boat, compared with those who come by air.
A senior Labor source said that while Labor members were expected to toe the party line, candidates in certain seats - such as the progressive federal seat of Melbourne - would be expected to reflect the views of their electorate even though they were at odds with party policy.
