Why I walked away from the ALP's front bench

To develop good policies that are consistent with our claims to be progressive, we have to start with a set of values and, yes, even ideals, to which we aspire as political activists. Otherwise, why bother?

The first mistake we made on the issue of asylum seekers was to play on John Howard's turf. We're allowing him to define the territory and the argument.

I do not share the view that Howard is some kind of political genius. He's not. The times suit him, but he's vulnerable.

We played along before the last election with the moral panic surrounding the boat people instead of getting out there and persuading Australians of a different point of view.

I hated our acquiescence on the Tampa, but in a sense it was inevitable after so much compromise, month after month.

Each small step in a way was barely noticeable, but the end result was that we were pushed well beyond a position that even our own members of the ALP could endorse.

This policy was an opportunity to get it right, to rule a line under the past, as we did with East Timor. There are improvements, I concede. But we are in opposition. This is the time to craft the best policy that we can, to signal that we really want to head in a new direction underpinned by the principle of the equal worth of all human beings.

It was an opportunity lost. This policy clearly treats some asylum seekers as more worthy than others.

I want to move to the back bench so that I can work assiduously as a member of the Labor Party, a party I joined a great many years ago. I'm not giving up on trying to change direction on some of these issues. I hope I can act with colleagues, of whom there are many, to take back the heart and soul of the Labor Party from those people for whom it is good enough to get up in the morning and think we are going to be the slightly better manager on that day.

Mine is not a decision to abandon the Labor Party. It is a decision to move into a different phase of my life, to work with activists, to encourage young people to join up to our great party and to try to recapture the values that underpin that party.