THE NSW Labor Party is poised to back a motion today allowing officials to give preferences to the Greens last after substantial changes were made to ease concerns among the Left that the move was a ploy to shift the party to the right. But the debate at today’s ALP state conference is still expected to be fiery.

Many members of the Left are unhappy that the broader attack on the Greens which the motion has sparked could alienate the progressive voters Labor is trying to win back.

They will argue that policy reform, not blaming the Greens, will bring the voters back.

”The debate will benefit from less discussion about the value of our preferences and more discussion of progressive values,” the NSW Labor Left assistant secretary, John Graham, said.

A copy of the motion, first revealed by the Herald online, contains a preamble making significant mention of Labor’s social achievements.

The motion was finalised at a meeting between the NSW ALP general-secretary, Sam Dastyari, and the NSW left powerbrokers Doug Cameron and Mr Graham.

Mr Dastyari did not quibble.

“The NSW Left has raised a legitimate concern that a move towards a re-definition of our relationship with the Greens should occur in conjunction with a continued effort to win over Labor voters who have voted Green in recent years. I agree with that sentiment entirely,” he said. ”The motion has been drafted to reflect this view. “

The motion does not force Labor to give preferences to the Greens last, but gives officials such as Mr Dastyari the option of using this threat as leverage during preference negotiations.

The strong anti-Greens rhetoric which accompanied the announcement of the motion – including claims by Mr Dastyari and others that the Greens were more extreme than One Nation – alarmed the Left that it was a de facto ploy by the NSW Right to push the party to the right.

Consequently, the motion contains a preamble which notes that ”for over 120 years, Labor has advocated for social and economic justice, the environment, the arts and civil liberties”.

In includes such achievements as compulsory superannuation, universal paid parental leave, Medicare, floating the dollar, ending WorkChoices, introducing anti-discrimination legislation and formal native title rights, apologising to the stolen generations and introducing environmental protection laws.

”Labor has a strong and proud history of delivering for all Australians by advocating a positive message of hope and opportunity, and building broad public support on social and economic issues,” it says.

But it also points out that the Greens refused to give preferences to Labor ahead of One Nation and other right-wing parties at last year’s state election. Instead, the Greens issued an open ticket, giving preferences to no one. It also notes the NSW Greens backed ”Coalition Government legislation prohibiting unions and environmental NGOs from running campaigns such as ‘Your Rights at Work’.”

”In view of these circumstances, Conference resolves that NSW Labor should not provide the Greens Party with automatic preferential treatment in any future preference negotiations,” it says.

The state opposition frontbencher and senior Left figure Luke Foley expressed displeasure at the nature of the motion.

Unemployed … Charif is being treated for depression. Photo: Ben Rushton

THE federal government faces a wave of costly litigation for compensation over its treatment of refugees in immigration detention centres, including Villawood, as lawyers examine the cases of scores of former inmates.

The Social Justice Network, an advocacy group based in western Sydney, has referred more than 40 cases to the law firm Slater & Gordon to assess their eligibility to sue the Commonwealth for allegedly breaching its duty of care towards asylum seekers who developed mental illnesses while in detention.

”This could cost Australia hundreds of millions of dollars,” said the network’s spokesman, Jamal Daoud, who describes it as a ”mass action”.

”We want to see these people compensated because they have suffered a lot. A lot of them immediately after they were released into the community were granted disability pensions and were very young people,” Mr Daoud said.

One of the cases being considered is Charif Asaad, 35, who came to Australia 12 years ago on a visitor’s visa from Syria in fear for his life. After working illegally in the construction industry until 2005, he was held at Villawood for three years. There, he claims he was handcuffed during epileptic seizures. A serious lung condition which left him short of breath and prone to collapse was left untreated.

Since being released he has been unable to work and has been taking medication for depression. “I always feel angry all the time. Anything stresses me out. I feel short of breath.”

“I feel very bad that a country such as Australia treat a refugee as an animal or less than an animal. Whatever they give me is not enough because they have taken the best of me. Now if I walk for 15 minutes I feel like I am going to fall down in the road”, Mr Asaad said.

Ben Phi, the practice group leader for Slater & Gordon, which has already successfully pursued several compensation cases for former detainees, said people who come out of detention with psychiatric injuries after having been found to be refugees enter the community “already at a serious disadvantage rather than being able to go out to work and contribute”.

The time people are spending in detention has increased, which contributes to mental illness, he added.

In a legal caution which has implications for federal and opposition plans to process asylum seekers offshore, including Malaysia, Mr Phi said the federal government owes the duty of care to provide adequate medical and psychiatric services to detainees found to be refugees wherever they are held.

By late last year, the federal government had paid $18 million in compensation to asylum seekers for unlawful detention and $5 million for negligence to former detainees.

STATE cabinet has backed sweeping changes to planning laws that will allow communities to decide in advance where growth will take place, so developers can get fast-track approval to build.

In the biggest shake-up of planning laws in three decades, the government has released a green paper for a simpler planning system, designed to give more certainty about what can be built where and eliminate the site-by-site battles that characterise many controversial projects.

With housing construction levels at a 50-year low, the Minister for Planning, Brad Hazzard, said dramatic change was needed to help rebuild the state’s economy and restore the public’s shattered faith in the planning system.

Mr Hazzard said evidence-based ”strategic planning” would become the cornerstone of the new system, which he promised would be the ”most cutting-edge … in the Commonwealth”.

Strategic planning would involve the preparation over several years of regional, sub-regional and local plans that would complement one another and would be drawn up with the involvement of communities, developers and government.

For the system to work, Mr Hazzard said, communities would have to get involved in planning, something he agreed would be hard to achieve. ”Trying to engage the community up front will be a challenge – we tend to switch on to an issue when it’s right next door,” he said.

He believed there were valuable lessons from cities such as Vancouver, which engaged about a quarter of its citizens in a debate that led to support for a big increase in the number of high-rise apartment blocks in the city.

Suburbs and towns would be divided into areas for preservation or development, including housing, employment and ”enterprise” zones. Once the zones and development parameters were agreed, developers could build free from objections.

Mr Hazzard said communities would get involved and would not simply reject any change.

”We are putting our faith in the community … we just don’t believe that [blanket opposition to development] is going to be a problem,” he said. But once they had had their input into local plans it would be a case of ”let’s just go on with it”, he said.

Under the changes 200 State Environmental Planning Policies will be scrapped and replaced by 10-12 policy statements to be approved by the cabinet on issues including housing supply and affordability, employment, biodiversity conservation, retail development, coastal management and regional development.

Most of the work on the green paper was done by two former NSW ministers, Tim Moore and Ron Dyer, but the government has adopted only some of their recommendations and produced much of the document itself.

Although it has been approved by the cabinet, Mr Hazzard said it could be modified after submissions were received over the coming eight weeks.

Developers and conservationists praised the document but said there was no certainty it would solve planning problems. The executive director of the Environmental Defenders Office, Jeff Smith, said it was a good attempt to resolve tensions between developers and the public.

”The big idea is getting communities involved, that you do your planning up front and then you say, ‘These are the green light areas and these the bits that may or may not be developed.”’

Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian. Photo: Dave Tease

THE opposition, Greens and some transport advocates have raised concerns about skewed representation on a board set up to advise the state government on transport policy.

The Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, and the Roads Minister, Duncan Gay, last week announced the creation of a Transport Advisory Board. The board will report to ministers and the director-general of transport for NSW, Les Wielinga, also a member of the new group.

The membership of the board, which the ministers promised to establish after last year’s election, is drawn from the private sector.

It will be headed by the former chairman of Leighton Holdings and the Commonwealth Bank Tim Besley, who has strong Liberal Party connections.

It also includes Brendan Lyon, a former Coalition staffer who runs the Infrastructure Partnerships Australia transport lobby; Paul Forward, a former chief executive of the RTA who was sacked over the Cross City Tunnel and who is a principal of Evans and Peck consultancy; and Andrea Staines, a former chief executive of Australian Airlines and a director of QR National and North Queensland Airports.

The Opposition Leader, John Robertson, said the board did not include commuter or motorist representatives.

”Commuters and drivers have every right to be concerned they have been excluded from the O’Farrell government’s advisory committee – we know this government is hell-bent on privatising public transport, introducing tolls on currently untolled roads and increasing fares,” Mr Robertson said.

Greens transport spokeswoman, Cate Faehrmann, said: ”With no independent experts on the board the only advice the Transport Minister will receive is that which serves corporate interests, not the travelling public’s.”

The director of the Council of Social Service of NSW, Alison Peters, praised the government’s willingness to consult on some transport matters, but said it was an oversight not to include people who rely on public transport.

The director of the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies at Sydney University, David Hensher, noted the absence of academics on the board, and was surprised to see lobbyist Mr Lyon.

”You want to see these committees small – except for Lyon they might bring a good balance,” Professor Hensher said.

Mr Lyon has also been appointed to advisory boards by the federal Labor government.

The convener of advocacy group EcoTransit, Gavin Gatenby, said the appointment of the board appeared to be part of a war within the government over transport.

”Nick Greiner, who heads up the rival Infrastructure NSW, has made little secret of his desire for more urban tollways. It seems Berejiklian and Gay have moved to shore-up their preference for urban rail and rural road projects with a rival board.”

Ms Berejiklian said criticisms were ”completely unjustified”.