A small group of Federal Government backbenchers has defied a party warning by attending an event promoting human rights protection in West Papua.
The Greens hosted the launch of the Australia-Pacific chapter of International Parliamentarians for West Papua in Parliament House today.
West Papua, a province of Indonesia, has been at the centre of a long-running campaign for independence.
This morning, acting Foreign Affairs Minister Craig Emerson urged caucus members not to attend the event.
The Greens say Dr Emerson's stance on this issue is cowardly.
Labor backbencher Laurie Ferguson defied Dr Emerson's advice and attended the launch.
He says he regarded Dr Emerson's urgings as "unprecedented, ridiculous and ill-informed".
"We're talking about a country where people get 15 years in jail for raising a flag, where on all common analyses of Indonesian society it is the second worst province in regards to longevity of people's life, child, infant mortality, income levels," he said.
Mr Ferguson says there are about 60 West Papuans being held as political prisoners and there are allegations of heavy militarisation of the province.
"So for a variety of reasons I think this is overdue," he said.
Mr Ferguson says Dr Emerson banned Labor MPs from attending the conference.
"That's the tone I got from him. He had to be told that's not going to occur," he said.
"He was telling people not to attend. And, as I say, the former speaker and the chairman of caucus kind of had to clarify people's rights in this place."
Poor understanding
Mr Ferguson says Dr Emerson's actions reflect a poor understanding of what groups like the West Papuan friendship group do in the Parliament.
He says former foreign minister Kevin Rudd would never have banned MPs from attending today's conference.
"Absolutely not. He's had experience with a variety of similar parallel groups on other countries, other issues of human rights," he said.
"In actual fact he's been very cooperative with some of those groups.
"There's no way he would have went down this road at all."
Mr Ferguson has compared the West Papuan struggle for independence with that of East Timor, Western Sahara, Palestine and Burma.
"There's a wide variety of groups in this Parliament over my 20 years where people from all parties have taken up these issues and this is a very similar situation," he said.
"What we want to do is make sure that the Indonesian government's initiatives to have discussions about the form of government in West Papua are not thwarted by the military and the police and to make sure that there is a focus on human rights."
Sensitive issue
But he says Australia's close relationship with Indonesia makes it a sensitive issue.
"We'd like Australia to be a bit more proactive in these matters, but we do understand the difficulties and I don't regard the difficulty as being the involvement of Australian companies by the way in West Papua," he said.
"It's more our long-term relationship with the country."
Mr Ferguson says he hopes that if Dr Emerson was to become foreign minister, he would reconsider his stance on West Papua.
"I would hope it's just a facet of an acting foreign minister who's, I don't know whether it's Indonesian authorities getting on to him, giving him a message, or whether it's DFAT giving him a bit of advice and him not being across the issue. I'm not really sure," he said.
Another Labor caucus source has told PM that Dr Emerson strongly urged caucus members not to participate on the grounds that the group was convened by the Greens who advocate independence for West Papua which is not Labor policy.