Ministers and factional leaders are working behind the scenes to head off government embarrassment from Labor conference motions dealing with nuclear-powered submarines and environment policy.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will join more than 400 delegates at the ALP’s 49th national conference in Brisbane starting on Thursday – the first in-person event of its kind since 2018.

It is also the first in over a decade to be held with Labor in office.

Hardline left faction members and some unionists want references to AUKUS scrapped from the national platform but MPs are adamant the government will not compromise on national security and any motion would fail.

There is one reference to the Australia-US-UK pact in the draft platform, which says “our self-reliant defence policy will be enhanced by strong bilateral and multilateral defence relationships, including AUKUS”.

Former Labor senator and union veteran Doug Cameron has taken to social media to lament left faction members moving from “a healthy scepticism of US militarism” to supporting nuclear-propelled submarines.

“I marched for peace, opposed US warmongering with many who now support AUKUS,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The influential Labor Environment Action Network is pushing to end native forest logging by the next election and have the agriculture sector halve methane emissions by 2030.

The opposition is already seizing on internal divisions to attack Labor for bowing to the Greens on environmental policy it views as extreme.

Opposition environment spokesman Jonno Duniam called the native logging push “extreme left politics”.

“Anthony Albanese backed forestry at the last election, now he needs to stand up to his woke Labor members to protect our sustainable timber industry,” he said.

“Where are we going to get our coffee tables, staircases, floorboards and reams of paper from if this industry dies? Places like the Congo basin, where they don’t share our industry’s world-leading commitment to sustainability?”

The Nationals say the agriculture sector is already working towards net-zero emissions and imposing stronger targets would mean herd culls and increased meat prices.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is also pushing the government to sign an international treaty banning weapons of mass destruction, something Mr Albanese committed to in opposition.

Director Gem Romuld said there would be a renewed push at the conference to reaffirm the position after the party outlined a pathway to acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.

Australia has strenuously denied the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines breached Australia’s non-proliferation commitments and emphatically rejected that the plan under the AUKUS agreement would lead to nuclear weapons.

The Albanese government maintains it is committed to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation but has not put a timeline on signing the ban treaty with a number of caveats remaining.

The conference will be held over three days in Brisbane with policy debates spanning the economy, health, foreign affairs, climate and workplace relations.

Party national president Wayne Swan said the federal parliamentary ALP would draw upon the platform as it prioritised its policy agenda.

“This conference will succeed by delivering a Labor platform built on the belief government must step in and provide the means for reducing economic insecurity and inequality,” he said in a statement for the conference guide.

– AAP