Coalition leader Angus Taylor has delivered his first budget response, pledging to crack down decisively on migration levels and ban foreign nationals from accessing some welfare benefits.
Key points of Angus Taylor's Budget response
- Enactment of Housing Based Migration Limits: The Coalition plans to cap the amount of net overseas migration adjusted to the annual report on the number of new homes successfully built.
- Welfare restrictions for foreigners: Foreign nationals, including permanent residents, will be barred from accessing 17 types of social assistance, including the NDIS, JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and Family Tax Benefit.
- Housing and Infrastructure Policy: Remove a number of Labor Party housing programs and replace them with a $5 billion housing infrastructure fund. The coalition also promised to slash construction bureaucracy to push down the cost of housebuilding.
- Tougher Migration and Security Rules: Tighten international student rules, prioritize skilled worker visas, deport 70,000 people living beyond the permit period (overstayers), and introduce a “safe country list” to speed up rejection of protection claims.
- Tax Reform: Proposes indexing income taxes to inflation to protect workers from “inflation taxes.”
- Energy and Environment: Pledged to repeal the nuclear ban, increase the defense budget, repeal the hidden carbon tax, as well as speed approval of gas and petroleum projects.
Reactions and Criticism
- One Nation (Pauline Hanson): Accuses the Coalition of lacking vision and merely copycat One Nation's anti-immigration policies in order to win post-election votes.
- Green Party (Mehreen Faruqi): Denounces the policy as a racist move that makes migrants a scapegoat for the cost-of-living and housing crisis, when migrants are also feeling the same impact of the crisis.
- Government/Labour Party (Julian Hill & Jim Chalmers):
- Julian Hill said the policy was not serious, dog whistle politics, and risked provoking retaliation against Australians living abroad.
- Treasurer Jim Chalmers called the budget response a “bin fire” that would increase the deficit, debt, and inflation, and criticized Taylor for not being able to explain the cost details of his tax plan.
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