In brief
- Immigration Minister Tony Burke has launched a staunch defence of the benefits of migration to Australia.
- Opposition leader Angus Taylor announced on Tuesday that his party would seek a harsh overhaul of the immigration system.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has said Australia would be a "a very different country" without immigration, in a stern rebuttal to tough new immigration policies announced by the federal Opposition on Tuesday.
Speaking at a press conference in Sydney on Wednesday, Burke spoke of the benefits migration brings to "multicultural Australia".
"Modern Australia and multicultural Australia are the same thing," Burke said. "When people say they love Australia, and I do, and almost everybody on this continent does, modern Australia is what they're loving.
"We are a multicultural nation. Without immigration, we would be a very different country."
Opposition leader Angus Taylor used his first major policy speech on Tuesday to argue that Australia's migration system has been exploited by "self-serving" arrivals.
He proposed a hardline crackdown which would include what has been criticised as a Trump-like vetting of social media profiles, tougher deportation measures, and a stricter test of adherence to national values.
"For too long we’ve turned a blind eye to the reality of immigration and integration," Taylor said as he outlined his Australian Values Migration Plan at the Menzies Research Centre in Canberra.
"Those who migrate from liberal democracies have a greater likelihood of subscribing to Australian values compared to those coming from other places."
Taylor went on to single out the "Gazan cohort" and stated that there are two kinds of migrants: the "noble and patriotic" and those "of subversive intent".
The speech was heavily criticised by Burke, who said that it was a play to appeal to Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party supporters.
"That liberal democracy line is wanting to take Australia in a different direction, and that is not who we are," Burke continued on Wednesday. "What matters is who you are, not where you're from."
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties also condemned the plan, describing it as a "Trumpian" assault on civil liberties.
"Vetting social media and making vague 'values' a binding visa condition is a poor attempt at cover for the Coalition to shamefully discriminate against the migrants they do not like," council president Timothy Roberts said.
"This terrible vision for Australia is steeped in racism and a call back to a dark part of our history that we should be ashamed of and seek to learn from so it never happens again. Not a vision that we should replicate."
Aftab Malik, Australia's special envoy to combat Islamophobia, joined the criticisms of Taylor's proposal, describing it as "relying on Islamophobic tropes that vilify and dehumanise the Palestinian community".
"The emergence of increasingly hardline and competing rhetoric across parts of the political spectrum risks normalising division rather than addressing the real challenges facing our nation," Malik said in a statement.
"A measured and responsible approach grounded in evidence, fairness, and social cohesion is essential to maintaining public trust and upholding the values that underpin Australian society."
Pauline Hanson told Sydney's 2SM radio on Tuesday that she had no doubt "whatsoever" that the rising popularity of her right-wing party had prompted the Coalition's new stance, but claimed that it would not help them win back the trust of voters.
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