A Liberal senator has broken ranks to criticise Angus Taylor’s plan to bar non-citizens from accessing welfare, warning the policy would create “two types of members of the community” and is “not the Australian way”.
The outspoken backbencher, South Australian senator Andrew McLachlan, told ABC’s RN Breakfast on Tuesday that he holds “deep concerns” about the Coalition’s proposed welfare restrictions, arguing they risked “a form of a strata-ing of our society”. His intervention came as the opposition leader defended the policy and his use of the term “mass migration” to describe current arrival rates.
Senator warns of ‘two-tiered’ Australia
McLachlan, who represents a multicultural community, said the plan to limit the national disability insurance scheme and 17 welfare programs – including jobseeker, the age pension, disability support and parenting payments – to Australian citizens would create a damaging divide. “If you’re both contributing to the wealth of the nation and [only] one is entitled to certain entitlements, you could have almost a form of a strata-ing of our society,” he said. “I’m not sure that’s the Australian way, or what our communities want.”
The senator warned that the Coalition’s immigration rhetoric was alienating diaspora communities that had abandoned the Liberal party in large numbers at the past two elections. He rejected the idea that migrants should be blamed for economic problems, including the housing crisis. “I don’t think we should take a negative approach to migration,” he said. “Certainly, it should be controlled, and we don’t want to invite people here without giving them a society that can accommodate them both economically and culturally, but we cannot continue to blame migrants for the problems of our economy.”
McLachlan has previously described the repeated use of the phrase “mass migration” as “technically inaccurate” and “extremely unhelpful”, warning it could be used to disguise more dangerous sentiments. He also sent a direct message to Liberals considering defecting to One Nation after former colleague Hollie Hughes and former party vice-president Teena McQueen joined Pauline Hanson’s party. “You’re making a mistake,” he told them. “If you want to share Liberal values, then you shouldn’t be looking for a false path and a wide path, which does not contain policy that will advance Australians’ lives.”
Taylor defends ‘citizens first’ approach
Angus Taylor brushed off his colleague’s concerns on Tuesday as he defended the policy, which he made a centrepiece of his budget reply speech last week. The opposition leader promised to dramatically reduce the temporary immigration intake by tying it to housing construction, and to restrict welfare access to Australian citizens, if the Coalition wins the next election. That would bar migrants – including permanent residents – from the NDIS, jobseeker, the age pension, disability support and parenting payments, even if they had paid tax.
Taylor argued it was in the national interest to “put citizens first”. “Citizenship matters in this country and we welcome those who commit to citizenship, we will commit to them,” he told reporters. He claimed the policy would create “many billions of savings” to fund tax breaks. When asked about the effect on migrant communities, he said his rhetoric “only alienates the government that has got it wrong, this is nothing to do with [migrant] communities”.
Coalition frontbenchers have argued that the welfare ban – which would not apply to people already accessing payments – would incentivise migrants to take up citizenship. However, gaining Australian citizenship requires someone to have been living in Australia on a valid visa for at least four years immediately before the day they apply, meaning even aspiring citizens who begin their application as soon as possible could be without help for at least four years. Some countries, including China and India, do not recognise dual citizenship, meaning applicants would forfeit rights in their home nation after taking the pledge in Australia. Taylor has clarified that permanent residents would need to “pledge and become a citizen” to access welfare, stating that “you become Australian when you pledge”.
Broader implications for community and economy
Migrant groups last week condemned the Coalition’s policy as “a dangerous escalation of dog-whistle politics that targets communities of colour” rather than a serious answer to the housing crisis. “We are not in Trump’s America,” said Noura Mansour, national director of Democracy in Colour. The organisation advocates for a migration system that provides stability, good working conditions, a living wage, access to healthcare and a safety net for all migrants. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre has called Taylor’s claims about welfare access by newly arrived migrants a “blatant lie”, noting that most migrants already face lengthy waiting periods for welfare payments.
The internal party stoush came as a parliamentary inquiry into skilled migration heard warnings that slashing the immigration intake would cause a crisis in the care sector. “Migrants didn’t cause the housing crisis and reducing migration isn’t going to solve the housing crisis, but what it will give us is a care crisis,” Leah Williams Veazey, a sociologist at the University of Sydney, told a hearing on Tuesday. “We already have incredible shortages of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and other allied health workers.” The Business Council of Australia has also warned that significant cuts to migration could worsen existing workforce shortages, noting that one in three occupations face skills shortages and that skilled migrants are essential for building homes, caring for the elderly and keeping essential services running. The council argues that the solution is to align population growth with housing and infrastructure development by building more homes, rather than reducing migration.
The minister for multicultural affairs, Anne Aly, accused Taylor of casting permanent residents as “unworthy” and a “burden” on the country. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Taylor’s budget reply announcements were focused on “fighting One Nation”. “We need to not seek to divide Australians, we need to seek to bring Australians together,” he said.
Some Liberal MPs now believe One Nation’s Pauline Hanson is dictating their party’s agenda. One Nation advocates for a significant reduction in immigration, capping visas at 130,000 per year, deporting illegal migrants and introducing an eight-year waiting period for citizenship and welfare. Hanson has previously stated there are “no good Muslims”. The aged care sector, which relies heavily on migrant workers to maintain staffing levels, faces particular risk. The Council for Economic Development of Australia has found that aged care labour agreements are failing to address critical workforce shortages, with Australia needing a substantial increase in aged care workers by 2050 that the domestic workforce alone cannot supply.
