Exiles poised to return to fore as Liberals shift right
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor will soon unveil his revamped frontbench as he signals a shift to the right by focusing on issues such as immigration.
The newly elected Liberal leader has spent his first few days in office outlining key priorities after sacking the party’s first female leader, Sussan Ley, on Friday following weeks of infighting.
The policy announcements are expected to be accompanied by a revamped frontline team, with exiled conservatives and leadership agitators Andrew Hastie and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price set to return.
“They are fantastic members of our team,” Mr. Taylor said Sunday of the pair, whose previous preliminary team ended due to immigration issues.
While Mr. Taylor has offered few details about his party’s approach, he has promised to pursue a tougher immigration policy and has repeatedly pointed to the country’s plans to reduce immigration and tighten screenings.
“The (immigration) numbers under Labor have been extraordinary – far beyond what this country can handle,” he said.
“The standards are too low, the numbers are too high, and we have not openly closed the door on people who reject our way of life.”
The Hume MP said he would announce a full policy “in the coming days”.
Mr Taylor insisted the coalition was not trying to be “One Nation light” as it poured voter support into the anti-immigrant party.
The first poll published by the Nine newspaper on Monday since Mr Taylor became Liberal leader showed Labor with 32 per cent of the primary vote and the coalition with One Nation on 23 per cent.
The Resolve poll of 1,800 people, conducted between February 8 and Saturday, found the coalition led by Mr Taylor was three percentage points ahead of the opposition led by Ms Ley.
One Nation recorded 27 per cent primary support in the last News Poll taken before Mr Taylor ousted Ms Ley as leader; The coalition remained at 18 percent.
Former senior immigration official Abul Rizvi said Mr Taylor’s tough stance on immigrants was directly influenced by the rise of One Nation.
“He reads the polls as closely as anyone,” Mr Rizvi told AAP.
But he noted that strong character requirements already existed for immigrants seeking to enter Australia and that these conditions had only been tightened by anti-hate crime laws introduced after the Bondi terror attack.
Mr Rizvi said Labour’s previous coalition government had also tightened policies on student and working holiday visas, leading to a huge increase in migration to Australia in 2022-23.
“Mr Taylor may have forgotten that his government has also introduced free student visa applications and free working holiday applications,” he said.
“The Labor government was slow to reverse these policies but got rid of them.”
Mr Taylor and MP Jane Hume have also repeatedly promised lower taxes, a renewed focus on housing affordability and an end to the “ideological approach” to energy policies.
Senator Hume said Australia needed to keep an “open mind” on nuclear energy if it wanted to cut emissions and make electricity cheaper.
Australia’s Associated Press is the beating heart of Australian news. AAP is Australia’s only independent national news channel and has been providing accurate, reliable and fast-paced news content to the media industry, government and corporate sector for 85 years. We inform Australia.
