Liberal senator breaks ranks to take aim at Angus Taylor’s ‘negative’ rhetoric on immigration

Liberal senator Andrew McLachlan has broken ranks to criticise Angus Taylor’s plan to bar non-citizens from accessing welfare, warning it will create “two types of members of the community” and is “not the Australian way”.

Taylor made immigration a centrepiece of his budget reply speech last week. He promised to dramatically reduce the temporary immigration intake by tying it to housing construction, and to restrict the national disability and insurance scheme and 17 types of welfare programs to Australian citizens only if the Coalition wins the next election, causing unease among some Liberals MPs who now believe One Nation’s Pauline Hanson is dictating their party’s agenda..

Speaking on ABC’s RN Breakfast on Tuesday, McLachlan warned that Taylor’s citizen-only welfare policy risked creating a two-tiered society, stating that “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”, and how the Coalition’s rhetoric was alienating migrant communities, who have abandoned the Liberal party in droves at the past two elections.

Other Coalition frontbenchers have also argued that the welfare ban, which would not apply to people already accessing the payments, would incentivise migrants to take up citizenship. McLachlan also sent a warning to Liberals considering switching allegiances to One Nation after a former colleague and the former party vice-president joined Hanson’s party, warning that they are looking for a wider path that will divide Australia’s multicultural societal structure.