Angus Taylor vows to deport foreigners who fail to live by Australian values

Foreigners wanting to live in Australia will be deported if they fail to live by Australian values with Liberal leader Angus Taylor also vowing to weed out hate preachers and restrict first-homebuyer help to citizens.

In the presence of 86-year-old former prime minister John Howard, the embattled Opposition Leader laid out a plan to make an Australian values pledge legally enforceable, and compel everyone wanting a visa to submit their social media to immigration authorities.

With Australia in the midst of a housing affordability crisis, Mr Taylor also promised to ban non-citizens from getting access to a scheme enabling first-homebuyers to buy a property with a five per cent deposit.

He vowed as well to “drastically” cut immigration and ignore a Refugee Convention his own side of politics signed up to during the 1950s.

A former Liberal cabinet minister has told The Nightly that Mr Taylor’s Tuesday speech on immigration was a sign the Coalition was scared of losing former leader Sussan Ley’s southern NSW seat of Farrer at next month’s by-election, with One Nation now consistently outpolling the Liberal and National parties.

Those wishing to become a permanent resident, as a path to citizenship, are now required to sign a statement declaring their support for democracy, the rule of law and equality between the sexes.

But in a headland speech to the Menzies Research Centre, a Liberal Party-aligned think tank, Mr Taylor declared this would be legally binding, with One Nation now consistently outpolling the Coalition.

“For some visa applicants, signing the Australian values statement has simply become a tick box exercise without any intent of applying those values,” Mr Taylor said. “They’re taking us for a ride.”

“The Coalition will make the Australian values statement a legally binding, enforceable visa condition for all temporary and permanent visa holders.”

With Australia in the grip of a housing crisis, Mr Taylor also vowed a Coalition government would close a loophole allowing permanent residents to access Labor’s five per cent deposit scheme for first-homebuyers.

“Such a loan scheme, financed by the Australian taxpayer, should be reserved for Australian citizens,” he said to applause at Martin Place venue with panoramic views of Sydney Harbour.

In the wake of the Bondi massacre in December, he also vowed to crack down on radical preachers by looking through the social media of those wanting to move to Australia.

“The Bondi Beach terrorist attack. Radical Islamic preachers espousing hate with impunity,” he said.

“Genocidal marches in major cities. Anti-Semitism across Australian communities.

“These are the ramifications of an immigration system where standards have eroded.”

To combat this, he promised that a Coalition government would establish an enhanced security screening centre, with new intelligence-gathering powers to “stop radicals and terrorists from entering our country”.

He also promised to reintroduce temporary protection visas and make learning English “an obligation for permanent visa holders, not an option”.

“English is our national language; English is necessary to live, work, integrate into Australian society,” Mr Taylor said.

In an echo of Mr Howard’s 2001 re-election campaign, he vowed refugee status applicants and visa overstayers would lose the ability to tie up the legal system with appeals, despite a previous Coalition government signing up to the 1951 Refugee Convention.

“For those who say we’ll be in breach of the refugee convention, we’ll decide who deserves protection and the circumstances in which that protection is granted,” he said to applause.

“It’s time to take back control from the technocrats, the bureaucrats and the activists.”

A safe country list would be established to stop frivolous claims and oust overstayers.

“If a citizen of a safe country in Australia makes a protection claim, their application can be expected to be refused and their deportation fast tracked,” he said.

Mr Taylor also warned Australia was in danger of following the trajectory of Europe and the UK where mass migration from countries whose cultures weren’t in keeping with Western values.

“Immigration policy under Labor is dominated by the ideology of cultural relativism — for Labor, all immigration is good immigration and that’s simply not true,” he said.

“Australians are fed up with politically correct preaching on immigration.

“Looking at parts of the UK and Europe, Australians see the erosion of national culture, the Balkanisation of communities that’s come from immigration policies that have not prioritised values.”

A former Liberal minister told The Nightly Mr Taylor’s speech was timed ahead of the May 9 by-election.

“I don’t think the Liberals will win Farrer but their polling is telling them that that’s the most relevant issue and he has to keep hitting it,” the senior party source said.

“I can only assume it’s an issue in Farrer, otherwise he wouldn’t be doing it. For him to be doing this at this time, you can be absolutely certain this is about Farrer and therefore it must be an issue out there.”

The former cabinet minister doubted Mr Taylor could win back One Nation voters with just hardline immigration policies.

“I think it’s more complicated than that. To win back One Nation voters, Angus has to do more than just talk about immigration - he’s got to get rid of his own very complex sentences, his own patronising style, he’s got to sound real.”

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke accused Mr Taylor of pandering to One Nation with Pauline Hanson’s party consistently outpolling the Coalition since last year.

“Mr Taylor’s diatribe has nothing to do with the national interest and is entirely about sending a vibe to One Nation,” he said.

“Millions of Australians will be asking why do the Liberals have a problem with their parents, who don’t speak great English but are great Australians.”

Teal MP Zali Steggall, representing a Sydney north shore seat, accused Mr Taylor of “fuelling hateful and divisive narratives about migration”.

While net overseas immigration hit record high levels approaching 550,000, the numbers more than doubled from 97,444 in 1996 when Mr Howard first came to power to 244,100 by the time the Coalition was defeated in late 2007.

The numbers have remained above 200,000 under both sides of politics, apart from the COVID pandemic.

“I make these observations not to criticise past Australian governments of either colour — including past Coalition governments to which I belonged,” he said.

“After all, governments are a product of their times.

“To protect our way of life — and to restore Australians’ standard of living — we also need to reduce immigration numbers drastically.

“That’s something Labor will never do and we will.”

That statement was misleading with Paul Keating’s Labor government slashing net overseas immigration to just 34,822 in 1993, down from 81,669 two years earlier, during an era of double-digit unemployment after a recession.

Coalition frontbenchers Jonno Duniam, Sarah Henderson and Dave Sharma, and NSW MP Alister Henskens, were present as Mr Taylor questioned the policy of multiculturalism, without pledging to return Australia to a previous policy of assimilation that had existed until Gough Whitlam became Labor prime minister in 1972.

“Past governments blindly repeated mantras about Australia being the world’s most successful multicultural society — and diversity being our strength,” Mr Taylor said.

“Such doctrines saw us open our borders to people who — far from wanting to join and contribute to Australia — have wanted to take from Australia and even change Australia to suit them.”