David Lockwood argues that the latest anti-immigrant spray from Angus Taylor is not reducible to racism, but is about national chauvinism and state-loyalty.
Immigration has always been a useful weapon for the Liberal Party. Its supporters mostly believe that there are too many immigrants. So, blaming the numbers of immigrants for poor social services, lack of housing, crowded hospitals and transport problems has been seen as a sure-fire vote winner to carve out sections of the working class to support a ruling class party. Especially as it provides an opportunity for some quiet dog-whistling against black and brown people on the side. The Liberals have to be careful here though, as immigration is not only essential for the economy – it positively improves its functioning. And increasingly, the Liberal Party attempts to win elections by appealing to conservative elements among recent immigrant populations.
During the 2024 election campaign, then Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, made some unwise statements on immigration (promising to halve the intake), which he then had to retract. But the importance of the issue to the Liberals, amid increasing pressure from One Nation, makes sure it remains on its agenda.
The next leader, Sussan Ley, took up the anti-immigrant cudgels in the wake of her party’s crushing defeat in the May 2025 election.
Ley apparently adopted a plan which would have banned immigration from 13 named regions and countries – the kind of war-torn, desperately poor trouble-spots that people want to get away from. Even some Liberals objected to this, fearing its effect on humanitarian and family reunion visas (and the voters applying for them) and on Australia’s international standing. Undaunted, Ley was all ready to release it last December. But this was interrupted by the Bondi shootings, the split in the coalition and Ley’s ejection from the Liberal leadership.
After a short interval, an undaunted Angus Taylor presented the Liberal Party’s most recent offering. Playing safe, he didn’t bother with any pesky graphs and numbers. He simply declared that immigration numbers must be drastically reduced “to protect our way of life – and to restore Australia’s standard of living”. And this will be done, not on the basis of nationality or race or religion, but on who would-be immigrants are and what they believe.
He told his receptive audience (which included John Howard, grinning like a demented Cheshire cat from the front row), “for an immigration policy to work in the national interest it must discriminate based on values”. We must stop admitting those without “a noble intent”, those who will be “a net drain” on Australia and those who will not “integrate with the rest of our great country”.
The rest of the statement on immigration, as noted by ABC journalist Maani Truu, “represents a slight ratcheting up of the status quo”.
What are the Australian values by which Australia should judge the rest of the world and those who would want to make these shores their home? Taylor said they included: freedom of speech, association and faith; commitment to the rule of law; acting with tolerance; and upholding equal opportunity. He left out (but the Liberal Party statement included) support for parliamentary democracy. All well and good, you might think – though clearly there are sections of the current Australian population who could question whether all these values apply to them: First Nations people, workers, women, the unemployed, the homeless – and immigrants themselves. But remember, Angus is talking about ‘Our Values’ as they apply to those outside the borders of our great country. They are the ones who must subscribe to Taylor’s charter before being granted the prize of entry.
Herein lies the crucial point of his policy: a judgement on the suitability of immigrants on the basis of their beliefs and the use of that judgement as a control mechanism. If that is not done, Taylor argues, then “our door will be opened to migrants of subversive intent”. And Angus knows where they come from. He said: “Those who migrate from liberal democracies have a greater likelihood of subscribing to Australian values compared to those migrating from places ruled by fundamentalists, extremists, and dictators.”
This is clearly a call to increase immigration from countries that will deliver migrants the Liberal Party expects will be state-loyalists. As well as the nice, liberal democracies of the developed world, this includes a hopefully compliant workforce from India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Not simply racist
To argue, therefore, that this policy is simply ‘racist’ misses the fundamental point. This policy is fundamentally national chauvinist and attempts to lock migrants into a loyalty to the existing constitutional order. No doubt this policy includes an inherent racist dog-whistle to exclude Arabs and Muslims from the Middle East, but it is not simply a return to the White Australia policy.
If the left merely fights this on the basis of anti-racism, it will have missed its fundamental point.
Yes, it seeks to exclude many from the suffering hotspots of the Global South. Yet it also contradicts itself. The overwhelming number of people trying to move out of dictatorships or failed states and into Western-style democracies are presumably doing so to get away from authoritarian systems of government, rather than to take those systems with them.
The list of those targeted (in Taylor’s speech and in Liberal Party statements afterwards) for not having our values is a long one: the Bondi terrorists, radicals, Islamic preachers, genocidal marchers (this seems to refer to Palestine solidarity activists), radicals, antisemites, extremists, those with dodgy social media accounts, subversives, those who preach political correctness on immigration and radicals.
Taylor was studiedly (and probably wisely) vague on how a Liberal government would implement this. But there were a few hints.
He specifically singled out the recent refugees from Gaza for hostile attention. He said: “The Gazan cohort of 1,700 people here on visas presents a high-risk to our nation. That cohort must be reassessed entirely with far greater scrutiny.” So we can expect even refugees from the direst of circumstances (attempted genocide, for example) to be closely questioned on their commitment to democracy and the rule of law.
Further, he declared, “The Coalition will establish an Enhanced Security Screening Centre. Using the full suite of intelligence, screening, and enforcement capabilities, the centre will stop radicals, extremists, and terrorists from entering our country.” And if that doesn’t work: “We will establish a Joint Agency Taskforce to kick unlawful overstayers out of the country.”
When asked whether all this would resemble the Trump administration’s Gestapo-style ICE agency, he didn’t say it would … but he didn’t rule it out.
Taylor said he was “appalled by revelations that nearly 50,000 non-citizens have used Labor’s first home 5% Deposit Scheme”. This scheme “should be reserved for Australian citizens”, he said. (An idea half-borrowed from One Nation – and Pauline Hanson duly claimed credit for it the next day.)
He hinted darkly of the necessity to reconsider “how we allocate taxpayer-funded support”. And he promised: “This is just the start, we will look at further measures to reserve key social and economic entitlements for Australian citizens.”
This Liberal policy is intended to reduce immigration numbers. It is, for the moment, electorally unacceptable to do so on race grounds, so it will be done through the enforcement of ‘Australian values’; significantly amorphous to allow indiscriminate application to ‘undesirables’.
Liberal party members and voters might be comforted by the idea that those values are more likely to be held by white people rather than black or brown people. One Nation members and voters might be pleased with the dog-whistling directed for their benefit. The fact that it is certainly untrue is of no account.
A future Liberal government (Lord protect us) would be forced to manage the demands of Australian capital for a steady supply of labour from outside our borders.