April 16, 2026 — 3:32pm
Save
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.
Remove items from your saved list to add more.
Save this article for later
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.
Got it
AAA
Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating has accused Angus Taylor of cowardice and racism over his plans to overhaul the nation’s migration system, saying the Liberal Party is simply copying the “dumb bigotry” of Pauline Hanson.
In a statement released on Thursday afternoon, Keating, who served as prime minister between 1991 and 1996, said Taylor had deserted the tradition of Liberal luminaries Robert Menzies and Harold Holt with a policy that was at odds with an immigrant nation and which was an echo of Donald Trump.
Former prime minister Paul Keating and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor.Michael Howard
Taylor this week conceded he was trying to win back potential One Nation voters by unveiling a hardline immigration policy that would overturn long-standing precedent by discriminating against prospective migrants based on their values.
He has emphasised that his policy does not discriminate on the grounds of race or religion, but has also dialled up the Coalition’s rhetoric by claiming that people from liberal democracies were more likely to integrate into Australian society, while describing many migrants as “self-serving” and a drain on the nation.
But Keating, in some of his most strident commentary, said the Liberal Party’s new policy was based on racism and simply aimed at winning support from One Nation voters.
“The Liberal Party, battling an extreme version of itself – One Nation, has again fallen back to its default political policy: racism,” he said.
Keating went further in his attack on Taylor, saying that he was ignoring the Liberal Party’s long history of supporting immigration in a move that meant he was unfit to lead the nation.
“Angus Taylor, for base political reasons, has elected to walk away from the best instincts of the Liberal Party – the party of Robert Menzies, of Harold Holt, of Malcolm Fraser, of Andrew Peacock, of Brendan Nelson, of Malcolm Turnbull,” he said.
“By adopting racism with its shabby appeal to differentiation and primal instincts, Angus Taylor marks himself out as a political leader unworthy of the leadership of a party that has managed Australia for the greater part of the last century and which celebrated the country’s unifying values.
Related Article
“How dispiriting for the rest of us is Angus Taylor’s cowardice in not even attempting to stand and argue for principles that have been integral to Australia’s strength – principles his party has long championed.”
As One Nation usurps the Coalition in all major national opinion polls, Taylor and his colleagues this week attempted to put distance between Hanson’s rise and their decision to unveil a migration policy that went to new lengths to tighten entry to the country.
But in an interview with radio station 4BC on Wednesday afternoon, Taylor acknowledged that voters flocking to One Nation had influenced the Coalition’s thinking. “We want to regain the trust of those people who are thinking about voting One Nation in the future and I know we’ve got to do hard work to achieve that,” Taylor said.
“That’s why I’ve announced what I have in the last 24 hours. It’s why we’ve got to put Australian values at the centre of our immigration system. It’s why we’ve got to put up the red light to radicals and not let them into the country. This is all about making sure that we can restore trust in voters in the Liberal Party and the National Party.”
The Coalition plan would make complying with the Australian Values Statement a binding condition of holding a visa, compel permanent residents to learn English, and introduce tougher vetting measures and social media screening for new migrants.
Keating said Taylor and the Coalition were following Hanson’s lead.
He accused Hanson, who first entered parliament in the election Keating’s government was swept from office, of offering voters nothing but a mythical view of the past.
“The blight of Pauline Hanson is that her dumb bigotry offers a fantasy. The fantasy that Australia in the modern age can return to a monoculture,” he said.
“A monoculture which fails to acknowledge or accept that a continent of our scale is able to turn its back on the multilateralism of neighbouring states or on the vitality of their societies. And, more than that, shun them while disparaging any contribution they may make or bring to us as migrants.
Related Article
“Racism is not simply immoral and abhorrent, it is absurd. The notion that some of us are in some way different to the rest of us – in some way born differently, of some alien biology.”
Taylor responded on social media on Thursday evening, saying he “always suspected that Paul Keating didn’t support Australian values”.
“To suggest it is ‘racist’ to put Australian values at the centre of our immigration policy shows just how out of touch he is with Australians, as is the Labor Party,” he wrote on X.
Hanson has also accused Taylor of copying her policies – although she claimed he wouldn’t deliver on them – while his immigration plan otherwise earned the condemnation of Labor, the Greens and refugee advocates.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.
Save
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.
Remove items from your saved list to add more.
Shane Wright is a senior economics correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.
Natassia Chrysanthos is Federal Political Correspondent. She has previously reported on immigration, health, social issues and the NDIS from Parliament House in Canberra.Connect via X or email.From our partners