{"id":610407,"date":"2026-04-16T09:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/610407\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T09:29:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:29:15","slug":"paul-keating-labels-the-coalition-migration-policy-as-cowardly-and-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/610407\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Keating labels the Coalition migration policy as \u2018cowardly and racist\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

April 16, 2026 \u2014 3:32pm<\/p>\n

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Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating has accused Angus Taylor of cowardice and racism over his plans to overhaul the nation\u2019s migration system, saying the Liberal Party is simply copying the \u201cdumb bigotry\u201d of Pauline Hanson.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer prime minister Paul Keating and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor.Michael Howard<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He has emphasised that his policy does not discriminate on the grounds of race or religion, but has also dialled up the Coalition\u2019s rhetoric by claiming that people from liberal democracies were more likely to integrate into Australian society, while describing many migrants as \u201cself-serving\u201d and a drain on the nation.<\/p>\n

But Keating, in some of his most strident commentary, said the Liberal Party\u2019s new policy was based on racism and simply aimed at winning support from One Nation voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Liberal Party, battling an extreme version of itself \u2013 One Nation, has again fallen back to its default political policy: racism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Keating went further in his attack on Taylor, saying that he was ignoring the Liberal Party\u2019s long history of supporting immigration in a move that meant he was unfit to lead the nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAngus Taylor, for base political reasons, has elected to walk away from the best instincts of the Liberal Party \u2013 the party of Robert Menzies, of Harold Holt, of Malcolm Fraser, of Andrew Peacock, of Brendan Nelson, of Malcolm Turnbull,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy 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\u2019s unifying values.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Home<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHow dispiriting for the rest of us is Angus Taylor\u2019s cowardice in not even attempting to stand and argue for principles that have been integral to Australia\u2019s strength – principles his party has long championed.\u201d<\/p>\n

As One Nation usurps the Coalition in all major national opinion polls<\/a>, Taylor and his colleagues this week attempted to put distance between Hanson\u2019s rise and their decision to unveil a migration policy that went to new lengths to tighten entry to the country.<\/p>\n

But in an interview with radio station 4BC on Wednesday afternoon, Taylor acknowledged that voters flocking to One Nation had influenced the Coalition\u2019s thinking. \u201cWe want to regain the trust of those people who are thinking about voting One Nation in the future and I know we\u2019ve got to do hard work to achieve that,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019ve announced what I have in the last 24 hours. It\u2019s why we\u2019ve got to put Australian values at the centre of our immigration system. It\u2019s why we\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Keating said Taylor and the Coalition were following Hanson\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n

He accused Hanson, who first entered parliament in the election Keating\u2019s government was swept from office, of offering voters nothing but a mythical view of the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA 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.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Opposition<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cRacism 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 \u2013 in some way born differently, of some alien biology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor responded on social media on Thursday evening, saying he \u201calways suspected that Paul Keating didn\u2019t support Australian values\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo suggest it is \u2018racist\u2019 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,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

Hanson has also accused Taylor of copying her policies \u2013 although she claimed he wouldn\u2019t deliver on them \u2013 while his immigration plan otherwise earned the condemnation of Labor, the Greens and refugee advocates.<\/p>\n

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"ShaneShane Wright<\/a> is a senior economics correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.\"NatassiaNatassia Chrysanthos<\/a> is Federal Political Correspondent. She has previously reported on immigration, health, social issues and the NDIS from Parliament House in Canberra.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 16, 2026 \u2014 3:32pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-610407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}