{"id":613269,"date":"2026-04-17T16:33:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T16:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/613269\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T16:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T16:33:11","slug":"liberals-can-rule-again-if-they-take-a-simple-lesson-from-their-defeat-but-taylors-trumpian-plan-strays-from-the-light-tom-mcilroy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/613269\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberals can rule again if they take a simple lesson from their defeat \u2013 but Taylor\u2019s Trumpian plan strays from the light | Tom McIlroy"},"content":{"rendered":"

When copies of the Liberal party\u2019s review into Peter Dutton\u2019s election defeat<\/a> started being passed around in Canberra earlier this year, journalists could hardly believe what they were reading.<\/p>\n

Page after page detailed where the Coalition<\/a> had gone badly wrong, in often blunt and headline-worthy language. It was not surprising Dutton and Liberal elders tried to keep the document secret.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe party\u2019s capacity to thoughtlessly offend groups, including the Chinese, was \u2026 a widespread problem,\u201d the review said on page 36. A few paragraphs down, a quote from a submission said campaigning to win multicultural voters was critical, and, \u201cwe will never be back in government until we understand it\u201d.<\/p>\n

Almost as soon as the opposition leader, Angus Taylor<\/a>, started talking about immigration this week, it felt as though he had ignored the review\u2019s warnings and was bound to repeat some of Dutton\u2019s mistakes.<\/p>\n

In trying to stop the tide of Coalition voters moving across to Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation, Taylor painted a grim picture of migration and multiculturalism<\/a> in Australia that fits more with his tenuous political position than the state of the country.<\/p>\n

Parts of the next election campaign postmortem might be being written already<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In his speech to the Menzies Research Centre on Tuesday, Taylor said too many people seek to use Australia\u2019s generosity \u201cfor self-serving purposes\u201d and promised to speed up rejections of asylum seekers from countries deemed \u201csafe\u201d to return to.<\/p>\n

Amid population pressures and infrastructure squeezes, Taylor claimed Australia has for too long \u201cturned a blind eye to a reality of immigration and integration\u201d and that it was \u201ctime to take back control from the technocrats, bureaucrats and activists\u201d.<\/p>\n

Among the most controversial parts of the speech was the suggestion that migrants coming from liberal democracies have \u201ca greater likelihood of subscribing to Australian values compared to those migrating from places ruled by fundamentalists, extremists and dictators.\u201d<\/p>\n

In what sounded like reworked One Nation talking points, he alleged some migrants had \u201csubversive intent\u201d and came to change Australia for the worse. Asked who he believed should not be in the country, the Liberal leader pointed to the Bondi beach gunmen, one of whom was born here, while the other migrated from India in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n

double quotation markTwo elections ago, the Liberal party comfortably held the top five Chinese-Australian electorates. Today, it holds none.<\/p>\n

Labor quickly circulated headlines about the speech on social media, pointing out that \u2013 in a country where more than 50% of people are born overseas or have at least one migrant parent \u2013 it was tone deaf to the extreme to suggest those who moved to get away from authoritarianism and oppression had \u201cself-serving purposes\u201d in mind.<\/p>\n

The Liberals have already lost key seats due to bad messaging<\/a>. Two elections ago, the party comfortably held the top five Chinese-Australian electorates. Today, it holds none.<\/p>\n

After criticism that his predecessor, Sussan Ley, had been too slow to release opposition policies, Taylor used the first instalment of the immigration pitch to assert himself with voters, demonstrate his conservative credentials within the party room and push back on One Nation ahead of next month\u2019s Farrer byelection<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Longer term, the strategy is ripe for exploitation by Labor and the teals in the multicultural and metropolitan electorates that the Coalition needs in order to win government again.<\/p>\n

The Coalition plan<\/a> would make compliance with the government\u2019s Australian values statement a binding requirement for all visa holders, including prescribing behaviours in the Migration Act that would constitute breaches of the rules.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how tests of \u201ca fair go for all\u201d or mutual respect, tolerance and compassion for those in need would be measured.<\/p>\n

Taylor said that speaking English was necessary to integration, pledging to make language skills an obligation for all permanent residents. Language skills are already required in work and study visas, as well as for people becoming Australian citizens.<\/p>\n

Warning voters were \u201cfed up with politically correct preaching\u201d on overseas arrivals, he probably struck the right chord for some Australians who feel concerned about the direction the country is heading.<\/p>\n

Taylor is right that an issue as important as immigration should be subject to appropriate debate, without claims of racism, but his own message is undermined by the Coalition\u2019s use of exaggerated figures and allegations of so-called \u201cmass migration\u201d settings.<\/p>\n

Even some Liberals, including Paul Scarr<\/a> and Andrew McLachlan<\/a>, have criticised the phrase.<\/p>\n

Taylor accused Labor of having opened the migration floodgates and bringing in 1.4 million people in less than four years. These numbers include the surge in temporary migrants after Covid-era border restrictions ended \u2013 an influx that would have occurred regardless of who was in government.<\/p>\n

The former prime minister Paul Keating lashed Taylor, using a searing statement to accuse him of cowardice and racism<\/a>. He said the Coalition was abandoning principles that have been integral to Australia\u2019s strength, joining up to Hanson\u2019s \u201cdumb bigotry\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last month\u2019s Guardian Essential poll found 53% of Australians believe the country is on the wrong track. A DemosAU poll for Capital Brief on Friday put immigration as the fourth most pressing issue facing Australia today, behind cost of living, fuel prices and housing affordability.<\/p>\n

The same group of respondents were asked which issue they believe is more to blame for the shortage of affordable housing in Australia: 51% said immigration, ahead of tax breaks for property investors at 29% (20% said they were unsure).<\/p>\n

The election review, by Liberal elders Pru Goward and Nick Minchin, also highlights another danger zone for Taylor. It labelled Dutton unattractive to key voter groups, including women, and said the Liberals paid a price for the leader\u2019s policy and stylistic similarities to the US president, Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reporting around Taylor\u2019s speech likened plans to vet the social media accounts of would-be migrants to Trump\u2019s hardline border policies, while his plans for enhanced screening and powers for law enforcement agencies to track down and deport non-citizens were quickly likened to Trump\u2019s brutal ICE agenda.<\/p>\n

Before everything went to custard with threats of legal action and attempts to cover up the Liberal review, it gave the party a clear pointer for the next election: \u201cSuccessful campaigns are based on a relatively straightforward rule \u2013 get the right message to the right people in the right place at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of the 2028 election, whether the Liberals decide to repeat the mistakes of 2025 could come down to exactly that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When copies of the Liberal party\u2019s review into Peter Dutton\u2019s election defeat started being passed around in Canberra…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-613269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613269","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=613269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}