{"id":675167,"date":"2026-05-16T18:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T18:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/675167\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T18:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T18:02:18","slug":"multicultural-leaders-decry-coalition-migration-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/675167\/","title":{"rendered":"Multicultural leaders decry Coalition migration policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Coalition\u2019s plan to tie migration to housing completions and bar non-citizens from welfare programs is a \u201cshameful\u201d choice that makes immigrants feel less safe and damages social cohesion, multicultural leaders say.<\/p>\n

The long-awaited announcement of the opposition\u2019s immigration policy came days after the Liberals lost the Farrer byelection to a resurgent One Nation. There, Pauline Hanson\u2019s party campaigned extensively on slashing migration rates to less than half the current setting.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe founder of charity Turbans 4 Australia, Amar Singh. Ben Symons<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s shameful that these politicians are targeting future Australians, people who are on valid visas that are paying taxes, giving back, and yet they are not being treated as human beings,\u201d said Amar Singh, founder of the charity Turbans 4 Australia and winner of Australia\u2019s 2023 Local Hero award.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really hurting the community\u2019s sentiment and mental health, this constant battering about migration. Every migrant feels that pain. We always get pointed out for everything, but at the end of the day, Australia is built on migration.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his budget reply speech on Thursday night, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor announced that the Coalition, if elected, would link net overseas migration with the number of housing completions. Net overseas migration is the number of arrivals who stay for more than a year, including returning Australian citizens, minus the number of departures who leave for more than a year.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThis much I promise: the Coalition will deliver one of the biggest cuts to immigration in Australian history. Our immigration cut will complement our plan to lift immigration standards,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n

He also stated a desire to \u201cprocess and deport 70,000 overstayers\u201d, along with a policy of barring non-citizens from accessing 17 social welfare programs, including the Aged Pension, JobSeeker and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.<\/p>\n

Net overseas migration peaked at 555,800 in late 2023, following border closures during the COVID pandemic. The number has since fallen, though this financial year\u2019s rate of 295,000 is 35,000 higher than forecast<\/a>. Hanson has campaigned on a figure of 130,000 net migrants a year.<\/p>\n

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on Friday that migration numbers had been too high in recent years and that settings were now being \u201ctailored to the needs of the country\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey peaked under the immigration settings of the previous government, and since then, we\u2019ve been taking action to be able to bring those numbers down to sustainable levels,\u201d Burke said.<\/p>\n

\"SecretarySecretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association Gamel Kheir.Dion Georgopoulos<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one permanent resident that Angus Taylor seems happy with is Pauline Hanson, who\u2019s a permanent resident in his head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singh joined Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir and human rights lawyer Khushaal Vyas in accusing Taylor of using his budget reply speech as a dog whistle to One Nation voters, and framing multicultural communities as scapegoats for the housing crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a defender of the Labor Party, but it shows how far down the ring [the Coalition] have gone that they have become the effective copy of One Nation,\u201d Kheir said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe community sentiment is that we are sick to death of being the punching bag of all the ills of this country. All the ills of the world have, somehow, to do with migration,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kheir said he was insulted that immigrants were being blamed for the housing crisis instead of successive governments that failed to act.<\/p>\n

Vyas argued that migrants were willing to have a conversation about migration, with many espousing conservative views that might favour the Coalition or One Nation. However, he felt Taylor\u2019s rhetoric was \u201ccausing harm to the social harmony Australia is known for\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a target on migrants\u2019 backs: the reason things are so expensive, or we can\u2019t afford housing, is because of migrants,\u201d Vyas said.<\/p>\n

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

Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume confirmed on Friday that the policy of barring non-citizens from social welfare programs would not apply to Medicare, and that it would not result in permanent residents who now live in Australia being stripped of their benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about future migrants \u2026 I think a lot of Australians would be surprised to know that some of these benefits, some very expensive and very generous benefits, are available to permanent residents now,\u201d Hume told the ABC.<\/p>\n

Jimmy Li, president of Victoria\u2019s Chinese Community Council of Australia, said he found the move \u201cparticularly alarming\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPermanent residents make the same contributions to Australia as citizens. They work hard, they raise families, they pay the same rate of taxes. They make contributions to Australian society and communities, and they should be treated the same as citizens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Li said that many permanent residents faced administrative hurdles in applying for citizenship, but this did not mean they didn\u2019t see Australia as their home.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo remove them from the welfare services will create division \u2026 Permanent residents are part of Australian society in every way. It\u2019s not helpful in my view,\u201d he said.<\/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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\"NickNick Newling<\/a> is a federal politics reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-675167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675167","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=675167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}