A Liberal senator has broken ranks to criticise Angus Taylor\u2019s plan to bar non-citizens from accessing welfare, warning it will create \u201ctwo types of members of the community\u201d and is \u201cnot the Australian way\u201d.<\/p>\n
The outspoken backbencher Andrew McLachlan said migrants should not be blamed for economic problems including the housing crisis, and warned his party\u2019s immigration rhetoric was alienating diaspora communities.<\/p>\n
Taylor made immigration<\/a> a centrepiece of his budget reply speech last week. He promised to dramatically reduce the temporary immigration intake by tying it to housing construction, and to restrict the national disability and insurance scheme and 17 types of welfare programs to Australian citizens only if the Coalition wins the next election.<\/p>\n That would bar migrants \u2013 including permanent residents \u2013 from jobseeker, the age pension, disability support, parenting payments and the NDIS, even if they paid tax.<\/p>\n The announcements<\/a> caused unease among some Liberals MPs who now believe One Nation\u2019s Pauline Hanson is dictating their party\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n Speaking on ABC\u2019s RN Breakfast on Tuesday, McLachlan warned that Taylor\u2019s citizen-only welfare policy risked creating a two-tiered society.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI have deep concerns coming from a multicultural community that we are going to create two types of members in the community going forward with this policy suite,\u201d the South Australian senator said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure it leads to a healthy Australian community.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re both contributing to the wealth of the nation and [only] one is entitled to certain entitlements, you could have almost a form of a strata-ing of our society.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure that\u2019s the Australian way, or what our communities want.\u201d<\/p>\n McLachlan said the Coalition\u2019s rhetoric was alienating migrant communities, who have abandoned the Liberal party<\/a> in droves at the past two elections.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we should take a negative approach to migration. Certainly, it should be controlled, and we don\u2019t want to invite people here without giving them a society that can accommodate them both economically and culturally, but we cannot continue to blame migrants for the problems of our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n Migrant groups last week condemned the Coalition\u2019s policy as \u201ca dangerous escalation of dog-whistle politics that targets communities of colour\u201d rather than a serious answer to the housing crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not in Trump\u2019s America,\u201d said Noura Mansour, the national director of Democracy in Colour.<\/p>\n Coalition frontbenchers have argued that the welfare ban, which would not apply to people already accessing the payments, would incentivise migrants to take up citizenship.<\/p>\n