{"id":720659,"date":"2026-06-07T08:26:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T08:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/720659\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T08:26:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T08:26:16","slug":"anthony-albanese-warns-against-restricting-payments-to-australian-citizens-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/720659\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Albanese warns against restricting payments to Australian citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the Chinese and Indian diaspora and people relying on aged care or hospital services are at the front line of an increasingly divisive fight over citizenship and what it means to be an Australian.<\/p>\n

In his most strident attack on a Coalition plan to restrict welfare payments only to citizens, Albanese on Sunday said he would never draw a distinction between citizens and permanent migrants who prove their commitment to Australia.<\/p>\n

\"AnthonyAnthony Albanese has given his most strident defence of permanent migrants and their contribution to the nation.Dominic Lorrimer<\/p>\n

Liberal leader Angus Taylor last month revealed plans to restrict access to 17 welfare programs<\/a> to Australian citizens only, declaring the move as \u201cputting Australians first\u201d.<\/p>\n

People already on benefits such as the age pension, carer\u2019s payments or the NDIS would be grandfathered while humanitarian immigrants, people facing domestic violence or those needing emergency assistance would be exempt from the change, which the Coalition says will save billions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Coalition seized on figures revealed in a Senate estimates hearing that 51,000 permanent residents had accessed the federal government\u2019s 5 per cent home deposit scheme. The scheme, started by the Morrison government but expanded to all potential first home buyers, is available to permanent residents.<\/p>\n

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

Albanese, opening an urgent care clinic on the Sunshine Coast on Sunday, said it was increasingly difficult to see a difference between the Coalition and One Nation as they went down a \u201crabbit hole\u201d over migrants becoming permanent residents.<\/p>\n

He said the Coalition\u2019s plan would deny services to people who had lived and worked in Australia for decades and who in some cases had found it difficult to renounce their previous citizenship such as citizens from China or India.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got to renounce their citizenship in their country of birth, and that might lead to consequences for them and the relationship they have with relatives back in their country of birth, to treat them differently,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that you won\u2019t hear from me is drawing a distinction between Australians and migrants who are permanent residents. Permanent residents are people who\u2019ve made a commitment to Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, between 2000 and 2021, about 3 million migrants became permanent residents. Of those, 1.8 million became citizens. The highest citizenship rate was among people from South Africa (74 per cent), Sri Lanka (71 per cent) and the Philippines (68.5 per cent).<\/p>\n

Current rules around welfare mean there are waiting periods for permanent residents to access welfare, including four years for JobSeeker and 10 years for the age pension.<\/p>\n

Albanese said discrimination against permanent residents would ultimately hurt all Australians, particularly those needing health or aged care.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo into an aged care facility and see how older Australians would get the services they need if somehow we throw out all the permanent residents, don\u2019t allow them to have a house, don\u2019t allow them to have any access to services,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the divisive route that the Liberals and Nationals want us to go down.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson on Sunday attacked One Nation over its policy on home ownership among permanent residents and non-citizens.<\/p>\n

During the week, former Nationals leader and now One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce was forced to correct his own understanding of his party\u2019s policy<\/a> after initially saying permanent residents would have to sell their home before he then said only non-citizens would have two years in which to vacate their property.<\/p>\n

Wilson said forcing \u201clawful property owners\u201d to sell their homes seemed a violent way to deal with people \u201cwho are here paying taxes\u201d.<\/p>\n

But pressed on the Coalition\u2019s own policy to deny welfare to taxpaying permanent residents<\/a>, Wilson linked the issue to broader support for immigration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe that everybody has to become an Australian citizen, but I absolutely believe that it\u2019s good that people come here, commit here, and contribute to the future of the country,\u201d he told Sky News.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at generations past, when migration\u2019s enjoyed a high level of public confidence, it\u2019s because people have come to this country, they\u2019ve committed to this country, and they\u2019ve contributed to this country, because Australians justifiably understand that if you want to be able to take from a system, you also have to contribute to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/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 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":720513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-720659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720659","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=720659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}