Australia needs a forward-looking, evidence-based immigration policy from the Liberal Party. They should drop the slogans, fear mongering and backward-looking thinking.

The Liberal Party should not allow its immigration policy to be dictated by fear of Pauline Hanson and One Nation.

The current political environment is somewhat reminiscent of the early years of the Howard government when Pauline Hanson’s campaign against Asian migration spooked the Coalition. However, after some initial vacillation, the Howard government – for most of its years – pursued largely sensible immigration policy in the national interest. They are remembered for some unnecessarily harsh approaches to maritime asylum seekers, but there were many positive policies in the areas of economic migration, migrant settlement and Australian citizenship. Even multicultural policy was preserved, under the banner of the then new label of Australian Multiculturalism.

Unfortunately, Angus Taylor has got off to a bad start. He clearly thinks a lurch to the right is necessary to pull back votes from One Nation.

In an opening intellectual ’tour de force’ he has committed the Liberals to “good migration” as opposed to “bad migration.” That of course sets him apart from all those political party leaders who have openly committed themselves to “bad migration” (not that I can remember any).

As well as proposing unspecified cuts to migration, he foreshadows going down the highly dubious “values” pathway. He says Australia will only want people who share our values. But what are those values? Coalition parliamentarians don’t all share the same values, judging from the constant rifts and leadership changes. Not long ago, Prime Minister Scott Morrison repeatedly assured us that we shared the same values as Americans, but is that true now with Donald Trump’s America?

There are extensive provisions in the Migration Act that allow refusal or cancellation of visas on character grounds. The immigration system has primarily focused on people’s actions (as evidenced by criminal records or absence thereof) rather than their thoughts. It has worked pretty well with the eight million migrants who have come to Australia since the Second World War. Is a future Coalition government really wanting to police the individual thoughts of hundreds of thousands of migrant applicants?

Angus Taylor has been unhelpfully assisted by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott going on record to say how much he liked the way immigration policy was run in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Do we all remember with such fondness the policies of assimilation and discrimination?

The fact is that Australians have many different values. Migrants come to Australia with a range of values and generally adjust to the values of the host society. But they also bring new values which enlarge and enrich our society.

After four years in opposition, the Liberal Party has failed to produce any coherent immigration policy, based on factual research, hard numbers and the analysis of benefits to the community. Cuts to numbers are mooted, but with no real indication as to where they will fall. Instead, we have been given a heavily politicised, dog whistling approach that simply plays to community concerns about relatively large net overseas migration in recent years and the Bondi massacre.

The 1990s Liberal reaction was stirred by One Nation playing up fear of Asian migration. Who are we supposed to be to be afraid of now?

Muslims and Chinese (Communists) seem to be the usual suspects. Let’s not forget that Indian migrants also got a swipe from Jacinta Price for having some apparent predilection for voting for Labor.

These fears, and the emphasis on values, seem to fall unevenly on different communities in Australia.

For example, in the aftermath of the Bondi massacre (committed by two apparently isolated Muslim extremists for reasons we have yet to hear in a court), blame has been placed on the Muslim religious community. Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison in a speech in Jerusalem called for regulation of the teaching of Islam in Australia.

Compare this to 2022 when two young police and an innocent bystander were ambushed and killed in rural Queensland by armed Christian extremists who were heavily influenced by an American Christian extremist. It was only luck that more were not killed by the perpetrators.

And yet there were no public calls for Christian churches to take more responsibility for the actions of Christian extremists. Nor do I recall any calls for greater scrutiny of visa applications from American Christians.

The Perth man accused of a, thankfully unsuccessful, terrorist attack against Indigenous protesters has an Anglo Celtic name that has not seemingly produced a flurry of enquiry into his religious background.

The words “social cohesion” are also being thrown around loosely by politicians.

At best, social cohesion is about agreement on the fundamental institutions and freedoms of Australian society and peacefully pursuing differences of opinion through those institutions. With that goes acceptance of cultural diversity and the idea of social connectedness. It’s not about sharing the same opinions. Regrettably, the words have been weaponised in public debate – the implication is that everything would be okay if only “they” thought more like “us.” The “us” is usually whoever it is calling for social cohesion at the time.

Another unsatisfactory aspect of the non-factual ‘debate’ about immigration, with accusations and blame attributed to whole communities, is that it puts a lot of pressure on migrant communities in Australia. Traditionally, federal and state governments have reached out to migrant communities to reassure them and to work to resolve tensions between communities. This appears to have been done in the wake of the Bondi massacre.

The commonwealth government has a plethora of institutions dealing with the current issues.

There is an Office of Social Cohesion within the Department of Home Affairs (there was a Special Envoy for Social Cohesion reporting to the Prime Minister until abolition of the role in mid-2025). There is a Special Envoy to combat Antisemitism, a Special Envoy to combat Islamophobia and a Royal commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. There is also an Australian Multicultural Council (with its own Minister) and a recently constituted Office of Multicultural Affairs in the Department of Home Affairs (with its own Minister), not to mention the Human Rights Commission.

The Government may need to revisit these structures after the report of the Royal Commission is handed down and consider if there are better approaches to achieving a harmonious multicultural community. That could include taking the immigration, citizenship and multicultural affairs functions out of the security-focused Department of Home Affairs and placing them in a separate Immigration and Citizenship portfolio and department better capable of communicating the reasons for Australia’s immigration programs to the broader community.

In the meantime, the Liberal Party should be working on evidence-based immigration policies in the national interest and drop the fear mongering and slogans. The Australian media needs to hold them to account of this.