Recent comments from Coalition Shadow Immigration Spokesperson Jonno Duniam expose inconsistencies in the party’s immigration policy, raising questions about feasibility, cost, and intent.

Coalition Shadow Immigration Spokesperson Jonno Duniam made major changes to the Coalition’s recently announced immigration policy during this short interview with SkyNews’ Andrew Clennell.

His responses highlighted the ‘thought bubble’ nature of the policies announced to date. But were the changes to policy he announced deliberate or was he just expecting the usual softball SkyNews interview and got caught out by Clennell’s probing questions? There would be merit in the changes Duniam announced during the interview being checked with Angus Taylor who appears to have a different view.

Social media vetting for Australian values

The Coalition policy states that the Coalition will:

“Make compliance with the Australian Values Statement a binding requirement for visa holders”.

“Enable visas to be refused or cancelled where individuals fail to uphold these values”.

“Establish an Enhanced Screening Coordination Centre within the Department of Home Affairs. This would also see social media screening of visa applicants move from an as needed risk basis to become a standard feature of vetting” (my emphasis added).

A clear emphasis in the Coalition policy is a shift from the current risk-based use of social media vetting to it becoming ‘a standard feature of vetting’. But during the interview Duniam said:

“You’d operate on a risk-based approach and those individuals coming from riskier jurisdictions would certainly receive a greater deal of attention than those coming from a less risky jurisdiction…This is about weeding out people who are going to come here and incite hatred, incite violence”.

So which is it? A standard feature of vetting or a risk-based based approach? It can’t be both. Three things about Duniam’s statement.

It is the first time that I can recall the Coalition has used the words “risk-based approach to vetting”. This is a clear differentiation from the written policy. Is Duniam backing out of the commitment to making social media vetting a standard feature of visa processing because it would cost a fortune and achieve very little?

Second, he talks about “weeding out people who are going to come here and incite hatred, incite violence”. That it is precisely the objective of the current character test. The existing test could of course be applied more rigorously. That would cost time and money. Would the Coalition allocate more money to that, because during Peter Dutton’s time as Immigration Minister funding for both visa processing and immigration compliance was massively cut back leading to huge backlogs and massive abuse of the visa system by labour traffickers? Dutton did deport more NZ citizens when they came out of jail but that is a very different issue.

Applying the existing character test more rigorously is very different to testing people on their alignment with ‘Australian Values’. While we all agree we should keep out people who would incite hatred and violence, there will be massively divergent views on what is a breach of Australian Values. For example, Trump supporters will have a very different view on what constitutes respect for the rule of law and support for democracy from non-Trump supporters.

Third, Duniam says nothing about which jurisdictions would be more or less risky. According to Angus Taylor people from non-liberal democracies are more risky. So a strong Trump supporter from the USA would be less likely to support Australian Values than someone from say China or an asylum seeker escaping the theocracy in Iran?

Would a Trump supporter in Australia who is a strong critic of ‘liberal’ judges and legal judgements made in the USA (as Trump regularly does) be subject to visa cancellation and deportation because they breached the core Australian Value of commitment to the rule of law? Imagine trying to sustain a visa cancellation of a strong Trump supporter on this basis. It would be a legal nightmare. As George Brandis once said, sometimes you just have to let people be bigots.

Everyone would agree migrants should have Australian Values. Past governments have tried to promote Australian Values through measures such as the Menzies Government’s ‘good neighbour’ program which encouraged local communities to share Australian Values with new migrants. It wasn’t by beating these into people.

Making English language an obligation for permanent residents

Angus Taylor says he would make learning English “an obligation for permanent visa holders, not an option”. But during the interview, Duniam is reported to have said:

“there would be no English requirement for permanent residency, adding that it would not be a basis for rejection or deportation and that people needed to be supported to learn the national language”.

Duniam may not realise that there are actually very significant English language requirements for skill stream permanent visa applicants. I was in the area of the Immigration Department that implemented most of these during the second half of the 1990s. Going beyond that to the family stream or the humanitarian program would be nonsense. Requiring someone who marries an Australian citizen to sit an English test before they get a partner visa would horrify most decent Australians as would requiring humanitarian entrants to sit an English test.

Duniam’s statement is to a large degree a reflection of current government policy and was precisely the policy of the former Coalition government. So how would making English “an obligation for permanent visa holders, not an option” as Taylor wants, be different from the long-standing policy of both major parties?

Apart from the dog whistling effect, that remains a mystery.

Asylum seekers and deportation

The Coalition’s asylum seeker and deportation policies are essentially a re-hash of old (largely failed) ideas and Trump’s mass deportation policy. On this, Duniam’s responses to Andrew Clennell were highly contradictory (as tends to be the case with thought bubble policies).

In respect to the Coalition’s deportation policy, Duniam says:

“the 65,000 we talk about are people who have come, done their visa duration… and they have no further rights to being in this country…They have absolutely no reason to be here. They should go. Yes, it is a task to have these people removed and we’ll have more to say about how we would resource those functions but of course there are existing capacities.”

Dumiam concedes that:

“I’m not going to pretend this has just happened in the last four years.”

The fact is the bulk of the 65,000 came during the biggest labour trafficking scam abusing the asylum system in Australia’s history that took place from 2015 to 2019. Part of that time, Angus Taylor was Assistant Law Enforcement Minister.

There is no question the situation of the 65,000 unsuccessful asylum seekers currently in Australia needs to be addressed. But that requires a carefully crafted policy response not a thought bubble.

In response to Clennell’s question on the resourcing and detention centre capacity need to deport such a large number of people, Duniam said:

“That’s not something we’ve announced thus far and of course we will have more to say about a range of elements relating to our immigration policy,”

But he then went on to say:

“It’s not an announcement I’m going to make today. What we’ve announced thus far is the resourcing and capacity.”

The fact is the Coalition has said nothing about the resourcing and capacity needed other than to admit they will need more of it. The reality is that mass deportation is complex and difficult, as Trump is finding out. Just announcing the Coalition will have lots more deportations is not policy – it’s a thought bubble and dog whistle.