Senator McLachlan criticises Angus Taylor's welfare plan for non-citizens

A Liberal senator has broken ranks to criticise Angus Taylor’s plan to bar non-citizens from accessing welfare, warning it will create “two types of members of the community” and is “not the Australian way”.

The outspoken backbencher Andrew McLachlan said migrants should not be blamed for economic problems including the housing crisis, and warned his party’s immigration rhetoric was alienating diaspora communities.

Taylor made immigration 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.

That would bar migrants – including permanent residents – from jobseeker, the age pension, disability support, parenting payments and the NDIS, even if they paid tax.

The announcements caused unease among some Liberals MPs who now believe One Nation’s Pauline Hanson is dictating their party’s agenda.

Speaking on ABC’s RN Breakfast on Tuesday, McLachlan warned that Taylor’s citizen-only welfare policy risked creating a two-tiered society.

“I 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,” the South Australian senator said. “I’m not sure it leads to a healthy Australian community.

“If you’re 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.

“I’m not sure that’s the Australian way, or what our communities want.”

McLachlan said the Coalition’s rhetoric was alienating migrant communities, who have abandoned the Liberal party in droves at the past two elections.

“I don’t think we should take a negative approach to migration. Certainly, it should be controlled, and we don’t 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.”

Migrant groups last week condemned the Coalition’s policy as “a dangerous escalation of dog-whistle politics that targets communities of colour” rather than a serious answer to the housing crisis.

“We are not in Trump’s America,” said Noura Mansour, the national director of Democracy in Colour.

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.

Gaining Australian citizenship requires someone to have been living in Australia on a valid visa for at least four years immediately before the day they apply, meaning that even aspiring citizens who begin their application as soon as possible could be without help for at least four years.

Some countries including China do not recognise dual citizenship, meaning applicants would forfeit rights in their home nation after taking the pledge in Australia.

Taylor on Monday dismissed suggestions that the policies would harm the party’s relationship with migrant communities.

“I grew up in one of the greatest immigrant towns in Australia,’” Taylor said, referencing his upbringing in the southern New South Wales town of Cooma.

“That is the picture of immigration that has worked for this country. That’s why we are one of the greatest immigrant nations on earth. And we are deeply committed to that model.”

McLachlan also sent a warning to Liberals considering switching allegiances to One Nation after their former colleague Hollie Hughes and the former party vice-president Teena McQueen joined Hanson’s party.

“You’re making a mistake,” he said.

“If you want to share Liberal values, then you shouldn’t be looking for a false path and a wide path, which does not contain policy that will advance Australians’ lives.”