MEDIA RELEASE: Angus Taylor whips up fear and misleads the Nation on migrants and refugees

Media Release, Thursday 14 May 2026

The Coalition’s latest migration announcement is the clearest sign yet that it has abandoned migrants, lurching from one anti-migrant and refugee policy to the next in a desperate attempt to chase votes with dog whistles, fear and division.

When political leaders use refugees and migrants as scapegoats, it has real-world consequences for communities. People who come from outside Australia, speak differently, look different or are visibly from migrant backgrounds end up being vilified, blamed and made to feel unwelcome.

Taylor said tonight that a Coalition government would revive some of the most harmful elements of Australia’s past refugee policies, including reinstating Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs). TPVs deliberately trap people in uncertainty, preventing people from rebuilding their lives and causing profound mental health harm through endless insecurity. They kept many families separated for more than a decade. Reintroducing them would return Australia to a failed policy model that inflicted enormous suffering on people seeking safety, with many people harmed by these policies still trying to recover today.

Taylor’s comments about mass deportations of “70,000 illegal overstayers” are also deeply misleading. Many of the people he is referring to are trapped in Australia’s enormously backlogged court and tribunal systems, where wait times for migration and protection matters have blown out to as long as seven years following chronic underfunding under successive Coalition Governments.

Instead of offering serious policy solutions on housing or the cost of living, Angus Taylor has resorted to disinformation – falsely implying that migrants are arriving in Australia and immediately accessing welfare payments.

In reality, newly arrived migrants already face strict waiting periods of up to four years before they can access most Centrelink payments, including JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and the Parenting Payment. By the time most permanent migrants become eligible for those payments, they are already eligible to apply for Australian citizenship.

The Coalition’s attempt to blame migrants for the housing crisis is also misleading and economically reckless. Experts have repeatedly debunked claims that migration is the primary driver of housing unaffordability, pointing instead to decades of underinvestment in public housing, tax policies like negative gearing, and governments failing to build enough affordable homes.

A dramatic cut to migration would have serious consequences for the Australian economy, worsening labour shortages across construction, healthcare, aged care, hospitality and other essential industries already struggling to find workers. Taylor did not provide any detail on which visas would be cut to reach their unnamed immigration target, and even as he was speaking his plan was being criticised by business groups.

Jana Favero, Deputy CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said:

“Angus Taylor’s budget reply speech was pure political theatre. Political theatre that has real life consequences for people. We all know someone who is a non-citizen or refugee who will be afraid right now about where the cuts will come from. Not only did his speech attack and demonise migrants but also undermined our protection system and the rights of refugees and people seeking asylum.”

“The Coalition’s dangerous decision to return to its harmful, failed refugee policies of the past shows what a mess they are in. They have no new policy ideas. Temporary Protection Visas have harmed countless people and kept many families apart for over a decade. So many are still trying to recover.”

“Taylor’s comments tonight are inflammatory and desperate. The fact that he feels the need to dog-whistle about mass deportations of so-called ‘overstayers’, many of whom are actually trapped in a massively blown-out court and tribunal system created through years of Coalition underfunding, shows they are far more interested in stoking fear than delivering serious policy solutions.”

The language in tonight’s address misleads the nation by claiming that migrants are arriving and immediately accessing welfare payments, which is a blatant lie. In reality most of the restrictions he’s talking about already exist and there are lengthy wait periods for welfare payments.”

“The Coalition knows all this and is deliberately misleading Australians about how the welfare system already operates in order to whip up fear and division. It’s irresponsible and not credible economic policy. In fact, it would cause an economic and humanitarian catastrophe. It is fearmongering designed to scapegoat migrants and refugees for housing pressures and the rising cost of living instead of addressing the real causes.”

For media enquiries or interviews, contact:
Natasha Blucher on 0412 034 821 or media@asrc.org.au