Australia’s federal political landscape has been roiled this week by a heated debate over the opposition Coalition’s hardline new migration proposal, after the party’s senior home affairs spokesman declined to provide clear, concrete figures for how many people could face deportation or visa cancellation if the party wins the next national election. The plan, dubbed the Australian Values Migration Plan, was unveiled earlier this week by Opposition Leader Angus Taylor during an address at the Menzies Research Centre. Taylor framed the policy as a bold intervention to fix what he calls a broken immigration system, centering it on stricter checks for prospective migrants and a crackdown on people the party describes as threats to national social cohesion.
In his launch speech, Taylor argued that migrants coming from established liberal democracies are far more likely to embrace what the Coalition terms “Australian values” than those arriving from nations governed by extremist groups, religious fundamentalists, or authoritarian regimes. The policy outlines two key changes: an expansion of social media background checks for all visa applicants, and the creation of a dedicated inter-agency task force that would coordinate with Australia’s leading national security and border agencies – including the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation, Australian Federal Police, Australian Border Force, and the Department of Home Affairs – to remove migrants who have overstayed their visas or are found to violate the policy’s values requirements.
When pressed on Sunday by journalists to outline the expected scale of deportations under the new plan, opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam repeatedly conceded that producing a specific numerical target was not feasible. “It is very hard to put a number on these things, because there are global events shifting migration patterns constantly,” Duniam told Sky News’ *Sunday Agenda*. “Conflicts in different regions of the world change how many people move, so we can’t lock in a fixed figure. If we do our job correctly and stop people who pose a risk from entering the country in the first place, the number of people we have to deport after arrival should be minimal anyway.”
Duniam pushed back against widespread criticism that the proposal duplicates existing immigration rules, noting that all visa applicants are currently required to sign the Australian Values Statement, but arguing that the current framework lacks enforceability. Under the Coalition’s plan, the Migration Act would be amended to embed a legally binding values test as a formal condition of all visa grants, giving authorities clearer power to reject or revoke visas for people who fail to meet the standard.
The policy has already sparked fierce backlash across Australia’s human rights and refugee advocacy sectors, with major groups including Amnesty International, the Refugee Council of Australia, and the Asylum Seekers’ Resource Centre all issuing scathing condemnations. Critics have widely labeled Taylor’s rhetoric as deliberately divisive, accusing the Coalition of stigmatizing and demonizing migrants from non-Western backgrounds to court political support. Sitting Labor government officials have echoed this criticism: Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has challenged the Coalition to provide even one example of a case where existing ministerial powers would not already allow a visa to be refused or cancelled for the kind of high-risk individuals the party says it is targeting.
Duniam dismissed this widespread criticism, telling reporters that critics would always oppose changes to immigration policy regardless of their content. “Critics will always criticise, won’t they? Or else they wouldn’t have much to say,” he said, adding that the Coalition would commit sufficient resources to the relevant enforcement agencies to root out potential risks before migrants enter Australia, and rapidly deport any high-risk individuals who do manage to arrive despite screening.