Liberal senator breaks ranks to take aim at Angus Taylor’s ‘negative’ rhetoric on immigration

Key points

• 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.