Opposition Leader Angus Taylor will soon unveil his overhauled front bench as he signals a shift to the right with a focus on issues such as immigration.
The newly elected Liberal leader spent his first few days in the role sketching key priorities after turfing out the party’s first female leader, Sussan Ley, on Friday following weeks of infighting.
Policy announcements are expected to be accompanied by a refreshed front bench, with exiled conservatives and leadership agitators Andrew Hastie and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price poised to return.
“They’re magnificent members of our team,” Mr Taylor said on Sunday of the pair, whose previous frontbench stints ended due to migration-related issues.
While offering few details on his party’s approach, Mr Taylor promised to pursue a stricter immigration policy, repeatedly flagging plans to reduce the nation’s migrant intake and tighten screening.
“The (migration) numbers under Labor have been just extraordinary – way beyond what this country can absorb,” he said.
“Standards have been too low, numbers have been too high and we haven’t explicitly shut the door on people who reject our way of life.”
The Hume MP said he would unveil a full policy “in the coming days”.
Mr Taylor has insisted the coalition is not trying to become “One Nation lite” as it bleeds voter support to the anti-immigration party.
The first poll since Mr Taylor became Liberal leader, published by Nine newspapers on Monday, showed Labor with 32 per cent of the primary vote and One Nation and the coalition tied on 23 per cent.
The Resolve poll of 1800 people conducted between February 8 and Saturday found a Mr Taylor-led coalition three percentage points ahead of a Ms Ley-led opposition.
One Nation recorded primary support of 27 per cent in the latest Newspoll, conducted before Mr Taylor toppled Ms Ley as leader, with the coalition on 18 per cent.
Former senior immigration official Abul Rizvi said Mr Taylor’s pointed tough-on-immigration stance appeared to be directly influenced by One Nation’s rise.
“He reads the polls as closely as anybody,” Mr Rizvi told AAP.
However, he noted strong character requirements already existed for migrants looking to enter Australia and they had only been tightened by anti-hate crime laws introduced after the Bondi terror attack.
Labor had also tightened the previous coalition government’s policies on student and working holiday visas that drove a big increase in migration to Australia in 2022-23, Mr Rizvi said.
“Mr Taylor may have forgotten his government also introduced fee-free student visa applications and fee-free working holiday maker applications,” he said.
“The Labor government were slow to reverse those policies, but they did get rid of them.”
Mr Taylor and deputy Jane Hume have also repeatedly vowed to offer lower taxes, a renewed focus on housing affordability and the end of an “ideological approach” to energy policies.
Senator Hume said Australia needed to be “open-minded” on nuclear energy if the country was to reduce emissions and make power cheaper.
Read more on Port Stephens Examiner
