Taylor has only ‘vibes and fumes’, no answers on migration

The world is on fire and still the Liberal Party has next to nothing.

A policy without numbers, data, statistics, but “observations” on how the Coalition, under Angus Taylor, can continue to stoke a culture war with no answers, but plenty of harm.

Rich for a party that created “Big Australia”.

The Coalition is responsible for Australia’s addiction to temporary migration. It was Coalition governments that tied universities to international students – the Howard government reduced public funding for universities (and vocational education), making these institutions more reliant on full-fee paying students from overseas.

It was so successful a pivot that, by the mid-2000s, the Reserve Bank was reporting education sat behind coal and iron ore as the nation’s third-largest export.

It was the Howard government that changed migration law to allow students to apply for permanent residency from within Australia. That increased the number of people on bridging visas, while they await the outcome of their PR applications.

It was Coalition governments that expanded the system to allow temporary visa-holders to stay past their studies, with the post-study work visa, brought in to boost migration levels after Rudd-era cuts.

It was Coalition governments that expanded the working holiday-maker visa programs.

ANU research shows that out of the 49 active working holiday agreements agreed to by Australia in 2025, the Coalition was responsible for almost seven in 10. Coalition prime ministers signed working holiday agreements with Japan, the Netherlands, Malta, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Hong Kong, Finland, Cyprus, Italy, France, Taiwan, Belgium, Estonia, Thailand, Chile, Turkey, the US, Poland, Portugal, Spain, China, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Israel, Hungary, San Marino, Luxembourg, Vietnam, Singapore, Peru, Austria, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Greece, Switzerland, Brazil and Mongolia.

Over that same period (1975-2025), Labor governments signed 11 agreements. The last term of Coalition governments signed almost double that between 2014 and 2022.

It was Coalition governments that cut regulations around visas, which opened up temporary migration, and which created the business, industry and education reliance on temporary labour.

Historically, including with this government, Labor has cut immigration. As ANU’s Alan Gamlen and Peter McDonald concluded in a recent report:

“Both major parties have engaged in a well-known form of double-speak on immigration. The Coalition has projected toughness while expanding migration, while Labor has tended to celebrate diversity while often restricting immigration flows.”

But almost like clockwork, anytime the Coalition needs a win, it turns to demonising immigration and migrants, blaming them for the system it created as part of the political project to restrict wage growth, suppress workers’ rights and increase consumers for big business for short-term political gain.

It’s a cynical ploy rooted in racism – and it works to capture attention, but exists on nothing but vibes and fumes.

Taylor has not released a policy, but five “observations” and the reason for this is simple – the Coalition does not have numbers to release, because it knows that will bring it the scrutiny it doesn’t want. It doesn’t want to answer to business about what the cuts would mean, it doesn’t want to answer questions on the economy, which, without population growth very easily slips into negative growth, and it doesn’t want to have to defend modelling around its rhetoric.

It’s much easier to just claim that migrants are “self-serving” and a drain on Australia, to make the claims that migrants are to blame for our housing affordability crisis, and not tax settings that have allowed investors to play God with who deserves a home.

Taylor knows who can and can’t invest in housing in Australia, but he leaves that context out. Because, much like his abhorrent claims that Palestinian refugees – who have escaped what is credibly being called a genocide by all but the most stringent apologists – are a potential terror risk, Taylor wants the headlines without having to provide the substance.

He wants people to imagine ICE-style raids in Australia without having to say the words. He wants people to lean into their worst and most avaricious, discriminatory selves, without setting it as Coalition policy.

Much like John Howard (who really turbocharged the Coalition’s reliance on temporary migration while demonising refugees and asylum seekers in ways that still scar this country – visible to anyone who can see how power actually works), Taylor wants to flirt with adopting One Nation policies, without committing to them. It’s a shibboleth, a nudge-nudge wink-wink to the worst of white Australia’s impulses, without the pressure of actually having to commit to any solutions that would solve the problems that have sent people flocking to Australia’s grievance vessel in the first place.

Because Taylor doesn’t want change. He doesn’t want to offer solutions. He just wants to try to make people angry enough they don’t notice that not only is the emperor not wearing clothes, he’s bereft of solutions beyond what worked when he first became interested in politics.

In that, Pauline Hanson and Taylor are in simpatico – both rely on answers and grifts from two decades ago. You can’t solve today’s problems with racism. Beyond the short-term sugar hit, people see through it.

That Taylor can’t see beyond winning the next week, at a time when the entire world is in flux, should probably give his colleagues more pause than it is.

Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute

This article was first published on The New Daily.