‘I never agreed’: Top Liberals baulk at Ley’s hardline migration policy

A hardline Liberal immigration policy leaked on Monday was supposed to show how former opposition leader Sussan Ley planned to get tougher on migration before she was dumped. It has since been repudiated by the two frontbenchers who were alleged to have authored it.

The party’s immigration spokesman, Paul Scarr, on Monday afternoon said he never agreed to a proposal to ban migrants from terror hotspots in up to 13 countries, which was revealed to be a key element of the policy document with his name on it.

Another central player, home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam, said the group of MPs working on the policy had not met since December, and the leadership group never signed off on the leaked proposal. “Frankly these were not part of any policy work I was a part of,” he said.

The seven-point policy document was made public three days after Ley was toppled by Angus Taylor, who came in promising to stop “bad migration” to Australia as he seeks to stop voters switching to One Nation. Sources close to Ley said she would have revealed the plan on Monday had she not been rolled by Taylor last week.

Liberal MPs speculated that Ley’s allies had released the document to demonstrate she would have taken a tough position on migration, having been voted out in part over that policy issue. Yet, it also revealed a siloed and muddled policy process under Ley that was first highlighted in last year’s damaging Coalition net zero debate.

The fact Ley was prepared to override Scarr – a moderate she appointed to the immigration portfolio to rebuild the Liberals’ standing in diaspora communities – is another sign of how the former Liberal leader was being pulled to the right on key policies.

Scarr disputed the “so-called leaked Liberal Party policy proposal with respect to banning migration from certain declared regions”.

“I never proposed any such policy. I never agreed to any such policy. I never signed or approved a shadow cabinet submission containing any such policy. I have a range of serious concerns with respect to any such policy,” he said in a statement.

Taken together with the statement from Duniam, an influential right-winger, the pair’s moves to distance themselves from the plan suggest Ley’s office was taking its own initiative to reveal a hardline immigration stance.

Some sources close to Ley said the pair had been briefed on the policies as recently as late January and were familiar with the underlying principles and many of the specifics, accusing Duniam in particular of selective memory. They acknowledge neither Scarr nor Duniam gave final approval. One source close to Ley said Duniam as home affairs spokesman was either absent from the work of policy drafting or was misleading the public.

Ley fast-tracked the migration policy late last year. It was delayed and updated after December’s Bondi massacre.

In addition to the ban on migration from declared terror zones, the policy drafted by the former opposition leader’s office proposed powers to screen phone communications at the border, tougher English language requirements, lower overall migrant numbers and extended bans on foreign home ownership.

The leaked proposals will complicate Taylor’s next steps, as the blueprint has the fingerprints of an old leadership team he has suggested was too soft on migration.

Taylor made shutting the door to “bad migration” a central part of his message as he introduced himself to voters last Friday.

“We shouldn’t discriminate based on race or religion, but we should [discriminate] based on values,” he said at the Centre for Independent Studies on Monday.

“We clearly don’t want to let radical terrorists, Islamist extremists, into the country. I mean that is clear. I think that’s a very widely held view across the Australian community, including the Muslim community.”

Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was one of many Liberals out talking about tougher migration laws after Taylor’s leadership victory. While Ley had sent Price to the backbench in part for suggesting Indians were getting visas because they would vote Labor, Price insisted on Sunday she had nothing to apologise for.

Taylor’s next test will be over a stronger policy direction that can stop Liberal voters turning to One Nation without turning others off. On Friday, Pauline Hanson called on Taylor to reveal which countries he would target.

“No one will ever be as strong as One Nation on immigration,” she said.

Labor MP Jerome Laxale said on Sky News that the Coalition was ramping up anti-immigrant rhetoric, pointing out that Australia had welcomed many new migrants from the Philippines.

“What we’re seeing from the Liberal Party is a hardening of rhetoric, mimicking One Nation. For a community like mine, that presents risks, because out on the streets it can embolden prejudice towards people who may look different from those expressing it. That’s a very dangerous place to go,” he said.

The key elements of Ley’s leaked plan

A key tenet of Ley’s seven-part plan was an $80 million taskforce called Operation Gatekeeper, which would be led by a senior intelligence officer and include ASIO, AFP and Border Force.

The body would toughen up screening at the border, including by looking at people’s phones, similar to the controversial US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. According to two sources familiar with the plan, it would also operate in the community to enforce Labor’s new laws on hate crimes and terror symbols.

In drafting the policy, the policy architects thought they risked being perceived as advocating for a body similar to Donald Trump’s ICE agency, whose militarised approach to policing immigration has made it unpopular in the US and led to several deaths of American citizens.

The policy would also deny visas to people from overseas regions controlled by Islamist terrorist groups. These could span up to 37 regions within the nations of Afghanistan, Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Palestine, Philippines, Somalia and Yemen.

The policy would also bolster the power of the Australian values statement that new visa applicants are already required to sign, by making it a condition of keeping a visa.

This would lower the threshold for deporting people because anyone found to breach the principles, which include respecting freedom of religion, equal opportunity and a “fair go”, could have their visa cancelled.

Permanent visa applicants would have to agree to make reasonable efforts to learn English.

The policy sought to fix loopholes in the legal review system that have allowed more than 100,000 people with failed asylum claims to stay in the country. This involved calling on Labor to speed up processing of reviews, something the government is working on for student visas, while committing to make sure people denied visas are deported.

The current ban on foreign ownership of existing homes would be extended for two years, to 2029, while temporary residents would be banned from buying new homes.

The Liberals would also reduce international student numbers further than Labor, make city universities build housing and crack down on dodgy providers – all things the government is working on.

Finally, the Liberals planned to limit net overseas migration to 175,000, pausing visa processing until housing supply and public services caught up. Net migration in the 2024-25 financial year was 306,000.