New Coalition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam says he wants to take the heat out of the immigration debate, promising to put forward a professional tone and united message as part of Sussan Ley’s team after internal disputes over migration triggered the exit of two frontbenchers.
But the Tasmanian Liberal senator also challenged the Albanese government to play its part in lowering community tensions by explaining its plan for population growth, warning that Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s silence over migration targets was helping to fuel conspiracies.
The Coalition’s new home affairs spokesman, Jonno Duniam, steps into the role during a period of tense debate.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
In his first newspaper interview since he took on the role, Duniam said members of parliament each had strong views on issues such as immigration and were free to express them.
“[But] there’s a difference between people like Tony Burke and myself from others, where we have to show leadership in this debate,” he said. “I think it is incumbent upon us to lower the temperature and take a different tone because there are human beings, there are cohorts within the community affected by debates that take on a life of their own and become divisive.
“I think my role, along with the minister, is to try and de-escalate some of these issues and just be business-like about it.”
Duniam said he would work closely with Ley and immigration spokesman Paul Scarr – a signal that the Coalition could turn the page on a damaging few months of infighting over migration issues.
Duniam was appointed to the home affairs portfolio last month when prominent MP Andrew Hastie resigned because he felt sidelined from developing the Coalition’s immigration policy.
Hastie made the provocative claim that Australians were starting to feel like “strangers in our own home”, and his exit came during a period of tense debate kick-started by protests in late August and furthered by Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s inflammatory remarks about Indian migrants.
The contributions from Hastie and Price, who were leading calls to cut migration levels from the party’s right, were at odds with the approach being pushed by Ley and Scarr – moderates who wanted to take a more conciliatory tone to the issue as part of the Liberal Party’s post-election efforts to rebuild its reputation in migrant communities.
Duniam is in the Liberals’ right faction but supports Ley’s leadership. He did not directly address his colleagues’ remarks when asked about them but said those kinds of comments were “the byproduct of a policy that has not been working well”.
Immigration to Australia surged after the pandemic and net arrivals repeatedly exceeded Treasury forecasts. While migration levels have since come down by about 40 per cent, they remain above pre-pandemic figures.
Recent surveys show immigration is a concern for voters; about half think it is too high. Burke, when asked at the National Press Club last month to name the government’s ideal immigration intake, said there was no “magic number”.
Duniam said Burke’s response explained why the “debate is going the way it is”. “This lack of information results in a void, and what fills a void? Concern, sometimes conspiracy,” he said.
“There isn’t a magic number but if you go and do the work there will be a number. Of course, you’re going to need room to move – you’ll need to surge with certain workforces as they’re required.
“But I honestly think that you could take the temperature down quite a few degrees if you were open and transparent about it … I intend to try and, from our side, provide leadership in that direction.”
The Coalition was left exposed when it went to the last election promising to bring net overseas migration down by 100,000 more people than whatever the government was planning. It wobbled over the details and did not specify how it would reach that goal.
Duniam said he would not take such a blunt approach. “We do believe the number needs to come down. If you want to take the number up, you’re going to have to get your skates on and bolster all of these services,” he said.
But he said the Coalition would take a step-by-step process to decide what the right levels were – rejecting a challenge by Burke for the opposition to specify which visa types it wanted to cut from the migration program.
“Trying to lure us into a trap of pointing to a particular group of people, with particular characteristics … is exactly what’s wrong with this debate,” Duniam said.
“Our approach will be one that’s driven by the actual situation Australia is facing when it comes to housing and health and education infrastructure.”
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