www.silverguide.site –

Anthony Albanese says One Nation’s plans to slash migration risks exacerbating skilled worker shortages, as Labor and the Coalition push back against Pauline Hanson’s policy prescriptions.

Hanson called for overseas migration levels to be cut further in a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday. She claimed multiculturalism had failed and blamed housing shortages and infrastructure pressures on overseas arrivals.

As Hanson’s support surges in the polls, the prime minister told Sky News the Queensland senator was misrepresenting herself to voters.

“The fact is that One Nation pretends that they stand for workers whilst getting planes given to them by Australia’s richest person, while receiving donations from some of the very wealthiest people,” Albanese said on Sunday, referring to billionaire Gina Rinehart.

“They [One Nation] want it to be easier to sack people, they oppose increases in the minimum wage and they oppose our support for child care. They’ve opposed our support and expansion and strengthening of Medicare.

“They’ve opposed free Tafe to give Australians the skills that they need. You can’t say ‘we want to stop migration’ but not want to upskill Australians to give Australians the skills to fill the job[s] so Australian industry can continue to thrive.”

Rinehart, the Hancock Prospecting boss, gifted a private plane worth more than $1.5m to Hanson for her use in the lead-up to the next election. Hanson has talked up Rinehart’s role in One Nation’s policy formulation and has adopted her positions on welfare, defence and infrastructure.

Albanese noted One Nation and the Coalition had opposed Labor’s move to place tighter restrictions on overseas student enrolments, and were campaigning against the government’s tax reform proposals and cost-of-living help.

“One Nation will continue to, along with the other rightwing parties, oppose all of the measures that have made a difference to people,” the prime minister said.

Net overseas migration added 301,000 people to Australia’s population last year, the lowest increase since mid-2022. The intake was above the pre-pandemic rate, spurring renewed criticism from the Coalition and One Nation.

One Nation’s policy proposals are receiving tougher scrutiny as it overtakes Labor and the Coalition in published polls, but the major parties have struggled to dint Hanson’s growing prominence in the political debate.

The federal opposition leader, Angus Taylor, told Sky he understood voters’ frustrations, but questioned Hanson’s policy responses to major challenges.

“The answer right now is not to blow this country up,” Taylor said on Sunday.

“It is [to] roll our sleeves up. Have that credible plan; the credible team in place. It’s only the Liberal and National parties that can offer that – and that’s what we will continue to work on.”

‘We want to see people stay’

The federal Liberal president, Tony Abbott, has been calling rank-and-file party members to urge them not to defect to One Nation.

Asked about the exodus on Sunday, Taylor said: “We want to see as many people stay as possible, and Tony, as president, is doing a great job at getting out and energising the membership, retaining those who are frustrated, and many are, I understand that, but bringing new people in, and that will be a focus for us.”

The shadow foreign affairs minister, Ted O’Brien, said Hanson’s calls for Australia to withhold foreign aid from Pacific countries receiving financial assistance from China were misguided.

“The idea that you effectively hold a gun to the head of our Pacific neighbours, that’s not what a friend does. That’s not a way of building trust,” O’Brien told ABC TV’s Insiders program

Last week, Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister, Justin Tkatchenko, criticised Hanson’s moves to link aid assistance to corruption in PNG. He called the statements “defaming and unnecessary”.

O’Brien said Hanson was wrong on multiculturalism, but called for the Coalition to preference One Nation ahead of the Greens at the next election.

“The last thing we should be doing is trying to force Australians to adopt the same customs. It’s only values that have the capacity to unite Australians.”

Comment was sought from One Nation.