Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has unveiled a seven-member Coalition task-force that she says will “fully implement” the Segal antisemitism report—including provisions to vet visa applicants for extremist or hateful views. Flanked by shadow home-affairs spokesman Dan Tehan, Ley argued that the Albanese government’s actions to date are "piecemeal" and vowed to table private-member bills when parliament resumes if ministers do not commit to a clear timeline.
The task-force’s three pillars are: 1) legislative adoption of all 49 recommendations; 2) enhanced national-security and counter-terror measures; and 3) deeper community engagement to protect Jewish Australians. On visas, the Coalition would direct Home Affairs to run background checks against a new watch-list of antisemitic organisations and online channels. Applicants found to have supported Holocaust denial or violent anti-Jewish rhetoric could be deemed to fail the character test, mirroring rules already applied to extremist Islamist content.
Business groups welcomed bipartisan momentum on issues that could tarnish Australia’s image as a safe destination for skilled migrants and students. Yet education peak-body Universities Australia cautioned that any new screening questions must be evidence-based and consistent with academic-freedom principles, warning against “mission-creep” that could chill legitimate political discourse.
![Opposition launches task-force to hard-wire visa checks into antisemitism response]()
Against that backdrop, companies and individual travellers eager to stay on top of evolving entry rules can turn to VisaHQ for practical help. The firm’s Australia portal (https://www.visahq.com/australia/) tracks regulatory changes in real time, clarifies new character-test disclosures and guides users through document collection, reducing the risk of costly processing delays.
If enacted, tighter screening would align Australia more closely with the US and Canada, both of which added hate-speech questions to electronic travel authorisations in 2024-25. Immigration lawyers forecast a modest rise in request-for-further-information (RFI) letters but do not expect wholesale visa cancellations, noting that most hate content is published under pseudonyms and may be hard to verify.
Ley said the task-force will convene monthly public hearings and publish a progress score-card, keeping pressure on the government in the run-up to the 2025 federal election. Mobility-programme owners should monitor the debate: a change in government next year could fast-track the adoption of additional visa-screening layers and funding conditions for sponsoring employers.
The task-force’s three pillars are: 1) legislative adoption of all 49 recommendations; 2) enhanced national-security and counter-terror measures; and 3) deeper community engagement to protect Jewish Australians. On visas, the Coalition would direct Home Affairs to run background checks against a new watch-list of antisemitic organisations and online channels. Applicants found to have supported Holocaust denial or violent anti-Jewish rhetoric could be deemed to fail the character test, mirroring rules already applied to extremist Islamist content.
Business groups welcomed bipartisan momentum on issues that could tarnish Australia’s image as a safe destination for skilled migrants and students. Yet education peak-body Universities Australia cautioned that any new screening questions must be evidence-based and consistent with academic-freedom principles, warning against “mission-creep” that could chill legitimate political discourse.
Against that backdrop, companies and individual travellers eager to stay on top of evolving entry rules can turn to VisaHQ for practical help. The firm’s Australia portal (https://www.visahq.com/australia/) tracks regulatory changes in real time, clarifies new character-test disclosures and guides users through document collection, reducing the risk of costly processing delays.
If enacted, tighter screening would align Australia more closely with the US and Canada, both of which added hate-speech questions to electronic travel authorisations in 2024-25. Immigration lawyers forecast a modest rise in request-for-further-information (RFI) letters but do not expect wholesale visa cancellations, noting that most hate content is published under pseudonyms and may be hard to verify.
Ley said the task-force will convene monthly public hearings and publish a progress score-card, keeping pressure on the government in the run-up to the 2025 federal election. Mobility-programme owners should monitor the debate: a change in government next year could fast-track the adoption of additional visa-screening layers and funding conditions for sponsoring employers.
