In his first extended interview since becoming Opposition Leader, Angus Taylor told ABC’s flagship current-affairs program 7.30 that he had “never seen” the controversial draft banning migrants from Gaza, Somalia and other conflict zones. “Frankly, I don’t know what the document is,” he said, insisting it had not reached shadow cabinet and therefore carried “no validity”.
Yet Taylor immediately signalled he would pursue many of the same goals through a fresh policy process, arguing that “numbers have been too high and standards too low”. He floated stronger powers to cancel or refuse visas for people who “do not share Australia’s core values of democracy, rule of law and freedom of religion,” and left open the option of extra vetting for arrivals from unspecified “high-risk areas”.
For businesses and individual travellers trying to keep pace with Australia’s evolving visa criteria, VisaHQ offers real-time guidance, document checking and application support across all major categories. The platform—accessible at https://www.visahq.com/australia/—helps clients interpret the latest character and security requirements and streamlines submissions, giving HR teams and mobility managers extra confidence as the rules continue to shift.
![Angus Taylor distances himself from leaked policy but vows to ‘tighten up’ high-risk migration]()
The new Liberal leader also backed the government’s recent post-Bondi amendments that allow visas to be cancelled where an applicant has publicly endorsed violent extremism, but said the Coalition “would go further” after consulting security agencies. A reshuffled shadow cabinet with a new immigration spokesperson is due later this week.
For global employers the remarks underscore a bipartisan drift toward tougher character and security screening—even as business groups plead for faster processing. Mobility teams should anticipate more onerous background-check requirements, a revival of social-media screening proposals and renewed debate over the size of the permanent-migration program ahead of the 2027 election.
Taylor’s comments also raise the prospect of mid-cycle rule changes: sponsored workers and international students who breach an expanded ‘values test’ could face swift visa cancellation, forcing HR departments to tighten compliance monitoring and reassess risk exposure when recruiting from politically sensitive regions.
Yet Taylor immediately signalled he would pursue many of the same goals through a fresh policy process, arguing that “numbers have been too high and standards too low”. He floated stronger powers to cancel or refuse visas for people who “do not share Australia’s core values of democracy, rule of law and freedom of religion,” and left open the option of extra vetting for arrivals from unspecified “high-risk areas”.
For businesses and individual travellers trying to keep pace with Australia’s evolving visa criteria, VisaHQ offers real-time guidance, document checking and application support across all major categories. The platform—accessible at https://www.visahq.com/australia/—helps clients interpret the latest character and security requirements and streamlines submissions, giving HR teams and mobility managers extra confidence as the rules continue to shift.
The new Liberal leader also backed the government’s recent post-Bondi amendments that allow visas to be cancelled where an applicant has publicly endorsed violent extremism, but said the Coalition “would go further” after consulting security agencies. A reshuffled shadow cabinet with a new immigration spokesperson is due later this week.
For global employers the remarks underscore a bipartisan drift toward tougher character and security screening—even as business groups plead for faster processing. Mobility teams should anticipate more onerous background-check requirements, a revival of social-media screening proposals and renewed debate over the size of the permanent-migration program ahead of the 2027 election.
Taylor’s comments also raise the prospect of mid-cycle rule changes: sponsored workers and international students who breach an expanded ‘values test’ could face swift visa cancellation, forcing HR departments to tighten compliance monitoring and reassess risk exposure when recruiting from politically sensitive regions.
