Key events
Cait Kelly
Advocates for migrants last night accused Angus Taylor of using his budget reply speech to “chase votes with dog whistles, fear and division”.
Taylor claimed that migrants were coming to Australia and claiming benefits before they were becoming citizens, a situation which he said Australians did not accept.
But the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said that newly arrived migrants already face strict waiting periods of up to four years before they can access most Centrelink payments, including JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and the Parenting Payment.
By the time most permanent migrants become eligible for those payments, they are already eligible to apply for Australian citizenship, it said.
Jana Favero, deputy CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said:
The Coalition’s dangerous decision to return to its harmful, failed refugee policies of the past shows what a mess they are in. They have no new policy ideas. Temporary protection visas have harmed countless people and kept many families apart for over a decade. So many are still trying to recover.
Taylor’s comments tonight are inflammatory and desperate. The fact that he feels the need to dog-whistle about mass deportations of so-called ‘overstayers’, many of whom are actually trapped in a massively blown-out court and tribunal system created through years of Coalition underfunding, shows they are far more interested in stoking fear than delivering serious policy solutions.
The language in tonight’s address misleads the nation by claiming that migrants are arriving and immediately accessing welfare payments, which is a blatant lie. In reality most of the restrictions he’s talking about already exist and there are lengthy wait periods for welfare payments.
The Coalition knows all this and is deliberately misleading Australians about how the welfare system already operates in order to whip up fear and division.
Cait Kelly
Meanwhile, on with some more serious news.
Speaking on the 7:30 Report last night, Opposition leader Angus Taylor said under a Coalition government the number of migrants allowed in the country will be tied to the number of houses built.
Asked what the exact number is, he would not say, saying only it would be 40% of current migration levels.
Asked if which migrants he would cut – international students, New Zealanders, working holiday visas (which the Nationals would oppose because of its impact on agriculture) – he said:
If I may answer – it will be below 200,000. There’s no doubt about that.
And then the right mix will depend on the circumstances of the time. What is clear, what is clear, is that the number of students in this country has been at record levels.
This government lost control of that situation.
Of course, the judges are only half the equation – there’s also the public vote, where fans can vote by phone or SMS, up to 10 times (but not for their own country).
This is where the peculiar politics of Europe come in, because politically, culturally or geographically aligned nations will usually vote for each other.
Given Australia’s distance, we might be disadvantaged here. The top 10 from tonight’s show go on to the grand final on Sunday (Austria, as hosts, automatically qualify).
We’ll find out soon – the UK entry is on now with some nonsense, then there are three more songs before the votes start being tallied.
Nick Miller
Delta Goodrem performs in Eurovision semi
There was a harp. There was a sparkly dress. A lot of smoke. A crescent moon.
Yes, there was a mid-song key change, in the best traditions of Eurovision cheese.
And there was Delta, ascending into the rafters on a column that emerged proudly from her grand piano, soaring into space on a last effortless high note.
I’d say she did rather well. We’ll find out later what the judges thought.
Here are some images from Delta Goodrem’s last dress rehearsal before this morning’s semi-final. Looks like quite the production.
We’ll have a full report after the event. In the meantime, do take our Eurovision quiz.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Nick Visser with the main action.
We start with some pop fun: Australia’s Eurovision hopes are being put to the test in Vienna, Austria, where Delta Goodrem is (at the time of writing) just about to hit the stage to perform her song Eclipse.
In more weighty news, migrant advocates have accused Angus Taylor of using his budget reply speech to “chase votes with dog whistles, fear and division” and accusing him of a “blatant lie” by saying migrants were able to access welfare payments when they arrived in Australia. More coming up.
Four Australian citizens who were aboard the MV Hondius, the cruise ship at the centre of the hantavirus outbreak off the coiast of Africa, will land in Perth this afternoon after the government secured a suitable aircraft and crew for the journey. More coming up.
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