Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has defended funding the retirements of non-citizens because it allows them to keep their passports and rights from their home countries.
Ms Allan accused federal Opposition leader Angus Taylor of “abandoning” immigrants who are currently benefiting from the aged pension with is proposal to stop immigrants from accessing 17 welfare programs and the NDIS.
In her comments on Friday she also referred to permanent residents who would be affected by Mr Taylor’s policy as “older Australians from multicultural communities”, and claimed the Liberal’s world view was “straight out of the Trump playbook”.
“We encourage people to become citizens – but there are reasons why some migrants don’t,” she said in a statement.
“Many risk losing access to their original passport, plus their rights and connections to where they were born.
“In my view, that doesn’t make migrants less committed to Australia.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says there is no distinction between Australians, migrants and refugees, arguing that anyone can be Australian. pic.twitter.com/esmdgnRj49
— Anthony Khallouf (@ausvstheagenda) May 14, 2026
Her comments came as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese claimed there was no difference between Australians and immigrants while speaking to reporters on Friday morning.
“I wonder what the distinction between Australians and migrants is, because I’ve never seen that used before in a country like ours,” Mr Albanese said.
“We have people who are in senior positions in our government, in business, you know, some of the giants of business in this country, came here as refugees and migrants – are they separate from Australians?”
Mr Taylor said in his budget reply speech on Thursday night that he wanted to cap the immigration intake based on home construction, and deny non-citizens access to welfare, but refused to give a migration target.
The Coalition crashed in the polls after Mr Taylor’s predecessor Sussan Ley repeatedly avoided setting a migration target, resulting in a poll surge for One Nation, which topped a post-budget poll and is promising net overseas migration of negative 100,000.
Header image: Left, Jacinta Allan (Facebook). Right, Centre, a welfare office in Canberra (By Nick-D – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link).
