Labor’s visa move for families could flood Sydney suburbs with 100,000 migrants: Coalition

Sydney’s west is to absorb the largest share of a flood of ageing immigrants under Labor’s plan to hand out unlimited visas to foreign parents, an analysis by The Daily Telegraph has revealed.

• Bob Birrell: Labor’s parent visa for immigrants a costly exercise
• ScoMo fires back at Shorten over migrant policy
• Regional migrants jobs plan could save bush towns

Sydney’s west is to absorb the largest share of a flood of ageing immigrants under Labor’s plan to hand out unlimited visas to foreign parents.

Analysis by The Daily Telegraph reveals that 14 of the 20 electorates with the highest number of people who were born overseas are in metropolitan Sydney — seven in Western Sydney and five in the inner west.

Australian ­Bureau of Statistics data shows most of those electorates are already at bursting point having experienced at least a 20 per cent population boom over the past decade.

Sydney’s west is set to absorb a large share of a flood of ageing immigrants. Picture: AAP Image/Sam Mooy

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Labor has been accused of using the policy to buy votes in electorates it hopes to claw back from the Liberals at the election, including Reid and Bennelong in the inner west and Chisholm in Melbourne.

The Coalition is warning Labor’s decision to uncap the visa, which allows foreign parents to come to Australia for up to 10 years could prompt an influx of almost 100,000 migrants currently on long waiting lists for existing permanent visas.

Labor has pledged to deliver a Long Stay Parent visa that allows existing migrants to sponsor both parents or in-laws (up to four people) for either three or five years with the ability to be renewed in Australia.

The comparable visa under the Coalition is capped at 15,000 places a year, must be renewed offshore and costs four times more at $10,000 for the five-year visa.

Latest figures show that at October last year Home Affairs had 97,065 visa applications from foreign parents on hand for permanent visas which take about 30 years to process.

The Demographics Group director of research Simon Kuestenmacher said “in theory” you would expect the 97,000 parents on waiting lists “should just be waved through”.

“It appears to be political manoeuvring around that Chinese migrants who tend to vote Liberal and thinking they might want to have parents come over now,” he said.

CLIMATE CHIEF’S SEA CHANGE AIDS ABBOTT FOE

The chief architect of Zali Steggall’s climate strategy helped her draft a policy document that calls for return of a national climate change authority, similar to the body he once led.

Former climate commissioner Tim Flannery has moved into a multimillion-dollar mansion in Manly and stands accused of waging a “vendetta” campaign against Tony Abbott, the man who canned his old department in 2013.

Tim Flannery has recently moved into a multimillion-dollar mansion. Picture: Mooy Sam

The policy document of Ms Steggall, who is running as an independent candidate against Mr Abbott in Warringah, also calls for the new climate change body to be given special powers to protect it from ever being axed again.

Mr Flannery lost his $180,000-a-year gig at the Climate Commission when Mr Abbott — then PM — axed the Climate Commission in 2013, but he never fell on hard times. Over the years he secured a raft of climate-related positions at universities and recently scored a 12-month contract at the Australian Museum.

Mr Flannery this year moved into a property in Warringah which last sold for $3.4 million in 2009 and rents for $1950 a week.

Mr Flannery has moved to Manly. Picture: AAP Image/Rafal Kontrym

Ms Steggall said he had offered advice for her policy document saying he was an “internationally acclaimed expert in the field”. “The Coalition’s lack of climate change action and policy is a major concern,” she said.

Sources close to Mr Abbott’s campaign said Mr Flannery had a “vendetta” against the former PM. Mr Flannery did not respond to requests for comment.

— Exclusive, Jack Houghton and Derrick Krusche

IT’S MOORE TROUBLE IN OAKESHOTT RETURN BID

Former independent kingmaker Rob Oakeshott has ­recruited to his campaign a staffer for Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore who has boasted about helping “bring on the chaos and instability of minority government”.

Mr Oakeshott, who is ­attempting a return to federal politics by contesting the ­Coalition-held seat of Cowper, has distanced himself from the comments made by his campaign’s videographer, Jack Begbie.

Independent candidate Rob Oakeshott has distanced himself from his campaign’s videographer. Picture: Lindsay Moller Productions

Videographer Jack Begbie.

“Hell yes, bring on the chaos and instability of minority government, I love it,” Mr Begbie wrote on social media after Kerryn Phelps won Wentworth against Liberal candidate Dave Sharma.

The 22-year-old former University of Technology Sydney student has taken leave from running media at Ms Moore’s office to help Mr Oakeshott’s campaign.

He was also involved in Dr Phelps’ successful Wentworth by-election in September and Kristina Keneally’s unsuccessful bid to oust Liberal MP John Alexander from Bennelong.

A spokeswoman for Mr Oakeshott said the independent candidate, who helped the Gillard Government form a minority in 2010, did not want to bring “chaos” into government and described Mr Begbie’s comments as lacking “nuance”.

“Those comments have absolutely no bearing on the Oakeshott campaign and there is no sense that those thoughts represent anything we stand for,” the spokes­woman said. “Rob is prepared to work with any person from any party to get sensible policy enacted which is totally the ­opposite of Jack’s tongue-in-cheek comments.”

— Jack Houghton

CAMPAIGN TRAIN OF TEARS

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has teared up in an emotional press conference as he remembered his late mother, praising her as the “bravest person” he’d ever known.

While on the hustings in the NSW South Coast seat of Gilmore, Mr Shorten described his mother, Ann, as a “strong and clever woman” who had wanted to become a lawyer when she was young but studied teaching instead because it came with a scholarship.

She passed away five years ago from a heart attack.

The Labor leader’s comments came after The Daily Telegraph reported that Mr Shorten, appearing on Monday’s Q&A program on the ABC, omitted the fact Ann Shorten went on to enjoy an ­illustrious career as a barrister after a midlife occupation change.

Labor’s Bill Shorten broke down at a press conference speaking about his mum. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

Mr Shorten’s answer to the final question of the program gave a heartfelt account of how Mrs Shorten “could have done anything” and wanted to be a lawyer.

However, he neglected to mention she graduated with a law degree from Monash University in 1985 with first-class honours, and went on to practise at the bar for six years.

“I miss her every day. I sometimes, you know, I get a sense of how she would react to things, because she was such a strong and clever woman,” Mr Shorten told reporters in Nowra before taking aim at this newspaper’s report.

“But, I’m glad she wasn’t here today to read that ­rubbish.”

Mr Shorten pictured with his mum Ann Shorten.

Earlier in the day, Mr Shorten tweeted: “In a new low, The Daily Telegraph has decided to use my mum’s life as a political attack on me, and on her ­memory. They think they know more about my Mum than I do.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he understood his rival would have been “very hurt”. “I can understand that would have upset him a great deal,” Mr Morrison told ­reporters in the Sydney seat of Reid.

“I mean, this election is not about our families. It’s not about Bill’s mum, it’s not about my mum, you know.

“Sure, I love my mum, he loves his mum and sadly his mum passed away. I’m thankful my mum is still with us and it’s not about our mums or our dads or kids or our wives — as great as they are.”

Mr Shorten’s Q&A answer was lauded by media outlets, with website 10 Daily writing that it “may be remembered as the moment Bill Shorten won the election”.