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Labor has accused Angus Taylor of “desperate dog-whistling” and says millions of Australians will be asking why the Liberal party has a problem with their parents who don’t speak English, amid a backlash to the opposition’s new hardline immigration policies.

Immigration advocates, crossbenchers, and race discrimination commissioner, Giridharan Sivaraman, have all criticised a new speech by Taylor, with the Greens likening the Coalition’s approach to a modern revival of the discriminatory White Australia policy.

In his first major policy announcement since taking over the leadership, Taylor on Tuesday said the existing Australian values test would become binding under a Coalition government, making it a requirement for any permanent visa holder to learn English.

“English is necessary to live, work, and integrate into Australian society,” he said in a speech to the Menzies Research Centre.

“Central to these values is that citizenship is a privilege. It’s not a handout. And permanent residency must reflect that same expectation, a genuine commitment to Australia, demonstrated through contribution, integration, and respect for our values.”

The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, called the speech “a diatribe” that proved Taylor was trying to win back voters abandoning the Coalition for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

“Millions of Australians will be asking why do the Liberals have a problem with their parents, who don’t speak great English but are great Australians,” Burke said in a statement.

Hanson said she had no doubt “whatsoever” that One Nation’s surge in the polls had pushed the Coalition into adopting a hardline immigration policy.

“They can see the rise in polls from One Nation, and that’s what they’ve jumped on board, because they’ve got to try and get the voters back,” she told radio station 2SM.

Since the 2022 census, Australia has been a majority migrant nation, with more than 50% of residents being born overseas or with at least one immigrant parent.

Taylor blamed Labor for losing control of immigration in the period since the Covid-19 pandemic, and said the Coalition would introduce Trump-style social media vetting for visa applicants.

He pledged new funding for law enforcement agencies to track down, arrest and deport non-citizens who have exhausted their legal appeals to stay in the country, including 65,000 people the Coalition say should be forced to leave Australia now.

Taylor said the more than 2,000 Palestinians issued visas after the 7 October Hamas terror attacks and Israel’s war in Gaza should be reassessed, and argued Australia had allowed people who “reject our core values” to settle here. The group has already been vetted by Asio and other agencies.

He invoked John Howard’s language about asylum seekers from 2001, saying, “we will decide who deserves protection and the circumstances in which that protection is granted.”

In a Q&A after his speech, Taylor spoke glowingly of his grandfather William Hudson’s role in bringing “great, great Australians” to the nation in the 1940s from war-ravaged Europe – suggesting these refugees and their “great cappuccinos” were ideal migrants.

“They were and are … great, great Australians. That is the immigration program we’ve got to get back to.”

Pat Conroy, the minister for the defence industry, called on Taylor to explain which industries would lose skilled workers.

“We’re just seeing desperate dog-whistling from Angus Taylor, who’s desperately trying to compete with One Nation in a race to the bottom,” he said.

Greens senator David Shoebridge said the policy was a “2026 version” of the discriminatory White Australia policy, the racist policy to limit non-British migration finally abandoned by Harold Holt in 1966.

“The Greens know that immigration and multiculturalism makes us strong,” Shoebridge said. “We have experiences, talents and knowledge from across the world together here.”

Sivaraman said the speech was disappointing. He told ABC news that migrant communities were “a bit sick of being blamed for all of the problems that are occurring now”.

“There are real-world consequences for the words that politicians use,” he said.

Victorian premier Jacinta Allan described Taylor’s ideas as “straight out of the Donald Trump playbook”.

“Migration policy that would exclude people and families from China, from Vietnam, from Muslim countries, from Lebanon – this is not what standing for Australia and standing for Victoria looks like,” she said.

“It’s being too weak to stand up to Pauline Hanson.”

Jana Favero, deputy CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said politicians were trying to “divide our communities for their own political gain, and this policy is no exception”.

“Angus Taylor has launched a hateful attack on migrant communities this morning, with no basis or evidence,” she said. “He’s made it clear the Coalition intends to copy Donald Trump, by blaming migrants for problems created by politicians, instead of fixing them.”