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By labelling migrants “self-serving”, Angus Taylor has shown himself and his party to be exactly that.

Desperate to pander to voters deserting to One Nation, the opposition leader and those under him have failed in the very Australian values test they seek to impose on others for a Fair Go.

This dog-whistling, suggesting that people fleeing conflict – particularly from Gaza – pose such risk they should be subjected to Trump-style extreme vetting according to their “group identity” rather than individual circumstances, is deplorable.

Back in 2024, I was sitting next to my independent colleague Zali Steggall in parliament when she called the opposition out for “whipping up a sense of fear” and racism over their stance on visas for asylum seekers from Gaza.

“These are families that you are seeking to paint as somehow they are all terrorists, that they should be mistrusted … and that they are not worthy of humanitarian aid.”

When then opposition leader Peter Dutton interjected, she said: “Stop being racist.” She later withdrew to assist the House.

“I am offended by the rhetoric from the leader of the opposition, the nature of this suspension of standing orders and the continued attempts to divide the Australian society around these lines and issues,” She continued. “We are better than this.”

Dutton rebuffed her comments and he subsequently took a series of Trump-leaning policies to the election and lost in a landslide.

Yet here we are again.

Safety and security are critically important to our nation; however, responsible politicians do not pit groups of people against one another for political gain. Their responsibility is to unite and support communities already fractured by economic pressure and international conflict, not to themselves. But alas, the selfish spreading of fear and division is effective, and Taylor and his remaining Liberals are leaning in.

That’s despite the fact they’re well aware that visa applicants already face a character test. Once they get a visa they have to continue to meet that test. A visa holder can face mandatory deportation if convicted of a crime and sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment.

The government also already has – and does use – the power to reject a visa if a person’s presence could broadly “incite discord” within the Australian community.

Rather than develop actual policy to provide an alternative to the middling hubris of Labor, they’re borrowing from Trump, pushing out a thought bubble to see how it flies.

Be ready for the gaslighting and the Trump-like equivocation about what they actually meant based on the public response.

There are plenty of good migrants, Taylor told the Liberal-aligned Menzies Research Centre in a speech that was less surprising than jarring. But some come with “subversive intent” and for “transactional reasons”.

Do they? How many, and who? What colour are they? Do they include Indian and Chinese migrants who were marginalised by the Coalition before the last election?

Census data shows that more than 30% of Australians were born overseas and close to half (48%) have at least one parent born overseas.

“In an economic sense, young skilled migrants help manage our otherwise ageing population, fill critical skills and labour shortages, and bring new ideas and international connections to help power the frontier elements of our economy. For every 1,000 migrants, there is a $124m economic dividend each year to Australia,” according to the Business Council of Australia.

In fact, migrants outperform in business, and now run a third of all small businesses in Australia. Many drive the trucks currently delivering critical fuel to the regions, staff aged-care and early childhood education centres, and more.

Where is the empirical data proving the alternate view that Taylor and his Coalition are floating?

Back in 2017, soon after the election of Donald Trump the first time, I was at Chicago airport as a foreign correspondent covering the haphazard introduction of the US president’s Muslim ban.

This disgusting policy banned people from entire countries from entering the US. In the initial stages it resulted in long-term US residents being unable to return home, splitting families and causing untold distress and confusion.

Later, I covered groups of refugees who had fled wars in the Middle East and Africa, then fleeing the US in the middle of winter, crossing the Canadian border. Some suffered frostbite in deep snow. Others made it across, carrying tiny children and their worldly possessions, in the hope that Canada would allow them safety. Which it did.

The kindness of the Canadian Mounties, who reached out, hands across the frozen creek as traumatised little kids, their mums and dads, slipped across the border in the moments before dawn is an example to us all.

Trump’s hardline on immigration has continued to splinter US society with recent crackdowns by ICE agents rightly horrifying the world.

So, where’s the line? And which side do we want to be on?

Amid a war (supported wholeheartedly by the Coalition, of course) there will be more people movement. What is the Coalition’s position on asylum seekers from Iran and surrounding states?

There are many important questions amid this vague “policy” that remain unanswered.

But one thing is obvious, the Liberal party while being selfish, no longer has a clear identity of its own. Having allowed itself to be controlled by the Nationals on climate policy and more, it’s now allowing One Nation to wag the dog.

Asked if she had forced the Coalition into announcing a hardline immigration policy, Pauline Hanson told 2SM radio: “Of course, I have no doubt about it whatsoever.”

But why go for the cheap imitation when you can have One Nation?

Because love her or hate her, Hanson believes what she says. Taylor and his band of fake moderates on the other hand, are just trying every single desperate thing they can to save themselves from oblivion.

In this case it’s hate, fear and race.

The very definition of self-serving.

• Zoe Daniel is a three-time ABC foreign correspondent and the former independent member for Goldstein