Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is shoring up the Labor voting base by handing out citizenship to 2.9 million temporary visa holders presently living in Australia.
Burke and Labor will be facing a conservative electoral tsunami at the next federal election due early 2028. It seems the Liberal Party, which is well into its death throes due mostly to Covid vaccine-injury baggage, has finally realised it has to preference One Nation to survive.
Polling results and One Nation donor Gina Reinhart are demanding the Liberals direct second preferences to Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce or suffer the indignity of extinction, firstly at Saturday’s critical Farrer by-election and thereafter.
The LNP has placed One Nation second on its ticket for Farrer. One Nation has done the same for the Liberals, however scrutineers reported in the recent South Australian election that not too many followed how to vote cards on all sides.
Burke and Albanese have realised this shotgun wedding will defeat them at the next election on present electoral roll numbers and now the only hope for this despicable duo will be to give citizenship, hence voting rights, to 2.9 million mainly Indian, Muslim and Chinese migrants.
Labor believes a majority of these new arrivals should vote for them on principle, then as citizens they could join the struggling Conga line of 200,000 housing applicants and be nurtured by the drying-out Centrelink teat.
The Coalition and One Nation have accused Labor of “industrial-scale seat stacking” by concentrating these large citizenship ceremonies in key marginal Labor seats in Western Sydney, aiming to get new migrants onto the electoral roll before the election.
Tony Burka has strongly denied these allegations, calling the criticisms a “whinge” and defending the ceremonies as necessary for clearing the backlog and celebrating new citizens.
As of early 2026, reports suggest that citizenship ceremonies continue, with nearly 19,000 people welcomed at events on Australia Day this year.
Data released today by Sky News suggests there are 36 Labor seats dependent on the Muslim vote.