A senior Liberal frontbencher has attempted to distance the party from former prime minister Tony Abbott’s controversial speech on migration and national identity. 

Dan Tehan was pressed by ABC Insiders host David Speers on Sunday for his thoughts on the comments made by the Liberal Party president in London last week.

Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, Abbott claimed Western nations are increasingly being taught to view their own histories through guilt and shame, and that mass migration would eventually extinguish ‘the Anglo-Celtic core culture’. 

The remarks come amid divisions appearing in the Liberal caucus, with Abbott supporting One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s call for a uniform culture while Liberal leader Angus Taylor has firmly rejected her demands for a ‘monoculture’.

Speers asked Tehan for his take on Abbott’s views, prompting the senior Liberal frontbencher to make it clear the Liberal Party president did not set the agenda. 

‘It’s the Coalition party room that sets the migration policies of this nation going forward. That’s something Tony Abbott respects,’ he said.

‘He respected that when he was a member of the Liberal/National Party. It’s the Coalition party room that sets the migration policy.

‘The second thing is that Angus Taylor, in his budget reply speech, set the foundations of where we want to go.’

Dan Tehan was pressed by ABC Insiders host David Speers on Sunday for his thoughts on the comments made by the Liberal Party president in London last week 

Tehan worked to steer the conversation back to Coalition policy, stating migration settings should be guided by housing availability, not broader cultural arguments. 

‘Making sure we bring migration levels in line with the amount of housing available in this nation so that we can rebalance our migration policy, we can rebalance to make sure that we’re looking after Australians first,’ he said.

While Abbott accused governments of celebrating ‘every culture but our own’, Tehan doubled down on his support for multiculturalism.

‘Absolutely, multiculturalism has worked for this nation when it’s underpinned by incredibly strong values, and we don’t want to lose those,’ he said.

‘We’re a country of diverse backgrounds, many cultures, but we’ve got to make sure that we do not lose those values that have made us such a great nation.’

Tehan was pressed on whether the Liberals might govern alongside Hanson’s party.

‘We’re not entertaining, we’re not discussing, we’re not thinking about being part of a coalition with One Nation,’ he said.

‘What I’m saying is, no, we do not want to be part of a coalition with One Nation. We want to be part of a coalition with the Liberal Party and the National Party.’

Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, Abbott claimed Western nations are increasingly being taught to view their own histories through guilt and shame and that mass migration would eventually extinguish ‘the Anglo-Celtic core culture’ 

The question comes as Coalition figures try to stem voter drift to One Nation, with Taylor trailing behind Hanson and her party in opinion polls. 

A Roy Morgan poll released last Monday showed One Nation is still ahead of the Coalition on 26 per cent.

Labor remained narrowly ahead on primary vote, on 28 per cent, while the Coalition was behind on 21.5 per cent. 

During his speech in London, Abbott argued sustained high migration is being used as a vehicle to fundamentally transform countries like Australia.

‘For those with a grudge against their own country, it’s sustained mass migration, especially from places with quite different cultures, that’s the surest and swiftest way to change and punish somewhere that’s irredeemably tainted by unforgivable sin,’ he said.

Abbott went further, contending that mass migration is designed ‘in order to dilute and eventually to extinguish the Anglo-Celtic core culture and the Judeo-Christian foundational ethos’.

He specifically singled out Muslim migration.

‘Islamic migrants are especially useful, because belief in a global caliphate and the conviction that it’s the Quran, rather than the legislature that validates law, starts to make pluralist democracy unworkable,’ Abbott said.