by Cam Lucadou-Wells
Hotham MP Clare O’Neil has been shifted out of the contentious Home Affairs portfolio and Bruce MP Julian Hill elevated into an assistant ministry in a Federal Cabinet reshuffle.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that O’Neil would retain a spot in Cabinet, taking on the Housing and Homelessness portfolios.
“I’m enormously proud of what I’ve achieved in two years in Home Affairs. We’ve undertaken massive reform in vital areas,” O’Neil posted on social media on 28 July.
“A world leading approach to Cyber Security, a clear strategy for Migration for the first time in Australian history, and critical work on foreign interference, to name a few.”
Meanwhile, Hill was promoted to Assistant Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.
“Human diversity is the distinguishing characteristic of my local community,” Hill posted on 30 July.
“I’m very keen to now engage right across modern multicultural Australia, as the new Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs.”
Tony Burke will subsume O’Neil’s former portfolios, as well as Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.
The outgoing Immigration Minister Andrew Giles was demoted to the outer ministry.
As the incoming Housing Minister, O’Neil posted that she was set to tackle “one of the biggest problems that people in my community talk to me about”.
“I got into politics to change people’s lives for the better.
“Nothing is more fundamental to the health and welfare of Australians than secure, affordable housing.
“We have a huge challenge ahead and a tremendously positive vision to sell.”
Albanese said O’Neil was a “great communicator”, assigned the role of delivering the Government’s housing agenda that aimed to increase supply.
“Something that you can’t deal with overnight, but something that requires a concerted approach, and Clare O’Neil will certainly bring that to the fore.”
He said O’Neil and Giles had “repaired” a “dysfunctional” immigration and home affairs department inherited from the previous Government.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton said the PM’s reshuffle expressed “no confidence in half of his ministry”.
“It is nothing more than shuffling of deck chairs on the sinking HMAS Albanese.”
