Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I in turn thank the member for Cowan for her very moving words just now. As the final government speaker on this motion, perhaps I could summarise what I think is the very strong mood of this parliament on both sides—that is, we condemn Senator Anning's comments last night in his maiden speech. They are not views shared by the government, the opposition or any fair-minded Australian. We will always maintain a non-discriminatory immigration program. The whole of Australia should hear those conclusions loudly and clearly today as a result of the remarks of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Home Affairs, the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and others.

The Prime Minister is right when he consistently says that Australia is the most successful multicultural country in the world. We've welcomed people from across the world to our shores, and in the process we've all been enriched and have largely maintained incredible social cohesion despite our diverse intake. The thing which unites us is our core values, as the Prime Minister articulated, of freedom of speech, of the fair go, of equality between men and women. The rest of Australia welcomes with absolutely open arms people who want to come to Australia to adopt those values and make a contribution, regardless of where they're from, their racial background, their religious background, their heritage or anything else. That's the only thing that matters.

When I look at the data, it not only backs up what the Prime Minister and other members of this parliament have consistently said; it does so categorically. If you look at the employment data, the unemployment rate for migrants is basically the same as that for those who were born here. That's very different to the EU, where the unemployment rate of migrants is six percentage points higher. When you look at the home ownership rate, it's very similar. When you look at education rates, migrants actually do better than the home-born. Across almost every single indicator, migrants do phenomenally well in this country, in part because we control the immigration process, we encourage people to do well, and we put migrants in the centre of the community, not on the fringes—and we've got to make sure that we continue to do that.

My daughters attend a girls school in Melbourne. It's a school which is made up of, by far and away, students from a range of multicultural heritages, including Indian, Sri Lankan, Chinese, Vietnamese, Singaporean et cetera. When people see a class photo from my daughter's school, they will often say 'Jeez, that school is 80 per cent multicultural.' My response is always: 'You know what? It's 100 per cent Australian.' That is absolutely the case, and all of us in this chamber know that. When those girls get together at our house, it makes no damn difference where they're from or what the colour of their skin is; they all just play together and get along. I think that has been, by and large, a trait of the entire Australian community.

This doesn't mean that our overall multicultural success and our social cohesion is God-given. Of course it's not. We've got to continue to work on this. We continually refine our immigration programs to ensure that we maintain our overall success as a nation. As the members of this chamber know, we abolished the 457 visa program last year, for good reason. We want to constantly work on ensuring that we guarantee our social cohesion going forward into the future. But Senator Anning's comments didn't contribute to any progression of Australia's social cohesion or address any of the challenges which we might face. To the contrary, I think they did the reverse.

Many of Senator Anning's comments were factually incorrect. He made an observation about abolishing the 457 visas. We abolished them last year. He made an observation that international students take Australian spots in universities. Well, that's just factually wrong; if anything, they subsidise Australian students. He made an observation that the family reunion program should be exclusively maintained for spouses and children of Australian citizens. Well, again, I point out that 90 per cent of the family reunion program is maintained exclusively for them. He made the observation that many people come here and go immediately onto welfare. I point out, again: that's not the case. Nobody who comes here through the skilled migration program or the family reunion program is able to go onto welfare for two years, and we have a bill in the parliament to extend that to four.

Many of Senator Anning's comments were factually ignorant, but there were other comments that he made that were deeply divisive, as members of this parliament have pointed out today. Then there was his final comment which was not just deeply divisive but very, very offensive and hurtful, particularly to members of the Jewish community—that is, the use of the phrase 'the final solution'. That is a phrase which should never be used when discussing immigration or citizenship or any other such matters. It should never be used in that context. I think that if Senator Anning had an ounce of character he would apologise for using that statement. He should rightfully do that, even if, as he maintains, he did not appreciate the context.

We live in a terrific nation. It is a proudly multicultural country where we welcome people from around the world. We've got to work to continue to maintain this social cohesion, and I hope that all Australians today will hear very loudly the government, led by the Prime Minister, and the opposition, led by the member for Maribyrnong, calling out divisive comment and racially based comment, and saying that we will always maintain a non-discriminatory immigration program.

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