Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Hansard source

This is in total ignorance that the ballot system has been very successful in the New Zealand scheme and in the US green card lottery. It's in total ignorance of the fact that our extensive consultations in the Pacific have said that the ballot system is critical to avoiding a brain drain. Only by making the visa random, with strict conditions around health, age, character and a job offer, do you guarantee that a high school graduate has as much chance of winning a visa as a cardio surgeon. If you eliminate the ballot, you eliminate that randomness and you actually eliminate any chance of avoiding the brain drain. In fact, you deliver a brain drain and you undermine our standing in the Pacific. That would be a bizarre outcome, but that's what they're advocating for.

Equally bizarre was the media statement they put out yesterday, where they said that they support a permanent visa but then said that they don't want people to come here permanently. They also said that they want to pick the most skilled people, so we can't use a ballot, but that we don't want the Pacific to lose their best people. The truth is that by undermining our position in the Pacific, they're undermining our national security. They're going back to their bad old ways of hurting Australia's national interest and being patsies for the interests of other countries in the region. (Time expired)

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