Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

For someone who's so happy, she seems to be very unhappy and very angry. But, anyway, I digress. The government announced the changes to the visa arrangements for New Zealand citizens on 22 April. The coalition welcomes New Zealand citizens who have lived in Australia, contributed to our country, are of good character and want to become an Australian. Australia and New Zealand are a family. We often talk about our Anzac traditions that stem back to 1915, and so we should. Our citizens have fought and died together, side by side, defending our freedoms. We are bonded together by people, culture, business, sport and art. The coalition has the deepest respect for New Zealand and its people and welcomes people who are committed to Australian values and who respect our rights, liberties and laws. Australian citizenship is an incredible privilege, but with those privileges comes responsibilities. Those responsibilities are, just as those rights are, bestowed upon every single Australian and every single person that resides here.

The changes to the New Zealand visa arrangements have a large cost. That was revealed in the budget papers. This is all part of Labor's 'big Australia' policy. In true Labor style, they made this big flashy announcement, but they were very light on the detail. I'll come back to that in a moment. What we see out of this policy, consistent with what we've seen through the rest of the budget that was announced in the last sitting period, is that Australian working taxpayers get very little out of this budget. Essential Australian working taxpayers will, as a result of this policy, be paying more. They will be paying more to feed Labor's voracious welfare policies.

Providing permanent citizenship to 400,000 New Zealand citizens will increase payments from government services and benefits by $1.3 billion. This policy will cost Australian taxpayers $1.3 billion over five years from 2022-23. It will increase taxation receipts by $795 million over the same period. What this means is that there is a net fiscal cost of $500 million. That's half a billion dollars. This isn't just Andrew Wallace, the member for Fisher, saying this; this is from the budget papers.

As I said earlier, Labor's all about the big flashy announcement, not about the detail. Let's have a look at some of the questions that this policy raises. Will New Zealand citizens who accept the offer to become an Australian citizen be included as part of the permanent immigration number or will they be counted separately? This is the 1.5 million additional people that Labor want to bring into this country over five years. Will those 400,000 be part of that 1.5 million or will that 400,000 be on top of the 1.5 million people that Labor want to bring into this country? Will the New Zealand citizens replace much-needed highly skilled workers like nurses, teachers and engineers? If they do fill spaces within the immigration cap, what is the government going to do to address the impact on the housing and rental crisis, congestion and the environment with increased migration? This is coming from a government that has just put every single infrastructure project that hasn't had a shovel put in the ground on review for the next 90 days. We know what that means. That's Labor speak for cuts, cuts and more cuts—unless, of course, the money was going to a Labor held electorate. There are many more questions to be answered. I'm hoping that my friend the member for Riverina will pick them up.

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