Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

In addressing the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024, which has been referred to in the media as the 'ghost universities bill', I remind the House, as I said when I was speaking earlier in the day on this matter, that the number of people coming into Australia through the student visas is of the order of 400,000 or 500,000 a year. Now, I find these figures pretty hard to believe—that it's that much—but those are the official figures given to me by the departments. There are another 350,000 people coming in on various visas, including the immigration visa. That's nearly a million people a year coming into Australia.

Over a period of 10 or 12 years, if these people have children, and a lot of them have a lot of children, these people will be a majority in this country. Do they come from countries with democracy? Mostly no. Do they come from countries with rule of law? Mostly no. Do they come from countries with Christianity? No. When I say Christianity, I'm not necessarily referring to belief in a god, but I am referring to the underlying principle of Western democracies—that you have a responsibility to your fellow man and you have a responsibility to make the world a better place. That is the essence of Jesus Christ's message that underpins the Magna Carta which underpins most of our laws and was written by the Archbishop Langton, the head of the Christian church in England at the time.

Let me return to the issue at hand. No Christianity, no industrial awards, no democracy and no rule of law. What the hell do you think our country is going to look like if you bring 10 or 15 million of these people into this country? Go down any time of the day or night to a takeaway food place here in Canberra or a late-night pharmacy or any other thing here in Canberra, and see where those people come from. I've even asked them where they come from.

For those who interpret my remarks as being anti-Muslim, I am on record on numerous occasions praising our neighbours, the people of Indonesia. They've been wonderful neighbours to us, much better neighbours than we've been to them. I've found them marvellous people. I've had a lot of interface with them with live cattle issues and I couldn't speak more highly of them. They strike me as very Christian people! They have respect for other people and they have a desire to make the world peaceful and a better place to live in. I'm not talking about them. But there is a group from the Middle East, and I most certainly make no apologies for talking about them.

Having said those things, one of the most senior people in the universities councils of Australia told me 20 years ago that if you stop the universities from being visa shops, then you will close half the universities in Australia. The government figures are so doctored up they are just a joke. The exports and imports figures are now doctored up with sale of student visas. That is regarded as income for Australia! It's not; it's a round robin. They come here, they stay here, they get a job driving taxis or after hours whatever, and they take the job off an Australian. So you get paid on money they've taken off an Australian that had the job before and was probably working to an arbitrated wage. A lot of these newcomers are not working to an arbitrated wage.

There are numerous examples in history where people have let people into their country. You can start right back with the Vandals being allowed into the Roman Empire and the next thing they were sacking Rome itself. I can give a thousand other examples for those of us who read history books. I quoted Winston Churchill, and it doesn't hurt to quote him again, when he said, 'Those that do not understand and know their history will be doomed to once again to suffer that history.' When Hitler invaded Russia, Churchill chortled and said, 'Mr Hitler does not know his history!' He was dead right. Charles XII of Sweden invaded Russia, and the Russians kept running away until he was exhausted and starving, half of his troops dead by disease and trying to chase the Russians down. Then Napoleon did exactly the same thing. He went in there with half a million troops and came out with 50,000 troops. You may even quote Wellington in Spain. If you let the Vandals in, don't complain to me when they sacked and raped and murdered half the population of Rome because they weren't given half of the land ownership of Italy. They felt they should be given land grants over a fair proportion of Italy.

You can start their and go to numerous examples of this. Israel itself is a very good example. It was totally Jewish. Then in 1385, Ibn Khaldun—I think was the name of the historian—said he was very surprised to find that Jerusalem was still predominantly Christian and Palestine was still predominantly Christian. Well, there were no Christians there. Within 200 years, there were no Christians there at all. They let people in. They didn't defend their borders and protect their borders. They let people in, and they were booted out, and they became the Jewish diaspora.

For those people that want an example of what happens, Constantinople was the centre of the Christian religion and the centre of the Roman Empire, and now there is hardly a Christian living in that area of the world. Most certainly, in Constantinople you won't find any Christians. Well, you let the people in. You let them in continuously. You did not defend and protect your borders, and then you paid the price. And the price is very, very high indeed.

We have pretty close to a million people a year coming in on student visas that are supposed to go home. Earlier today, I quoted a case when I got in a taxi and asked the taxi driver a little bit sneakily, 'What subject are you doing at university this year?' He said, 'Hospitality.' I think if I asked the question a different way, he might have been a bit sneaky, but I asked it that way, and he said, 'Hospitality.' He looked to me to be about 50 years old, and he had come in as a very young man to Australia. I mean, quite frankly, if you get in on a student visa, you don't go home.

I also quoted earlier today the case of a family who are lovely people. They're an asset to Australia, in my opinion. But, all the same, I said, 'What visa did you come in on?' She said: 'Oh, I just came in on a student visa. They're really easy to get. Anyone who wants to come to Australia just gets a student visa.' I said, 'What about your family?' She said, 'Oh, they come in on the student visa.' There were six people in that family. These people are great assets to Australia, but a lot of these people are anything but assets to Australia. They sit in a big city ghetto. They don't move. They have no desire, it would appear to me, to become part of Australia now or in the future, and that is not the Australian way.

My brother, who I greatly respect, said: 'They talk about multiculturalism. This country has never been multicultural—never. It was always a monocultural country.' These people have run around with this mouthpiece, and we've all been scared, including me, of it being said that I was against multiculturalism. I never used the word when I was the minister responsible in the state parliament, and I won't use it in the future. We want our people to be Australians, and that is not happening. (Time expired)

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