Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I again refer the Prime Minister to the ABC Tissues case, where the Chinese workers do not speak enough English to understand safety instructions. Prime Minister, isn’t it the case that the government’s 457 visa scheme, which has seen a 66 per cent increase in temporary skilled migrants since 2003-04, has no specific English-speaking requirements at all? How does the Prime Minister justify this blatant hypocrisy, when he himself wrote in the Daily Telegraph on the weekend:

Simple tasks like securing a job ... would be so much harder in Australia without a working knowledge of English.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Without looking at the details of the 457 visas, I can neither confirm nor deny what has been put to me. But nothing in that alters our support for the scheme—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Burke interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Watson is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and of course nothing alters the absolute essentiality for people who come here who do not speak English. I take this opportunity of making the point—which is not what the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was inferring in her question—that I am not suggesting for moment that everybody who comes to this country should be able to speak the English language when they arrive. I have never suggested that. What I have suggested is that, if people come to this country with an imperfect knowledge of English, they have a heavy obligation to learn it and to learn it as soon as possible, because it is a passport to success.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Macklin interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has asked her question.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a passport to success in this country, and I am grateful that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has asked me that question so I have the opportunity of repeating what I said last week: that one of the essential passports to achievement in this country is to learn the English language. Whether or not you can speak the English language when you come here is beside the point. It is the speed with which you learn it and your commitment to learning it that are important, and I stand by everything I said last week.