Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For decades, parliamentarians on both sides of this House prided themselves on Australian multiculturalism, contrasting ourselves with systems such as the German guest worker process, where people had no rights for 30, 40 or 50 years.

The first nail in the coffin for this policy was under the Howard government, when we had a massive reduction in the number of people allowed to enter this country as parents. There was then a deal reached with the Democrats—

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You know better than this!

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Chief Government Whip!

Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to preserve the non-contributory parent visas. The initial intention of the Liberal Party was that the only people to come to this country were those who would pay.

The Democrats accomplished a deal to preserve the non-contributory visas. Today we see it destroyed. We see a situation where the family reunion category—which allows people to go to college, to be educated, to do things in the wider society with family support has been destroyed. It has been indicated that the fees could go as high as $125,000, but a minimum of over $40,000 is now required to bring parents into this country. I will hazard a guess that there are people on the opposite size of this House whose background in Europe, particularly, has been such that they have brought in members of their extended families under the previous system.

It is a disgrace that this has been abandoned a week after the immigration department could not even predict that it was going to destroyed. What we have seen here today is the final nail in Australian multiculturalism.