Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—This isn't the first time I have risen in this parliament to speak about the opposition's divisive language when it comes to migrant communities. Unfortunately, for many migrant communities, being impacted by the language of the Liberals isn't a new experience. They've been using migrants as political footballs for decades. You'd think that by now they would have learned to stop. In a country where 30 per cent of our population was born overseas, as a country where almost half of the population has a parent born overseas—just like mine—this sort of rhetoric from the Liberals is divisive and nasty, and it hurts Australian families.

In 2016, the then Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, and now Leader of the Opposition, suggested that migrants:

… won't be literate or numerate in their own language, let alone English.

In 2018 he said that migration should be cut and that we shouldn't be letting migrants in who are 'going to be a burden'. And in 2023 it goes on; they continue to use migrant communities to score cheap political points. In this place a matter of months ago, they did it on infrastructure, saying that we should stop renewable energy projects because solar panels and inverters are being made in China—again, using the Chinese-Australian community in their ideological opposition to taking action on climate change. Now they're doing it with housing.

I first want to say that I acknowledge that the housing crisis is real and that people are hurting. They want governments to do more, and this government will. But, we are not in housing crisis because of migrants; we are in a housing crisis which we've been in for decades. Do I need to remind those opposite that rents rose and housing prices rose when our international borders were slammed shut during the pandemic? CoreLogic's head of research shows that rents rose 16.5 per cent during the pandemic, and in 2021 we saw housing prices rise by 23.7 per cent. Those things happened when migration was next to zero.

Earlier this week, founder of an online rental reporting agency, Jordie Van Den Berg, summed it up perfectly when he said: 'Migrants to Australia are not the cause of our housing crisis. Successive government failures are.' The response to his statement of fact is the byproduct of what happens when leaders use migrants as political footballs. The replies to Jordie's tweet were filled with racist and anti-immigrant sentiment, especially towards the Islamic, Asian and South-East Asian communities. This is the impact of the rhetoric that the opposition continues to use.

When the Leader of the Opposition and his party use migrants to score cheap political points, their language hurts communities like the one I represent. Words matter, language matters and, in this instance, facts matter. There is a human toll to the political tactics of the Liberal Party. Their words hurt communities that make our country great, and their words enable hate speech online and in our suburbs.

Through you, Mr Speaker, to the Leader of the Opposition and to the Liberal Party, I would like to say migrants are not the cause of housing and rental crises in Australia. Lazy governments are the cause. Let me tell you how proud I am to be part of a federal government that, for the first time in nearly a decade, cares about the housing crisis and is doing something about it. Every street in my electorate of Bennelong has benefited from the contributions of migrants. Sixty-six per cent of my electorate have one or both parents born overseas, and, as I take my kids to school or grab a coffee at my local shops, I see and hear the positive impact that migrant communities have made to our country.

Both my parents were born overseas and moved to Australia. I went to a school in Western Sydney where all of my friends were from migrant backgrounds—Polish, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Sri Lankan. They had all moved here, to Australia. In my entire life, I've not met a migrant family that has not made this country worse. Every migrant I've met loves this country and loves being here. Every migrant I've met works hard and wants to grow our economy. So, to the Liberal Party I say: Be better. Stop using migrant communities to score your cheap political points. Take ownership, and be part of the solution.