Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs. Buying a first home is getting harder and harder for young Australians. The share of rental properties available to rent is now 54 per cent below where it was at the start of the pandemic. Yet the Albanese Labor government has granted over 500,000 visas in the last year, with 1.6 million arrivals projected over the next five years. Where on earth will these people live? What additional stress will this record number place on Australia's housing crisis?

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to hear from the Leader of the House.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again, in terms of asking questions to the correct minister for their responsibilities, I know that it's possible for the Prime Minister to take any question or for it to go to any other minister, but the direction of questions is consistently—if you listen to the whole preamble and where the question is headed—going to a different minister to the person who has policy carriage.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to hear from the Leader of the Opposition.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As is well known, included in the ministerial responsibilities for the minister for immigration are the criteria that need to be decided upon before he settles on the figure of 500,000 people a year. The reality is that the minister needs to take into consideration, as he would, the advice from Treasury, Finance and other departments about the impact of this Albanese government decision to bring in 1.6 million people in five years. Housing is a key part of that.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think I'll sort this out by taking it, as someone who has responsibility for housing and migration. If they want to do something about housing, they can support the Help to Buy scheme. If they want to do something about housing, they can support our Housing Australia Future Fund. If they want to do something about housing issues, they can support our housing accord to deliver an extra 1.2 million homes. And, if they want to talk about migration, the Leader of the Opposition had this to say, in 2022 after the election, during this term:

We do need an increase in the migration numbers … it's clear that the number needs to be higher.

He went on to say:

… we need migration. The government announcement to increase the permanent migration intake has been delayed because of union pressure.

He boasted and went on to say:

… I brought in record numbers of people from India, China and many other countries.

It wasn't just him; the deputy leader had a crack too: 'We know that business urgently needs a workforce and much of that workforce needs to come from overseas. We could have had a campaign to attract those workers who, by the way, have got other options. They don't come to Australia; no-one understands this better than regional MPs.'

Then we had the shadow minister for immigration.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don't worry, you didn't miss either, sunshine! He said:

… we need to get our international students back. We need to get our working holiday-maker visa holders back.

He was out there calling for more and more.

When we talk about asylum seekers, of course, the former deputy secretary of the immigration department, Abul Rizvi, had this to say about this bloke while he was in charge:

In total, there were between 100,000 and 120,000 asylum applications lodged while Dutton was in charge. The is by far the largest number of asylum applications under any immigration minister in our history.

Indeed it was. The record-holder for backing in big immigration is sitting right there.