Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. In the year ending 30 September 2023, net overseas migration was 548,800 people, which is an increase of 206,500, a 60 per cent increase, from the previous year. Prime Minister, don't these figures just confirm that Labor's housing crisis is worsening, with overseas arrivals now running at four times the rate of new home builds?

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

I join with members of parliament in welcoming the UK minister here. I look forward to welcoming minister Shapps to the Lodge later today, along with Minister Cameron, the foreign minister. We will be hosting the AUKMIN dedication there later this evening before they head to Adelaide for what will be a very important meeting. I look forward to hearing the feedback about your trip to Osborne. I was able to host the High Commissioner just on Tuesday evening as well to get a briefing about the relationship between Australia and the UK, of which the AUKUS arrangements and our Defence relationship is so important.

On the question, the fact is that migration is lower than it was anticipated to be; the population figures lower than what was anticipated to be under the former government. Indeed, the Business Council of Australia have said that in fact new housing supply has been falling over the last half decade. They said that in 2023 about the period in which those opposite were in government—not the ACTU, the Business Council of Australia. I know they are antibusiness a lot of the time these days. The modern Liberal Party have just been moving further and further and further to the right, so they are a party now led by people like Senator Antic and others, rather than mainstream people. The member for Deakin's faction are running that mob in Melbourne into the ground.

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

The member for Deakin will leave the chamber under 94(a). When I am giving someone the call that is not the time to add an insult to somebody, trust me.

The member for Deakin then left the chamber.

The member for Wannon is entitled to raise a point of order and he should be heard in silence and no interjections will occur while I hear this point of order.

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

It goes to relevance. You can't shake it off. Arrivals are running at four times the rate—

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

Resume your seat. The Prime Minister was asked a question about migration. He's giving exact context about the figures with migration. It's virtually impossible to raise a point of order on relevance when he's directly answering the question he was asked, particularly on immigration. And now he's talking about housing. We simply aren't going to have people getting up and taking points of order because they don't like the answer. The Prime Minister has the call.

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

I quoted the peak organisation, but I'll quote another—senior businesswoman, Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, the former head of Mirvac. She knows something about housing. She's the Chair of the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council, and she said: 'Housing and rental affordability is a real problem which has been decades in the making, fundamentally a housing supply issue.'

The nation's housing ministers under the former government did not meet over five years. There were no meetings; none. By the end of their nine years in office at the end of the June quarter 2022, the number of private dwellings completed had fallen to 41,000, the lowest quarterly number since 2014. The person who just got dismissed from the chamber had this to say: 'States and territories have the primary responsibility. There's a lot of work to be done by states and territories.' He was the federal minister— (Time expired)