Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thought the opposition dropped the scare campaign after Mr Morrison so completely botched his one intervention into these issues earlier and had to withdraw from the public debate under pressure from his backbench. The key point is that there is no target for population endorsed by government in this country. There never has been under either government. There is no target. The total population will be determined by the annual migration program as adjusted, by the temporary movement in and out of Australia of people, such as New Zealanders, who are not capped, of course by population growth through the birth rate. It is worth noting, now that the opposition seems to have become a small migration, antibusiness lobby, that the size of the migration program under John Howard in his last year was twice the size of the program in Keating’s last year. And some of the largest migration programs in Australia were driven under the Howard government. (Time expired)