Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

What have you done about it? Absolutely nothing! Let me tell you about some of the youth unemployment rates in these areas. Youth unemployment was a big problem in the year ending August 2017. In the 15 to 24 age group, 35 per cent are unemployed in Australia.

Senator Chisholm talked about James Cook University in North Queensland. In Townsville there is a 46.4 per cent unemployment rate for those aged between 15 and 24. Let's go to the Sunshine Coast: 37.1 per cent. In Brisbane, we're looking at an average of 43 to 45 per cent. These are people who are looking for jobs. These are our kids, Australian kids. They can't get jobs.

You're more concerned about international students. I'm not knocking them coming here; yes, it makes us a lot of money. But why don't you get out and look at what they're doing in this country by us giving them work visas? They should be supporting themselves. If we talk about housing: international students can buy established housing. But the fact is that their parents buy the houses for them, so the parents own them. They are supposed to sell that house before they leave the country. They don't; they actually then have a house in Australia. So therefore we've got another market out there. They're paying all the rent, are they? Well, a lot of them are actually in houses bought by their parents.

The whole thing is that it needs to be looked at. Are they paying taxes in Australia? How many jobs do they actually have? A lot of it is under the counter; they're being paid cash in hand. We need to look at this with international students. My concern is for Australia and Australian kids. They are who I am concerned about. They are who should be getting these jobs. As I said, 343,035 international student visas were allocated in 2016-17. That is in one year. How many foreign students do we have in this country now? Can anyone tell me? Is it up to a million students? How many jobs are they taking? No wonder we've go so much unemployment, underemployment and casualisation of jobs in this country. Where are the unions speaking up about this?

I've seen both sides of politics in here. This has been escalating the problems. Rural and regional areas are dying because kids are leaving the towns because they do not have jobs. And you are not doing anything about it! All I see in here are people who are hypocrites. Because we are doing something about this, all you can do is direct your fingers and say that raising this issue is about racism. Well, I can tell you that One Nation is a party that is standing up for the Australian people about jobs and about people paying their taxes. I am here to represent the Australian people, first and foremost, and to worry about everyone in this country, as are my colleagues. When you get your act together and know how to run this country, we might get ourselves out of $504 billion of debt that is heading towards $600 billion. I think both the coalition and the Labor Party, while you've both been in government, have done a very good job in raising the debt of this country. It is lucky that One Nation is here because we can keep you on your toes and start really addressing the true concerns of the Australian people.

Question agreed to.