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

I ask the question: do you think the current rate of immigration to Australia is too high? Our rate of net immigration is a topic that has regularly made an appearance at the forefront of public debate in recent years and so it should. Immigration impacts considerably on Australia's overall population growth, which in turn impacts on the lifestyles we are all able to experience. It makes common sense to understand that more people means more demand for services. If those services are not established at a pace that keeps up with the growth then lifestyles will go backwards. With the stagnant lifestyles ordinary Australians have been experiencing in the past decade we certainly don't want things to get any worse.

Raising an issue like immigration, in particular the idea of an immigration slow down, also seems to attract those who want to drag the racism tag into the discussions. It's already happened with this bill and I really expect nothing less from those who have already tossed this issue into the too-hard basket and don't have the fortitude to tackle the difficult matters that affect the lives of all citizens and residents of Australia.

As I have said previously, this bill is not about where people originate when they come to live in our great nation or why. It is strictly about the numbers and the impact those numbers—significant numbers on a global scale, mind you—are having on our lives here.

Australia's considerable population growth has been linked quite publicly in recent years to various social issues: infrastructure being unable to keep up with the population growth in our suburbs and services being unable to keep up with the increased demand that results from the collective needs of more people.

Infrastructure Australia, an Australian government body, also notes these two concerns. It says:

Lags in infrastructure provision cost the economy, but they also affect people's quality of life. If we don't get the timing of new housing and infrastructure right, our growth centres risk being characterised by congested roads, overcrowded trains and buses, over-enrolment in schools, hospital bed shortages and constraints on community infrastructure.

My next point: our considerable population growth has been linked to higher demand for housing and subsequently ever rising house prices, which for many Australians now puts owning their own home further out of reach. And it's not just population growth generally. One OECD study notes very clearly that evidence suggests that, 'changes in population growth stemming from increases in net migration tend to have a greater influence on real house prices in the medium-term than natural increases.'

The great and dedicated Australian Dick Smith has spoken about this is. Regarding the housing affordability crisis he very simply said:

… when you consider the scale of its impact on the problem, population growth gets very little scrutiny or debate relative to the other causes involved.

In fact, it is rarely acknowledged at all.

Let me say it up-front: Australia's immigration-fuelled population growth is a major cause of our country's housing affordability crisis. Mr Smith has also noted the number of years that it now takes to save up for a house deposit by saying 10 per cent of an average wage in 1975 was six years but in 2016 it is 25 years. They are all factors that highlight the impact of our high population growth on the ordinary Australian. The aspiration of owning a home is more and more at risk.

My final dot point is: population growth has also been linked to concerns about increased demands for jobs, stagnant wages growth, and subsequent unemployment and underemployment. An ABC analysis noted that Australia currently has a population growth rate of around 1.6 per cent, which is more than double the rate of the United Kingdom and of the USA and is driven, largely, by immigration. Other sources suggest a similar figure of 1.7 per cent growth. The ABC analysis also noted the subsequent impacts on wages and jobs. It said:

… in the short term an increase of the supply of labour through high migration should mean lower wages growth.

It also said:

… there are about 680,000 unemployed Australians and an additional 1 million Australians who have a job, but would like—

to work—

more hours.

It's also been acknowledged that many of the jobs created in Australia these days are going to immigrants, further adding to the pressures on jobseekers and their families everywhere.

The Sydney Morning Herald recently noted that in recent years many additional full-time jobs have been created, but it's equally true that many of those jobs have gone to immigrants and other new entrants to the labour force, meaning the rate of unemployment hasn't fallen below five per cent. Despite these facts about our high population growth, there remains the belief in the Australian political and business sphere that high population growth is necessary to achieve high economic growth.

Big business also loves high immigration. Big retailers like Harvey Norman love high immigration because it means there are more customers to buy their products. But the influence of Mr Harvey and other corporate leaders in the debate should be lessened because the focus should be more on the quality of life of Australian residents and citizens, rather than the hip pockets of big businesses.

In the period from 1995 to 2011, the UK experience was that mass migration had made the country significantly poorer. There was a considerable difference between the value of the services they claimed and the amount of taxation they paid. The figure was initially estimated at a shortfall of 95 billion pounds but was later revised upwards to 114 billion pounds, before being raised further to 159 billion pounds.

The dot points I outlined suggest that the ordinary Australian, including Mr Morrison's 'quiet Australians', may not necessarily be seeing the supposed benefits of having more and more people coming here who are all seeking to be somehow satisfied in all these specific criteria. It is worth looking at the UK situation with regard to immigration, which has already been mirrored in some areas in Australia. The UK's population is some 2½ times that of Australia, and their net migration numbers are around the same as ours. Concern among citizens in the UK over this figure and the impact it was having on life in the UK can be attributed considerably to the result of the Brexit vote in 2016. Australia's current net migration, according to the latest budget papers, is around 271,000 people. It's not the figure of 190,000 that was bandied around in March just prior to the election, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story when an election is coming?

New migrants to the UK have almost seen it as arriving in heaven. They have often arrived from nations where living conditions are poorer, so the conditions of their new home, even though they might be poor by UK standards, are wonderful in comparison. Jobs are potentially more readily available because they are often prepared to work for wages that are much lower than those in their previous country of origin. In the book The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, author Douglas Murray notes that:

High among the reasons why people flock to Europe are the knowledge that its welfare states will look after migrants who arrive, and the knowledge that however long it takes or however poorly migrants may be looked after they will still enjoy a better standard of living and a better roster of rights than anywhere else, let alone in their home countries.

New migrant workers are an attractive option for businesses. Because of this mindset, there is a demise of opportunities for existing citizens and residents.

We need to ensure the UK situation does not take hold more strongly here, so it's important that this issue is debated properly and that the facts and figures are clear for all to see. To use the terminology of Mr Murray, the situation 'will see people at the lower end of that market edged out of jobs by people from countries where wages and living standards are far lower and who are therefore willing to work for lower pay.'

We have seen elements of that emerging in Australia, with some migrants and overseas students workers being exploited because they either accept lower wages or they are oblivious to our legal wage minimums. Either way, they are filling jobs at a lower rate than that of other Australians and residents. It is not good for those looking for work, and it's not good for our economy. To add further to this situation, a high number of the migrants who are now experiencing and benefitting from the better living conditions of the UK, as they also do in Australia, are sending money back to family members still living back in poorer conditions in their former homelands. Murray, again:

The reality is that whatever its other benefits, the economic benefits of immigration accrue almost solely to the migrant. It is migrants who are able to access public facilities that have not been previously paid for. It is migrants who benefit from a wage higher than they could earn in their home country, and very often the money that they earn, or much of it, is sent to family outside the United Kingdom rather than being put back into the local economy. It is clear that economies of the host nation are impacted negatively by high rates of immigration.

As I touched on earlier, the Australian Prime Minister recently spoke of the aspirations of Australians: aspirations for a job; perhaps an apprenticeship; or to start their own business; to own a home and save for a comfortable retirement. These are typical traditional Australian aspirations. They are actually quite modest. But let's be honest: for many people they are slipping out of reach. In the past, they were almost a given. They were life's achievements, and they were quite reachable if you had a stable job and lived a sensible life. However, high immigration levels, among other things, are very much the cause of putting the barriers up that prevent these simple aspirations from being achieved.

Since 2007 Australia's population grew by five million, an overall increase of 25 per cent. There are predictions that our population will grow further in the next 50 years to 50 million people. I believe it will be more if we keep going at the rate we're going. Quite alarmingly, 60 per cent of Australia's population growth from 2006 to 2016 came from immigration. The impacts of immigration on areas of provision of services, employment, homeownership and the like also had noticeable impacts on other aspects of life, that is starting and building a family. Mr Murray notes that 'In the UK the majority of new births are from immigrants rather than existing citizens and residents.' If it is agreed that a particular country wishes to maintain a stable or slowly growing population, then before importing people from other states surely it would surely be more sensible to determine whether there are reasons why people in your own country are not at present having enough children. He adds, 'Only three types of people now have three children or more: the very rich, the very poor and recent immigrants.'

Is the high rate of growth by immigration good or bad? With all these facts and figures on the table I think it is a legitimate topic to debate. So I come back to my original question: do you think the current rate of immigration to Australia is too high? I believe I know the answer, but I think all Australians, those who live and breathe the consequences of our population growth every day, those who drive the congested roads and are on the crowded buses and trains and are stuck in the rental roundabout because house prices just keep rising while wages levels remain stagnant—it is those people who should be given the chance to vote on this issue so we can find out, once and for all, what the people really think.

In my previous speech on this topic I noted that the Lowy Institute survey reported a sharp spike in anti-immigration sentiment in 2018, causing its annual sentiment measure to change from positive to negative. The 2017 Scanlon survey reported 37 per cent of respondents see the current immigration intake as too high, but when respondents remained anonymous, 74 per cent that Australia did not need any more people. In the same year, the Australian Population Research Institute found that 54 per cent of respondents who were Australian voters wanted the number of immigrants reduced. So let's do a proper vote. Let every voter have a say and find out what all the people think together.

That's what I'm proposing in this bill, the Plebiscite (Future Migration Level) Bill 2018. I am proposing that a plebiscite be held, coinciding with the next federal election to ensure better convenience and to reduce costs, to ask all Australians their views on this high-impact issue. Let Australians be allowed to cast a vote, yes or no, and so collectively reveal if they believe our immigration rates are in fact too high. From there, we can determine what needs to be done to our immigration processes to make any changes that will have the flow-on effect that will improve general liveability in Australia, employment, housing affordability, less crowding in schools and hospitals, and similar issues.

The Prime Minister has previously raised the issue of an immigration cap to keep net migration to Australia at 160,000. A suggestion by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, following my lead, was that the figure should be cut further, perhaps as low as 110,000—I have even commented as low as 75,000—until we can get infrastructure and services for the Australian people and clean up our own backyard. We're met by concern as to whether it would blow out Australia's deficit further. The comments all add to the many mixed opinions and viewpoints that have contributed to this debate on this issue in the past.

Is the current rate of immigration to Australia too high? Let's put this simple question to the people, if the people in this parliament or this government have got the guts to do it. Let's hold the plebiscite, and hold it to coincide with the next federal election so we keep the cost down. Let's not sit on our hands on this issue any longer. Let's take steps to understand exactly what the people think, and then act with confidence on the resulting useful information. Yesterday I put a post on my Facebook page, Pauline Hanson's Please Explain, flagging this plebiscite, and in less than 24 hours it received more than 7,100 comments. That is quite staggering. It shows very clearly that people want to have their say on this matter. With all the politicians having their input, big businesses and researchers having their say, and academics putting in their two cents' worth about immigration, don't you think it's time for everyday Australians to also be heard? That, after all, is what democracy is all about.