Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Faruqi. The short answer to your question is no. Unlike the Greens political party, this government does recognise that we do need to put some caps and some limits around the level of migration we are seeing to Australia at the moment, in particular through the international education system.

I don't have the figures right in front of me at the moment, but we have seen a massive growth in international education over the last couple of years in Australia, and that is putting unsustainable pressure on the amount of migration that we are receiving in this country at a time when people are experiencing cost-of-living pressures and very real housing pressures.

What would help to deal with this situation is if we could have any bit of cooperation whatsoever from the Greens political party when it comes to providing more housing for Australians. Instead, what we see from the Greens is constant cries for more housing and then constant votes against the initiatives that we take in this chamber to try to deliver more housing. We saw that it took many, many months for the Greens to finally capitulate and vote for the government's Housing Australia Future Fund, which will be delivering tens of thousands of new homes. Even in the last fortnight, what have we seen from the Greens when it comes to housing? We've seen them obstruct, delay and block more legislation from this government to help renters buy their own homes and also to encourage developers to invest in housing through our build-to-rent scheme.

The Greens want to have it both ways. They want to get out there with their social media memes and their rallies and demand more housing. But, at the same time that they want housing, they also want to have rallies against particular housing developments. They want to call for more housing when they're out there on the forecourt in a press conference. But, when they come in this room, they vote against new housing being delivered, they vote against building to rent, they vote against Help to Buy and they also want to vote against measures like what we are taking with international education to put some limits on migration. (Time expired)