Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Hansard source

Obviously, I rise in support of Senator Hanson's motion. I would like to make a short contribution to that motion. I believe that our current immigration program is unsustainable. I also think that it is not in the national interest and it is an economic and cultural disaster. Australia has always had a generous immigration program. It provides opportunity for people from all around the world. Heck, many of us in this room are migrants. My own family benefited from Australia's migration program and Australia's generosity. But a generous immigration program must be sustainable. The record numbers of people being brought into Australia by the Albanese government are anything but sustainable. It's not even close. And we know why they're doing it. They're doing it to prop up the GDP, because they are bad economic managers. It is a bandaid on a bullet wound. That's what it is.

Housing is in short supply. We all know that. It's being made more expensive as a direct result of mass immigration. Public infrastructure is overrun. Our major cities are clogged. Social cohesion—this is an important one—is at an all-time low. Why? It's because we insist on bringing people into Australia that are not culturally aligned with Australian values. This is a huge mistake, and we're going to pay for it down the line. What good is a big Australia if the result is something other than Australia? What good is it? Worryingly, that seems to be the case. If the government believes that there's a skills shortage, as they like to say, then how about finding ways to address this skills shortage without importing massive numbers of people in an unchecked way? Make our immigration policy finely tuned and targeted at exactly the people that we need. It could be a sustainable, smarter program. It would enjoy more public support, and that's important. That's a vital key. Importing record numbers of people via a haphazard process risks alienating mainstream Australia, which in turn will alienate those who arrive in our country.

When around 30 per cent of Australians voted the Labor Party into power at the last election, no-one knew that Prime Minister Albanese and his team would bring in around a million people within just a couple of years. If they haven't already, the government runs the risk of losing support for immigration full stop. This is terrible leadership. It's got to be addressed. Enough is enough. To ensure sustainable and popular support for immigration, the current numbers have to be cut drastically. In fact, I would support net zero immigration for a while. Not to do so would undermine immigration itself. Worse than that, it would undermine Australia itself. For these reasons and a whole lot more, I wholeheartedly support Senator Hanson's motion, and I hope that many of you will. You probably won't, because you don't have the cojones or the backbone. That's why you will continue to slide in polls and why parties like mine will continue to rise.