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

A precedent-setting change to immigration policy has passed this chamber today. I'm using this time to raise this crucial matter because today an immigration amendment bill on a merit based system with a lottery on working visas was passed. The ballot that was put in place can be entered before jobs are secured. People don't have to show that they have a job to go in the ballot. It's ballot first and then: 'Let's see if you can get a secure job.' This is more than a profound departure from decades of immigration policy. Labor is deceitfully opening yet another back door for permanent residency for more people than this country is able to accommodate. The Albanese government may be a sideshow, but our immigration system shouldn't be run like a chook raffle or lucky dip.

This also flies in the face of Australian community sentiment about immigration numbers. Our people overwhelmingly support much lower immigration levels but are completely ignored by this chamber. Australians are angry about Labor ignoring their views on immigration. They are screaming about it because Australian families are facing increasing mortgage payments, higher rents and homelessness thanks to the high demand for housing, driven by Labor's immigration policies. It will put more undue pressure on our health and education systems, our public infrastructure, our wage growth and our welfare system, let alone what it's going to do to nursing homes and hospitals.

This legislation will first put working visa applicants in a lottery and only afterwards require them to demonstrate they are being sponsored into a job. This is the reverse of what should be in place. Even worse is that people from Pacific island nations will be given the opportunity to bring their families with them if their working visa application is accepted. Their families will be able to access benefits and student funding. There are a few serious problems with this approach. Most of these people come to Australia for seasonal agricultural work, and we have a visa for that. After the season is over there is no more work, so they go home and take their earnings with them. Allowing them to stay permanently means many of them will end up depending on our welfare system when the seasonal work dries up. It will also drain these island nations of skilled workers, hurting their economies. Did you think about that one? The Cook Islands have already signalled this problem with Labor's legislation, and I expect others may follow suit.

Labor claims this is part of its broader engagement strategy for nations in the Pacific. I have to say something about some of these nations. Australia gives them a huge amount of foreign aid assistance after natural disasters and assistance to improve poor governance. We have even committed military and police forces in times of conflict and unrest. In exchange, these nations beat us up over Australia's one per cent of global human carbon dioxide emissions. The irony is they go to communist China for money for infrastructure and say nothing about that country's 30 per cent of global emissions. When China calls in this debt, they will again come to Australia, screaming for help, and I will say no. I will say, 'You made your bed and you can lie in it.' It was announced this week that China is going to reboot and reinvigorate its so-called Belt and Road Initiative, so we can look forward to more of this hypocrisy in Pacific diplomacy.

This new policy is a scam. One Nation is the only party that stands with the majority of Australian people in demanding the substantial reduction in our immigration levels. It forms a critical element of our signature policy to end the housing and rental crisis, which continues to get worse under Prime Minister Albanese and the Labor-Greens coalition government. One Nation was the only party to oppose this migration bill today, because it hasn't been well thought out. We have working visas for people to come into this nation—once they've done the work they go back. But, in giving them a lottery to come here as permanents and then bring their families and in giving them access to our education—with HELP and HECS debts—what are we doing to our own people here? We can't afford this. We are in a housing and rental crisis. Our homes are in crisis, and there is still a back door to bring more people into this country to increase the immigration numbers in Australia. It's an absolute shame and a disgrace, and I hope that people vote— (Time expired)