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

This morning Senator Hanson debated her bill to call a plebiscite on immigration and the resulting housing crisis, which is a human catastrophe. The bill was opposed by the Liberal Party, the Labor Party, the National Party, the Greens, the Jacqui Lambie Network and the teal Senator Pocock. One Nation and Senator Babet supported it. We're the only parties that think people should get a say in immigration. Everyone else clearly doesn't want to let the Australian people say, 'No.' They don't want to let the people say, 'We don't want more people coming here, driving up rents that we can't afford now,' 'No, we don't want to choose between paying groceries and paying the mortgage,' and, for an increasing number of Australians, 'No, we don't want to live in a tent.' Never has an issue so marked the distinction between the political class and the people they're supposed to represent.

Every day our office gets many calls on this. I wonder what those who voted against One Nation's bill will say when these people call. Does your office lie and sympathise with them or do you tell them to just go and suffer in their jocks? That's how you voted. Do you visit the homeless in tent cities around Australia, as I've done, or do you drive past and look the other way? The hypocrisy on this issue is breathtaking. So many senators who've sat over there opposing this bill are on social media calling for reduced immigration. Those posts are lies that are designed to cover for parties who've been captured and joined an agenda destroying our way of life, removing access to affordable housing.

According to Western Union research, 11 per cent of the income migrants earn in Australia is sent overseas to their families, never to return, reducing Australia's national wealth. Australia's in a per capita recession, and wealth outflow is part of that problem. Wealth outflow reduces local spending and investment. It doesn't create jobs—it costs jobs. If everyday Australians feel they're working harder and going backwards, it's because they are.

Only a vote for One Nation will get Australians back into affordable housing.