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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Senator Watt) to a question without notice I asked today relating to immigration.

For three years, from 2020 to 2022, with the nation mostly out of work, we had an opportunity to catch up on social infrastructure: hospitals, schools, transport, water and housing. Instead, we paid money that could have been used to build those things to people to sit at home and not build those things. It was a trillion dollar wasted opportunity. With a new Labor government in power, the immigration floodgates then opened without the social infrastructure to accommodate the new arrivals. What's worse is that there are not enough land rezonings, building applications, approvals and starts to ever make a noticeable improvement in housing.

The Albanese government created a problem it cannot solve. Australia needs to get a refund on that plan we heard so much about from the Prime Minister in the last election because it's a dud. It's not up to the minister in his answer to blame the previous government repeatedly. For three years a so-called national cabinet of Liberal and Labor leaders ran the country, so failure is on both your hands. It's true that the neglect of social infrastructure goes back through 30 years of Liberal and Labor governments—the uniparty.

The message from the last two weeks of elections in Queensland and Tasmania is simple. Voters worked out the link between immigration and social infrastructure and voters are not happy. Voters are angry with Minister Watt and the Albanese government for creating a housing crisis that's rapidly escalated to now be a human catastrophe. The public are noticing the disparity between those benefiting from the property market and those falling behind. It now takes everyday Australians on a median salary up to 14 years to save for a deposit for their own home. The housing crisis the Morrison government started and the Albanese government multiplied is disenfranchising the young. The irony is that the Labor government—once, supposedly, the party of the workers—is making inequality of wealth far worse. Before the thread of social cohesion unravels in this country, this government must turn off the immigration tap and start building social infrastructure.

Question agreed to.