Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on an event whose message and symbolism is more important—and more important particularly in 2024—than it has been for many, many years. On 5 May the world observed Yom HaShoah, also known as Holocaust Remembrance Day. I gathered, as I always do, with the Western Australian Jewish community for a moving ceremony at the centre of their community in Yokine in Perth's northern suburbs. As I begin this contribution, let me commend the community and its leaders for the inspiring and stoic example they continue to set for the people of my home state during these incredibly challenging times.

Because the event took place against a backdrop of chaotic global affairs and followed the events of 7 October last year, the worst slaughter of Jewish people since the Holocaust, I am sure we can all reflect on the enormity of the feeling that filled the hall that evening. Yom HaShoah is a time for Jewish people, for all people, to pause and reflect on the cruelty, the suffering and the bravery that occurred during the Holocaust. The overarching resolution that comes from marking this day is that the world must never allow genocide like that of the Holocaust to occur again. However, ensuring this promise of 'never again' cannot be achieved without eternal vigilance, especially at a time when antisemitism is rearing its ugly head across the globe, including, unfortunately, in our own country. We so regularly pride ourselves on being a haven of acceptance and safety, but that's not so when we see it in full force in our cities, including on university campuses.

I applaud my coalition colleagues who, today, are pursuing this issue with the urgency it deserves by putting their names to a motion moved by Senator Henderson to bring forward an inquiry into antisemitism generally but most particularly on our university campuses. In reflecting on this need for vigilance and how quickly antisemitism can escalate, I was reminded of the story of a Jewish man living in Italy during the period leading up to and during the Second World War. Primo Levi was born in 1919 in Turin and was known for his athletic pursuits and his academic prowess. He would go on to receive top marks in his study of the classics and chemistry and eventually wrote his thesis on the asymmetry of the carbon atom.

Primo's encounters with antisemitism started early, and he was bullied at school. This deteriorated into discrimination that limited his study and work opportunities. In February 1944, he was loaded onto a cramped transport destined for Auschwitz, deprived of liberty and subjected to shocking abuse. Primo later described this time in his book If This Is a Man. He wrote:

Then for the first time we became aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man. In a moment, with almost prophetic intuition, the reality was revealed to us: we had reached the bottom. It is not possible to sink lower than this; no human condition is more miserable than this, nor could it conceivably be so.

He paints a picture of the complete and total deprivation of human dignity, the lowest lows one human can impose on another. Primo, unlike millions of others, survived his time in the death camp. His story points to a message for us all to consider in the wake of 7 October and, of course, of the Yom HaShoah.

The road to Auschwitz began with the deprivation of respect, with verbal insults and the othering of Jewish people. Whatever we may like to believe, for as long as we abide antisemitic hate around the world and in our community we cannot be certain that such horrors will remain only in the history books. Indeed, tragic events show us that, unfortunately, they do not. As has been said by many in the past few months, never again is now.

On the night of the Albanese government's third budget, Labor has again proved itself to be irresponsible and lacking in substance. But, as the Australian people are seeing, not only does the Prime Minister break his word; he has also imposed policies on the public that they've never asked for. As I wrote recently in the West Australian newspaper, one of these is overseeing the biggest increase in unmodelled immigration this country has ever seen since the end of the Second World War. I'd like to share some of the points raised in that newspaper article, including the disproportionate effect this policy is having on my home state of Western Australia.

Last month, Australian Bureau of Statistics data confirmed the extent of Labor's unplanned migration binge. For WA, which has recorded the fastest growing population in the country for four consecutive quarters, the ramifications of this are more widely felt than any other Albanese policy. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, net overseas immigration to Australia soared to 548,000 arrivals in the 12 months to September last year, the most recent reporting period. WA's population grew to more than 2.9 million people and on current projections will exceed three million people by Christmas next year—quite possibly even sooner—with our annual growth rate of 3.3 per cent outstripping east coast capitals significantly. The ABS datasets, released every three months, show that WA's population has now grown at a faster rate than any other capital city since December 2022, beginning at a 2.3 per cent growth rate.

These record immigration levels have been a godsend for Jim Chalmers and Labor, as they remain the only thing keeping the national economy from entering a technical recession. For the rest of the country, however, it's a very different story. Take housing, for example. The median price to rent a home in Perth is now a record $640 a week, up from $520 a week in December 2022. It's a result of Perth having the most restricted rental vacancy market in the country, at a crippling 0.4 per cent. The problem of finding a home has been so severe that we've seen press reports in recent months of Perth real estate agents leasing out rooms in empty homes for as much as $450 per week and people paying $120 a night to sleep in someone's backyard through Airbnb. While WA might be copping the brunt of it, the housing crisis is well and truly a national problem.

Despite the 900,000 permanent and long-term overseas arrivals who entered Australia between July 2022 and December 2023, only around 265,000 new homes were built, meaning immigration is outstripping the supply of new dwellings by almost four to one. Thanks to an economy saddled with planning bottlenecks and Labor's pipeline of green infrastructure projects, approvals for new homes around the country are at their lowest level in 12 years. Median house prices are at record levels in three of Australia's capital cities, including Perth, at $660,000.

Anthony Albanese's solution to this urgently pressing concern—Labor's Help to Buy scheme—has been treated like an afterthought. Nearly two years since Labor was elected, the legislation is still being debated in this parliament. Unlike the coalition's policy to allow first home buyers to access their super to get a foot on the property ladder, Labor's policy will at best apply to no more than 10,000 people each year. The Help to Buy scheme's restrictions, such as cutting off eligibility to people with an income of more than $90,000 and capping eligible homes to roughly half the average house price in cities such as Sydney means the policy is shuffling deckchairs as the Titanic sinks. From Labor's own projections, it will only help at most 40,000 people over four years. That's if it's ever even legislated.

As a proud Western Australian senator and a long-term supporter of planned, modelled immigration, I begrudge none of the nearly 100,000 people who have decided to call WA home in the last 12 months. Our country and our state are some of the best places in the world to live and raise a family. But unplanned, unmodelled and, most importantly, unasked for immigration on this scale will only bring a loss of support for immigration—a phenomenon we are witnessing in many parts of the world already. For the most successful multicultural country on Earth, such an outcome would be a great tragedy. Anthony Albanese needs to remember that his first priority is to Australians, who he will have failed if he risks—as he currently does—preventing an entire generation of working Australians from owning their own home.