Pauline Hanson (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 Employment and Workplace Relations (Senator Watt) to a question without notice I asked today relating to immigration.

Australians know that high immigration figures are actually crippling them: a lack of housing, rental accommodation, infrastructure, roads and water—you name it, everything is impacted by it. The minister just read out a script. He didn't listen to my question; he wasn't interested. Do you know why? It was because he couldn't answer it.

As I said in question time, when the government came to office in May 2022, their projected figures were for 470,000 migrants over the first two years. Instead, Australia has absorbed nearly one million migrants under this Labor Party. According to Senator Watt, who answered the question, post COVID—that was 2022—the immigration number was unsustainable, but they're doing something about it. Well, let me tell the public that the numbers are basically up around the same. Australia's population grew by 655,800 in the 2023-24 financial year. This was up from 647,900 in the March quarter and the second highest annual result in history, behind 676,100 recorded in the year to September 2023, again under Labor.

Labor have no intentions of addressing this. Why? Because the country is in a hell of a mess, economically, and they bring in high immigration to prop up the GDP. That's why, and that's why we have an issue here in Australia with household recession. The government don't know how to deal with the economy. They have brought in high immigration numbers. They're lying to the Australian people saying they are addressing this when they are not. It's too late. The damage has been done to this country. Unless we rein in immigration, people are going to find themselves homeless more so and not be able to buy their own homes in this nation.

Question agreed to.