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

Immigration will be front and centre at the coming federal election, and I think it's important that those people who have tuned in today understand what I'm trying to do here. I am moving a motion for the following matter to be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 10 February 2025. There has not been enough debate on it, and this is what needs to be done. That's why I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 10 February 2025:

The failure of the Albanese Government's immigration policies to manage population growth and protect Australians' interests, with particular reference to:

(a) the Government's failure to meet immigration targets and the impact of allowing record numbers of migrants into the country without adequate planning;

(b) the role of mass immigration in driving up housing costs, worsening the rental crisis and locking Australians out of homeownership;

(c) the unchecked influx of international students and the strain this placing on housing and services;

(d) the strain on infrastructure, essential services and the environment caused by rapid, immigration-driven population growth;

(e) the lack of clear and accountable processes for managing visa programs, including the Government's failure to enforce promised restrictions;

(f) the uneven impact of immigration, creating unsustainable pressure on cities while diverting resources away from rural and regional areas and stifling their development;

(g) the failure to address critical skills shortages through alternative methods, such as increasing apprenticeship subsidies and investing in local workforce development, instead of relying on high immigration; and

(h) any other related matters.

This is all because—and I'm driving this, as I have done for nearly 28 years—of the profound effect it has on the Australian people with reference to the cost of living, housing affordability and availability, the provision of services, public infrastructure, the natural environment, and Australian society. One of the main reasons Labor's support is eroding in the electorate is because of the record immigration it has enabled and the disastrous impact it is having. Labor doesn't understand, and as never understood, that immigration must serve Australia's best interests. That's why immigration policy under Labor always works against Australia's interests. It might work in Labor's interest, but that is most definitely not the national interest, no matter what delusions the party may have about it.

One Nation policy on immigration is one that: serves the nation's interests; treats living in Australia as a privilege to be earned, not an entitlement; respects the Australian culture and way of life; and does not divide us based on race. It ensures that people have demonstrated loyalty and allegiance to Australia over a long period of up to eight years before they get citizenship, not the current two years. They can apply for it and for permanent residency. We want to know who these people are. Have they got criminal records? Are they actually going to give their allegiance to Australia? We want to ensure that a significant breach of Australian law by an immigrant, proven in a court, results in immediate deportation and a permanent ban on that person ever coming to Australia again. We want to ensure social cohesion by prioritising immigrants from countries with similar cultures and values and denying immigration to people from countries which don't. We would prioritise immigrants with skills and qualifications that our country needs. We would prioritise Australia's national interest over humanitarian and political considerations, and over international agreements. We would forever ensure that those who come here without permission can never live here or come here again, would not set annual refugee targets and would put Australian interests ahead of international refugee agreements. We would never permit the importation of extremist ideologies incompatible with Australian values like the rule of law, secular democracy and equality, and would deport them if they slipped through. We would never compromise an Australian's ability to obtain employment, enrol in study or secure a home. We would never place an undue burden on public infrastructure and public services, and would never, ever put the safety of Australian people at any risk. It's quite simple.

This means I am very patriotic to my country and the people out there who have been screaming out for so long that they want to have a debate or a discussion on immigration. As we have all seen, Labor's immigration policy does none of these things. It is working directly against our interests. If you want an immigration policy that serves Australia's national interest, you cannot possibly vote for or support Labor. Don't even get me started on the Greens, who hate Australia and actively work against our nationalist interests. The Greens should be completely dismissed from any debate on immigration. As for the coalition, some of them have the right idea, and some do not. They know who they are.

We need a national summit on immigration, and we need a national plebiscite on immigration. We know for a fact the majority of Australians want much lower immigration levels. That's evident constantly, all the time. They're crying out for it. They can't understand why the politicians aren't listening to them. We know for a fact that Labor, the Greens and the coalition don't care that the majority of Australians want much lower immigration. I can say that because we don't see immigration lowered enough to actually look after the Australian people first and foremost.

They all voted against my immigration plebiscite bill. Why? Why wouldn't you give the people a say in this? It's because you think you're better than them. The coalition even said the issue was too complex to put to the Australian people in a plebiscite. I think that's more of an indication of the major parties' contempt for the intelligence of the Australian people, who are more inclined to suffer the impact of high immigration. I was right about immigration and multiculturalism in 1996. Everything I warned about has come to pass. I'm right today. Immigration will be a major issue at the next election, and it's the party with an immigration policy in the national interest that will win votes—you underestimate the Australian people—and I can tell you that won't be Labor.

I'm moving this inquiry because we must have a real national debate on immigration policy, and this could serve as the start. The government's immigration policies are failing Australians. Immigration should be tailored to the wishes of the Australian people. The Australian people are tired of suffering the impacts of high immigration and overcrowding in their daily lives. They're tired of going homeless, paying higher rents and managing their higher mortgage payments. They're tired of waiting for weeks or months for a doctor's appointment or waiting for hours in crowded emergency departments. They're outraged at the extreme importunity by migrants, such as the appalling outbreak of antisemitism in Australia happily promoted by the Greens. Australians want their country back, and it's time we gave them a voice on immigration.

Under this Labor government we've looked at bringing 1½ million people into the country. In January and February this year alone, I think it was 125,000 one month and 100,000 the second. That's in two months alone. I just came from Cairns. They had people running around trying to find accommodation for 60 Sudanese. The fact is that you've got Australians there that are homeless and can't get accommodation, but no; it's alright. We need to bring these people in and find them homes. It's having an impact on us. In 2022-23, 737,000 people were brought into the country, under the Labor government. They brought in 51,605, they say, for the skills. Of the 737,000, only 51,605 were skilled migrants. They say, 'We need it for the building industry and construction.' Of that, only 1,800 had those skills. That was a lie, a scam.

We just can't keep going the way that we are. As I said to you, the people in this place, you're so out of touch with the general public, who've been screaming about high immigration for a long time. Yet you keep putting more pressure on the people with higher electricity and the higher cost of living. Your higher electricity is because you're actually driving the carbon emissions trading scheme with the agreements that you've signed. The fact is that's putting more pressure on the Australian people. Yet you keep bringing more migrants into the country, which is going to cause more carbon emissions, which is going to impact on us. What is it? Is climate change a scam, so high immigration doesn't have an impact on it, or do you really not care? Is it because you're propping up the GDP because you're in a hell of a mess in running the country and we are in a per capita recession, so you need high immigration to prop up the state of the nation? I hope the people wake up to this, because you're absolutely hopeless and incompetent in what you're doing in running this country, and I hope you're thrown out on your rear at the next election. I'll be doing everything that I possibly can to make that happen.

High immigration really needs to be addressed. You haven't listened to the Australian people. I keep saying this all the time. This is where it's really hard. In Queensland, as I've moved across the state and to other states as well—I was in WA just a couple of weeks ago, and this Aboriginal woman came up and said, 'I can't get housing.' She said, 'I'm living in the toilets, and I've been living there for the last 14 months; I can't get housing.' She asked me for assistance, and I said, 'I'm going to see what I can do for you to try and see why you're not getting housing.' This is happening in Queensland. People are living in their cars and they're living under the bridge and in tents and parks. I've been to the parks, and I've fed the homeless. Those are things that I've done. I try to do the best that I can as a member of parliament to assist these people and to get them housing.

Then we have the health issues, as I said to you. These people can't get help. They can't get operations that they require, because there are too many people in the country. We have not provided the infrastructure. We haven't provided the hospitals or the schools. All the problems that we're seeing now are because it was not planned.

The politicians in this place, in the short term that you're here for—three years—only look at this period of time. Long-term vision is not here anymore. You're looking not into the future but at what suits you for the time being. Long-term planning, long-term vision—you don't get it, and that's why the people are suffering all the time. They can't have the operations. You can't get them in. The emergency departments are flat out. We don't have enough doctors. There was a young girl, nine years of age, whose tonsillectomy operation I personally paid for a couple of months ago. She had needed it for seven years, and she couldn't get in to have the operation. She was getting to a stage where she couldn't go to school. She was missing one-third of the term being out of school, and she was in a hell of a mess.

When you see that happening to the Australian people—why am I so adamant about cutting back on immigration in Australia? My duty is to the Australian people first and foremost to ensure that they have the best of health care, education, nursing homes and aged care—to ensure that they have all this. We're not representatives for the rest of the world. We can't do it. When you walk the streets out there, if you really empathised with the Australian people, you would know that this needs to be addressed. The biggest issue that is affecting people in Australia is the immigration levels. It's deplorable. It's a shame on this government that it has allowed it to continue. You're backing your mates out there, whether it's the unions or the big businesses. They want higher immigration, because they're selling more product. Yet it's the average person out there that has to suffer this all the time. They're the ones that have to put up with this, because they can't get the housing. Then you're worried about whether the youth out there will ever own their own home. Another thing we need to address is the housing issue with foreign investment—but that's another issue.

I hope that you will support this motion to have an investigation into this on behalf of the Australian people to discuss this matter and give the people the right to have their say. Let's have a decent debate on this and see where we're headed as a nation. I'll continue to fight for the Australian people.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To be clear, the Greens absolutely will be voting against and rejecting that spray of division that has come from that senator—that spray of division and conspiracy and invective against multicultural Australia, our neighbours and our friends. We reject it, we'll vote against it, and we'll do it every time.

But why has that senator been able to make that contribution, and why is it happening now? Let's be very clear: the door to that vile invective we just heard was opened today by Labor's Immigration Minister Burke. He has done it again, like Labor have done time and time again in their race to the bottom and in their race to the right to see who can be more vile on immigration and refugees. Can it be Labor or Peter Dutton's coalition? Who can be the most vile?

Today, Minister Burke made it clear that Labor can be more vile, can be actually leading this kind of debate, this ugly race to the right on immigration and refugees and multiculturalism that opens the door to that vile invective we just heard from that senator. And what did Minister Burke do? Well, when he was being tested on Labor's incredibly unpopular thought bubble to cut foreign students without any solution for the higher education system in legislation that has been widely rejected, he got up and said: 'If anybody out there who might feel that they are missing out on accommodation because an overseas student has taken it, just know the Leader of the Opposition wants to make that situation worse.' Minister Burke went on and said: 'If anybody out there is thinking that because of the rate of immigration they are having trouble to get a home, just know the Leader of the Opposition has decided to make that worse.' That is the most vile political opportunism from Labor linking migration to the housing policy, linking foreign students to the housing crisis. Labor's revolting leap is even trying to out-Dutton Dutton—out-Dutton the opposition leader, Peter Dutton—and doing it for a narrow, sectional grab for a political moment.

But why does Labor feel that it needs to be even more vile than the coalition? I don't know where they are getting their advice from. There is a progressive majority in this parliament to actually deal with multiculturalism, migration and refugees with decency and compassion and to lead the debate away from where Minister Burke took it today—linking immigration to the housing crisis.

I will tell you why we are in a housing crisis. It is not the fault of immigrants or refugees. It is not the fault of multicultural Australia. Multicultural Australia is building our houses. Multicultural Australia is contributing to the housing industry. It is because of decades of failed policy from both Labor and the coalition. It is because Labor will not join with us to invest the billions of dollars needed to build public housing.

But instead of Labor accepting the responsibility of government and investing in public housing and fixing the problem, what did Minister Burke do? He linked immigration with the housing crisis. He did it from the pulpit of the House of Representatives. He did it as a Labor minister. He disgraced Labor and he disgraced the chamber and he should apologise. And the Prime Minister should hold him to account, because Labor right now is saying, pretty much every time they are asked on immigration, that actually they are meaner and nastier than the coalition. They want to be seen as meaner and nastier than the coalition and they probably are when it comes to immigration right now because that is their minister, Minister Burke, using his authority as minister for immigration to link immigration and the housing crisis. Well, we say to Labor: be better. Be better. You want to deal with the housing crisis? Build public houses. You want to deal with the fact that people in Western Sydney can't get a flat? Join with the Greens and put billions of dollars into public housing and never, ever blame multicultural Australia for the mess you have made—disgraceful!

Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Obviously, I rise in support of Senator Hanson's motion. I would like to make a short contribution to that motion. I believe that our current immigration program is unsustainable. I also think that it is not in the national interest and it is an economic and cultural disaster. Australia has always had a generous immigration program. It provides opportunity for people from all around the world. Heck, many of us in this room are migrants. My own family benefited from Australia's migration program and Australia's generosity. But a generous immigration program must be sustainable. The record numbers of people being brought into Australia by the Albanese government are anything but sustainable. It's not even close. And we know why they're doing it. They're doing it to prop up the GDP, because they are bad economic managers. It is a bandaid on a bullet wound. That's what it is.

Housing is in short supply. We all know that. It's being made more expensive as a direct result of mass immigration. Public infrastructure is overrun. Our major cities are clogged. Social cohesion—this is an important one—is at an all-time low. Why? It's because we insist on bringing people into Australia that are not culturally aligned with Australian values. This is a huge mistake, and we're going to pay for it down the line. What good is a big Australia if the result is something other than Australia? What good is it? Worryingly, that seems to be the case. If the government believes that there's a skills shortage, as they like to say, then how about finding ways to address this skills shortage without importing massive numbers of people in an unchecked way? Make our immigration policy finely tuned and targeted at exactly the people that we need. It could be a sustainable, smarter program. It would enjoy more public support, and that's important. That's a vital key. Importing record numbers of people via a haphazard process risks alienating mainstream Australia, which in turn will alienate those who arrive in our country.

When around 30 per cent of Australians voted the Labor Party into power at the last election, no-one knew that Prime Minister Albanese and his team would bring in around a million people within just a couple of years. If they haven't already, the government runs the risk of losing support for immigration full stop. This is terrible leadership. It's got to be addressed. Enough is enough. To ensure sustainable and popular support for immigration, the current numbers have to be cut drastically. In fact, I would support net zero immigration for a while. Not to do so would undermine immigration itself. Worse than that, it would undermine Australia itself. For these reasons and a whole lot more, I wholeheartedly support Senator Hanson's motion, and I hope that many of you will. You probably won't, because you don't have the cojones or the backbone. That's why you will continue to slide in polls and why parties like mine will continue to rise.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government doesn't support the motion moved by Senator Hanson. The 2022-23 increase in Australia's net overseas migration was driven by strong arrivals of temporary migrants, particularly international students, and by below-normal departures, as the former Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton mismanaged Australia's migration system, enabling exploitation and rorts. The government is determined to bring migration down, including by capping international student numbers. We are already doing the hard work. We have restored the immigration compliance function in Home Affairs, an area that the Leader of the Opposition cut by nearly 50 per cent. We have increased the temporary skilled migration income threshold from $53,900 to $70,000 to restrict the number of low-income workers entering the country. We have ended unlimited work hours for international students, launched a crackdown on rorts in international education, are cracking down on shonky providers and closing loopholes that were being used to bring nongenuine students into the country. We are implementing a $160 million reform package to restore integrity into the system and are introducing limits on international student numbers.

Yesterday, we saw the coalition team up with the Greens to block a bill to limit the number of people coming into the country. The bill deals with pretty serious corruption and integrity issues in international education. So why are the opposition opposing a crackdown on dodgy operators and unscrupulous agents? It just doesn't make any sense. The opposition is standing in the way of genuine reforms to fix a system that the Parkinson review found was so badly broken it would require a 10-year rebuild—10 years to rebuild—because it was left in such bad shape by those opposite. We are working to reduce migration through the means we have available, with the goal of bringing it to sustainable levels. For those in this chamber, if you cannot get on board with the cleanup, we suggest that you just get out of the way.

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

The coalition notes that 388,241 additional migrants arrived in the first nine months of the 2023-24 financial year. Experts believe annual migration under Labor will overshoot Labor's target of 395,000 and could even surpass 500,000 arrivals. Under Labor, one million migrants have arrived in just two years, as Australia endures a housing shortage and cost-of-living crisis. Former immigration department deputy secretary Dr Abul Rizvi says that net overseas migration could reach as high as 475,000. Corinna Economic Advisory's Saul Eslake expects the net overseas migration to be at least 495,000. KPMG Chief Economist Brendan Rynne predicts that net overseas migration would reach between 480,000 and 490,000.

We have experienced record migration since Labor came to power, and housing supply isn't close to keeping up. That drives up the cost of housing and rents, which further increases inflation as Australians endure cost-of-living pain. The Prime Minister, Mr Albanese, needs to explain where all of these people are going to live. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Ms Michele Bullock, has said that new migrants add to demand and 'have certainly added pressure on the housing market'. Former Queensland Labor premier Steven Miles has said:

… if migration continues at current levels we'll need tens of thousands more homes every year than the industry can build. That's a big part of why prices and rents have risen so rapidly.

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics building activity data has confirmed there is no end in sight to Labor's housing crisis. The year 2023-24 saw the lowest home building commencements in over a decade, dropping 8.8 per cent to just 158,690 new starts.

The coalition believes that by rebalancing the migration program and taking decisive action on the housing crisis, we would free up almost 40,000 additional homes in the first year and well over 100,000 homes in the next five years. First, the coalition will implement a two-year ban on foreign investors and temporary residents purchasing existing homes in Australia. Second, the coalition will reduce the permanent migration program by 25 per cent from 185,000 to 140,000 for the first two years, in recognition of the urgency of this crisis. The program will then increase to 150,000 in year 3 and 160,000 in year 4. The coalition will also reduce the refugee and humanitarian intake to its long-term average of 13,780 per year. The coalition will also ensure there are enough skilled and temporary skilled visas for those who are in the building and construction industry to ensure that there are enough skills to support our local tradies to build the new homes Australians desperately need.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that business of the Senate notice of motion No. 1, moved by Senator Hanson, be agreed to. A division having been called, I remind honourable senators that, when a division is called on Tuesdays after 6.30 pm, the matter before the Senate must be adjourned until the next day of sitting, at a time to be fixed by the Senate. The debate is adjourned accordingly.