The PMs frequent visits to foreign countries is a way of avoiding responsibility. The PM does not understand that leaders lead from the front, not from 30,000 feet. PM Albanese needs to pick up his leadership game instead of his carry-on baggage.
Australia desperately needs leadership. We have the worst outcome for real wages of any OECD country. Housing is unaffordable and our inflation is now home-grown. Two million new migrants is driving demand-inflation, making staples harder to get and more expensive. This situation will become worse after the passage of Minister Plibersek’s new bill to nobble agriculture in the Senate today, which reduces water available to farmers and will without doubt drive up food prices.
The PM needs to stop dodging responsibility and get back here to clean up the mess he’s made.
Transcript
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community I started this week with my usual check to see if the Prime Minister is in the country today. He is. Hitting ‘home’ on his GPS still brings him back to Australia. What a memory that device has. Prime Minister Albanese clearly doesn’t suffer from airsickness, yet he has managed a medical first—spreading airsickness to the rest of the country. We are all thoroughly sick of his air travel. The Prime Minister doesn’t get that and with every flight he is crashing the government’s poll numbers. It’s why the internet has unkindly, though accurately, given the Prime Minister’s plane the new name—’Air Albatross’.
Leaders lead from the front, not from 30,000 feet. Australia needs leadership. Inflation can no longer be blamed on world events beyond our control. All along our inflation has been and is homegrown—demand driven from this government’s record new arrivals. There was a time when Australia could have ramped up manufacturing and agriculture to meet demand from the 2.2 million new long-stay arrivals in just the last 12 months, but not anymore. The Hawke-Keating Labor government and the Howard Liberal government sent manufacturing to China. Now we’re at the mercy of the Chinese and world markets to source goods, including building materials, to meet the needs of new arrivals.
Minister Plibersek is deliberately nobbling agricultural expansion, with another bill in the Senate today to take away farmers’ ability to grow food and fibre for new arrivals. Per capita income has gone backward faster than in any other developed nation in the world, as national wealth is spread across more and more people. A looming federal deficit will force interest rates up and steal even more wealth and opportunity from everyday Australians. Prime Minister, stop dodging responsibility, hang up your Biggles hat, get to work and clean up your mess.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of saying what I don’t agree with. Today I set out the policies I do agree with. These are policies I have worked hard in the Senate to promote and will continue to do so.
Australia has natural advantages in mineral resources, agricultural land, water, sunshine and a moderate climate that in years past has made Australia the richest country in the world per capita — which is the wealth of the country divided by the number of inhabitants. Yet in recent years life has become so hard, not just under this Albanese Government but under successive Liberal and Labor Governments.
Income per capita is going backwards and opportunities we took for granted in our youth are now out of reach for today’s young Australians. Unemployment is much higher than the published rate, Australians can’t afford housing, electricity or even their groceries. Higher education is slipping from the reach of the middle class and many Australians are now unsafe in their homes and on the streets.
It does not have to be this way.
I spoke here in the Senate Chamber about the steps One Nation would take to solve the many problems Australians are facing after too many years of bad governance. Some of these steps include solving infrastructure issues, increasing productivity and wages, bringing back a people’s bank and ensuring cash continues to be available, and more.
Join us in helping our country to rebound and flourish.
Transcript
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I am often asked by people why life under Labor has become so damn tough so quickly and how a One Nation government would help. Australians are decent people and can see through government and media misinformation and disinformation. We all know when life is harder than it should be and when governments are screwing up. Out of control cost of living has resulted from a screw-up resulting from the actions of Liberal, National, Greens and Labor parties during COVID, when our government turned to the use of excessive authority instead of respecting human rights and choice. During COVID, One Nation did advocate for human rights, including quarantining the sick and letting the healthy get about life. Countries that did that are now back to normal. Life in those countries is easier because there’s no massive COVID bill to pay. Australia has a huge inflation problem now due to printing $500 billion—half a trillion dollars—to cover COVID expenses, including JobKeeper and pharma products that are now past their use-by date. Money printing causes inflation. One Nation said so at the time.
One Nation now stands ready to rebuild our economy and deliver wealth and opportunity to all Australians. We will reduce new arrivals to a level where arrivals equal departures. That’s called zero net migration, leaving room for about 130,000 new migrants each year. We will limit student visas to a level at which we can accommodate and teach students properly. We will not import more labour until those who’ve arrived have found a job. We don’t need new arrivals being handed Medicare cards, driving up government spending on health and on schools and infrastructure. We will decline to renew the visa of any new arrival who has failed to find a job or make a contribution during their visa period.
We will license construction of new and efficient coal plants, which will bring electricity bills down 50 per cent. We will cancel any weather dependent generation project that we can legally terminate, and we will ensure that wind and solar sponsors pay into a bond account to pay for the removal of those monstrosities at the end of their short life. Electricity generation should be based on the cheapest source, not the dearest, and the dearest is wind and solar. We will fast-track mining approvals and port upgrades. We will terminate the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and leave everyone’s water where it is to ensure farmers are free to grow food and fibre to feed and clothe the world, and we’ll then get together with the states to review the actual data on river health, environmental outcomes and the social and economic costs of the basin measures taken so far. More work may need to be done, though only after a full basin review. We will build infrastructure projects like the Queensland tropics water and hydro project, the northern Australia’s east-west rail line, the Abbott Point and Pilbara steel parks and the inland rail to the port of Gladstone without crossing the Condamine.
At the moment, Australia’s internet traffic from our east coast to Western Australia and vice versa routes through China. So, if you want to connect with Western Australia, it goes through China. We will build a direct connection instead and upgrade pinch points to lift our internet out of Third World status and make it First World. Human error being what it is, the recent Optus failure may happen again. Once there is network redundancy and proper planning, outages should not happen. The Optus failure is on the government’s infrastructure and communication ministers, who clearly have not done their job to ensure the redundancy we need to keep Australians connected. And we need to keep cash as a payment option, as should every business. These are just some of the many opportunities for infrastructure to harden our economy and provide wealth and opportunity for all.
Infrastructure improves economic efficiency and underscores the productivity improvements that fuel wage rises. Workers don’t need to work harder to get a productivity rise. People are already at breaking point. Government needs to work harder—faster internet, faster ports and rail, better highways, cheaper power and more water. This is how we increase productivity and, with that, the wages of everyday Australians, without inflation. We will purchase the Suncorp Bank and operate that as a model bank to provide a full range of services, including cash through Australia Post outlets. Under One Nation you will have a real local bank branch that handles cash.
We will stop foreign interests owning Australian land and residential property. The bounty of this beautiful land should accrue to those who call Australia home. Large corporations need to be held to account. For 30 years the share of the economy coming from wages has fallen, yet for 30 years the share from corporate profits has grown. There’s a point where a fair return on risk and investment has become a perceived entitlement to ever-increasing profits from rapacious and unprincipled merchant banks investing money on behalf of predatory billionaires, billionaires like Bill Gates, who we discovered just after the election is best mates with the Prime Minister.
In response to running out of other people’s money to spend, the Treasurer, in a recent media appearance, walked back his responsibility to harden and grow the national economy. One Nation does not shirk from responsibility. Join us in restoring our country for people to abound and flourish.
When the ANZ CEO, the outgoing Chair of the Future Fund and the Reserve Bank all tell us that immigration and the net zero transition are inflationary, the Government should stop and listen. Instead they are pushing ahead with a massive arrivals program that is causing inflation and making life harder for everyday Australians.
The cost of net zero has been estimated by Net Zero Australia at $1.5 trillion. We are only a few hundred billion into that, so strap in, life is going to get harder still. Labor advertise themselves as the party of the worker but life for workers is harder under Labor.
The tragedy is that we already had a great electricity capacity and the world’s most affordable, reliable electricity. ALP/Greens/Liberal/Teal globalist puppets are tearing that down and building a worse option – weather dependent power.
One Nation will reverse this immigration and energy net zero perfect storm of financial and social mismanagement. We will reverse this perfect storm of dishonesty and stupidity.
Transcript
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I draw the Senate’s attention to remarks on Monday by ANZ Chief Executive Officer Shane Elliott. He said:
Australia’s massive green energy transition and immigration boom will further boost rising house prices.
Lending regulations have made this the most challenging lending environment in 30 years.
The 30 years reference is to Labor Prime Minister Keating’s 17 per cent interest rate nightmare. Labor has form on making life harder. These remarks are confirmation the government’s insane levels of arrivals are one cause of the inflation that’s hurting everyday Australians. The outgoing future fund chair, Peter Costello, warned Australia’s runaway immigration levels represent ‘an enormous adjustment for the property sector and the Reserve Bank’s inflation fight’.
Why is Labor, once called the party of the worker, pursuing an immigration policy that is creating high inflation and harming Australian workers so badly? Australia did not vote for high immigration, and Prime Minister Albanese has no mandate for this insanity, this inhumanity. Nor was the Prime Minister forthcoming in the last election about the true cost of net zero. Net zero Australia puts the cost at $1.5 trillion by 2050. If life feels hard now, we’re only a few hundred billion into the $1.5 trillion. Buckle up, this is going to hurt!
The tragedy is that we already had a great electricity capacity and the world’s most affordable, reliable electricity. And you globalist puppets are tearing it down and building a worse option: weather dependent power. Insane! As Shane Elliott asked, is this the society we want, where people can’t get a home loan or get a loan to start a business? Labor’s answer is clearly yes. That’s what life under Labor means—no home, no business, no future, no energy.
One Nation will reverse this immigration and energy net zero perfect storm of financial and social mismanagement. We will reverse this perfect storm of dishonesty and stupidity and callousness.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/Ysf6VmS7dOY/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-24 11:15:472023-11-24 11:15:51Labor Has Form on Making Life Harder
Labor is running a Ponzi scheme covering up a per capita recession. It’s bringing in huge numbers of new arrivals to increase spending to hide the per capita recession. They are running Australia’s economy like a Ponzi scheme, relying on a flood of overseas arrivals to prop up GDP numbers with their spending. That increased spending adds to inflation and that contradicts the Reserve Bank’s (RBA) strategy of raising interest rates to cut spending in an attempt to stop inflation.
The government’s high level of new arrivals into Australia goes against the RBA strategy and forces the RBA to further increase interest rates. Albanese’s government is letting Australians suffer in a per capita recession and worst decline in per capita income of all the developed nations.
This is why life for everyday Australians is continuing to get worse. Excluding tourists and short stay visas, there are 2.3 million visa holders in the country competing with Australians for a roof over their head.
One Nation proposes net zero immigration where Australia only replaces the numbers who leave the country until the housing supply, essential services and infrastructure can catch up with the demand.
Transcript
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice I asked today relating to immigration and the economy.
Instead of cutting the record flood of overseas arrivals, the Albanese government is letting Australians suffer in a per capita recession and the worst decline in per capita income in all developed nations. According to Reserve Bank and Bureau of Statistics June quarter data, Australian residents’ spending fell, with the overall total spending driven positive due only to increased demand from tourists and international students. The government is running Australia’s economy like a ponzi scheme, relying on a flood of overseas arrivals to prop up GDP numbers. Meanwhile, for the typical Australian, life continues to get worse.
Excluding tourists and short-stay visas, there are 2.3 million visa holders in the country likely to need a home right now. In one year, the Albanese Labor government issued a record 687,000 student visas—687,000! We only have 100,000 dedicated student accommodation beds. Yet Treasurer Jim Chalmers went on national TV and deceitfully told the Australian people the level of net overseas migration is ‘not something the government determines’—blatant misinformation. It’s no wonder the government have exempted themselves from their proposed misinformation and disinformation bill.
The government claim their housing bill will fix everything. What they don’t tell Australia is that we are short hundreds of thousands of homes yet their bill will only build a maximum of 6,000 homes a year. Any Australian who can’t afford a house or who can’t afford rent—if they can find a rental—knows Treasurer Chalmers lied when he said the government doesn’t control how many people come into Australia. The Labor government is letting overseas arrivals—
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Urquhart had a point of order. I think it was around the use of the word ‘lie’. Can we just—
Senator ROBERTS: I withdraw that word and substitute ‘misinformation’. The Labor government are letting overseas arrivals run out of control and don’t even know how many will arrive this year. The government are making a deliberate choice to let Australians suffer so that their big business mates and the banks can profit from a cheap workforce and high property prices. We need to stop this crushing flood of overseas arrivals that are here purely to hide a per capita recession. Our first duty is to take care of people who are here already.
With 2.3 million new visa holders in Australia this year (excluding tourists) it’s no wonder we have a rental crisis. We need to stem the immigration tidal wave to a gentle ebb and flow of replacement. For everyone who leaves, someone new arrives. Net Zero migrants makes sense until we have sufficient housing, essential services and infrastructure to cope with more people.
Housing is tight and therefore expensive. It’s impossible to build enough houses or freeze enough prices to fix the housing problem until this immigration tidal wave is cut.
Instead of putting banks and big business first, let’s put people first.
Transcript
We agree with part of this Greens matter of urgency—that we are in a rental crisis, with more people experiencing rental stress and unable to afford a home due to Labor government policies and deceit. We disagree on how to fix it. There’s absolutely nothing that can be done to fix the housing and rental crisis until we cut the absolutely insane numbers of overseas arrivals this government is letting into our country. Excluding tourists and short-stay visa holders, there are 2.3 million visa holders in the country right now. Every single one of them needs a roof over their head, and that’s leading to record house prices and the lowest rental vacancy rate in history. Housing is tight and therefore expensive. It’s impossible to build enough houses or freeze enough prices to fix the housing problem until this immigration tidal wave is cut. What the Greens propose is going to increase rental costs. Instead of putting banks and big business first, put people first.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator McGrath): Thank you, Senator Roberts. Senator Allman-Payne.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/2VpCeo1ylNo/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-23 15:17:042023-11-24 11:18:11Only Zero Net-Immigration Will Solve the Housing Crisis
I asked questions about the staggering numbers of new visa holders flooding into Australia — 5.8 million tourists visas issued in the last 12 months and 1.1 million work, student and permanent visas.
The Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs used up his allotted response time in a performance that involved pretending he didn’t really understand my question. He worked hard to reassign blame for the current situation, ignoring that it’s happening under his government’s watch.
He promoted Labor’s Housing Fund, which One Nation opposed. The scheme is a con that will build a few thousand homes in total and allows the Government to pretend the housing needs of the millions of people they are letting in can be met.
Labor is flooding the country with millions of new arrivals, and pretends housing is taken care of. It is not. The only way to fix the housing crisis is to turn the visa tap off until the housing stock catches up.
Transcripts
Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs, Senator Watt. Australia has 300,000 hotel rooms and 140,000 Airbnbs. These are, of course, turned over many times. There are 26 million Australians as well using these rooms for their own holidays. Into this small stock of rooms the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that in financial year 2022-23 there were 5.86 million arrivals staying, on average, 14 days. Minister, has this almost 500 per cent increase in tourists under your government motivated landlords to move their property from long-term rental accommodation for everyday Australians to short-stay accommodation for hotel overflow?
Senator Watt (Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management): Thank you, Senator Roberts. There’s a lot in that. It seems to be as much about tourism and housing as it is about migration, but I will attempt to answer the question. The figures that you quoted there—I can’t verify whether they are accurate or not. I presume the five million number that you said would include a substantial number of tourists. But, if your question relates to migration figures, the government has obviously already announced a number of measures to fix what is a hopelessly broken migration system that we inherited not just from the opposition but from the minister responsible for it: one Mr Peter Dutton. Mr Dutton was the Minister for Home Affairs for the bulk of the former government and oversaw the migration system that we’ve inherited, which allowed for rampant exploitation and allowed for abuse of the migration system in some cases by education providers that we see now, and we are taking steps to try to address that.
It’s a shame that the opposition, who have got a lot to say now, didn’t do a single thing about these issues when they were in government. We’ve ended the pandemic event visa, we’ve ended unlimited working hours for international students and work exemptions for working visa holders. We’re increased the temporary skilled migration income threshold, which is the first increase in a decade. These are some of the steps that our government has taken to fix the hopelessly broken migration system that was presided over by Mr Dutton as the home affairs minister. I don’t know, Senator Roberts, whether that directly addresses your question because, as I say, there was a lot in it. But we’re taking steps to try to fix the migration system once and for all.
First Supplementary Question
The President: Senator Roberts, first supplementary?
Senator ROBERTS: According to departmental data in the 2022-23 financial year the department issued a record 687,000 student visas. Not many have departed because, due to COVID, most have only been here less than a year. Minister, Australia has 100,000 dedicated student accommodation beds. Where are the other 500,000 or so students staying?
Senator Watt: Thank you, Senator Roberts. I don’t think you’d expect that I’d be able to give you a precise address for every single international student who is living in Australia at the moment. But, as I say, if those opposite had complaints about the number of international students who are in Australia at the moment, perhaps they could have done something about the system when they were in government for 10 years. Perhaps they could have done that.
Opposition senators interjecting—
Senator Watt: So now you’re not supporting him. Senator Canavan is supporting Senator Roberts, but the Liberals aren’t in agreement. Where are the coalition on these issues? Nationals are saying one thing, Liberals are saying another, and here is one of them.
The President: Minister Watt, please resume your seat. Senator Hughes, on a point of order?
Senator Hughes: Perhaps you could encourage Minister Watt to direct his answers through you rather than people who didn’t ask the question.
The President: I will certainly do that, Senator Hughes, and I will also direct, particularly those on my left, to stop interjecting with their comments. It is disrespectful. Minister Watt, please make your remarks through the chair.
Senator Watt: President, it is interesting to see that there seems to be a split between the Liberal and the National parties on this issue. Senator Canavan and the other Nationals are backing in One Nation, and the Liberals are wanting to run a mile. But, of course, apart from fixing the migration system, this government is doing more than the former government ever did when it came to the provision of housing, and, just to remind you of one measure, Housing Australia— (Time expired)
Second Supplementary Question
The President: Senator Roberts, second supplementary?
Senator ROBERTS: In the last financial year the department issued a record 441,000 business visas plus a record 195,000 permanent migrant visas plus another 10,000 humanitarian visas plus another 47,000 temporary work visas. After departures, the net increase here was another 500,000. Minister, where are these 500,000 people going to stay, and is this insane level of intake the reason that Australians can no longer find an affordable home?
Senator Watt: In your previous question, Senator Roberts, you did acknowledge that one of the reasons that we have seen a spike in migration is that there has been a return to Australia of international students and workers—and tourists for that matter—since COVID, so it’s no surprise that we have seen an increase in migration numbers, given there were at least a couple of years when people basically couldn’t come to Australia, and there was always going to be a degree of catch-up in there. You ask what we are doing about housing, and again what I say is that this government has done more certainly than the last coalition government and probably more than any other Australian government to fix the issues that we do have around housing—and they are very real. We didn’t see investment from the former coalition government in public housing for nearly 10 years, and we are fixing that. We’re delivering the Housing Australia Future Fund, which, Senator Roberts, I remember you voted against last time. You cared so much about housing that you voted against a fund that was going to build more homes! We’re also providing more money for social housing and rental assistance. (Time expired)
https://img.youtube.com/vi/lvZKCYgU17c/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-23 11:31:042023-11-23 12:53:37Minister Uses Question Time to Pass the Buck on New Arrivals and Housing
Data from Home Affairs and analysed by Tarric Brooker shows there are 2.3 million visa holders likely to require housing in Australia right now excluding tourists and other short stay visas.
Almost every Australian in a rental saw their rent increase during the past three years and around three-quarters of young Australians believe they will never be able to afford a home.
Added to these problems we’re seeing Airbnb conversions taking accommodation off the rental market.
Australia’s housing crisis is a direct result of the Albanese government’s flood of permanent immigration visa holders and tourists.
Transcript
We know that the conversion of houses to Airbnbs take away beds in which Australians could be living. The Albanese government oversaw over 5.86 million tourists arrive last financial year that. That’s creating a huge incentive for property owners to turn their houses into lucrative short-stay accommodation, making the housing and rental crisis worse. We have only 100,000 student accommodation beds, yet the Albanese government issued a record 687,000 student visas in one year. Analyst Tarric Brooker has used Department of Home Affairs data to show that there are 2.3 million visa holders likely to require housing in the country right now. This figure excludes tourists and short-stay visas.
In the past three years, almost every Australian in a rental has had their rent increased, often savagely—if they can find a rental. Almost three-quarters of young Australians believe they will never be able to afford a home. If this rate of people coming into the country is maintained, sadly, they will be correct. Australia’s housing crisis is a direct result of the Albanese government’s flood of permanent immigration, visa holders and tourists.
There are two sides of the housing equation: supply and demand. With record overseas arrivals driving record levels of demand, we will never be able to build enough supply to keep up with demand. On the supply side, barriers to building even more housing are growing. Rising interest rates are putting pressure on borrowing capacity to pay for new houses. Construction supply chains are still broken from gross federal and state COVID mismanagement. Rising material costs, combined with existing fixed price contracts, are squeezing builders, and the construction industry is facing a wave of insolvencies. The unsustainable level of overseas arrivals in our country is fuelling Australia’s housing crisis. The rate of arrivals must be cut quickly.
I asked three simple questions of the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs and yet again, Senator Watt turned the Senate Chamber into a circus to his obvious amusement and wasted precious time.
Does the government control the level of immigration into Australia? Yes or No? And how many net overseas migrants will arrive in Australia this year?
The Treasurer earlier this year stated that the government had no control over immigration numbers, yet this is not the case. Was this ‘misinformation’?
The Minister gave no specific answers and once again attempted to direct attention back to the previous government and promoted the Labor’s utterly useless housing bill.
Transcript
My question is to Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Senator Watt. Does the government control the level of immigration into Australia?
Senator WATT: Senator Roberts, I note your interest all week in these matters of migration, and the short answer is that under governments of all persuasions, including those who are having a chuckle over there at the moment, the immigration program in Australia is demand driven. That has been the case under this government and the former government as well.
Senator Roberts: Point of order: it was a very simple, short question. It needs a yes or no answer. That’s it.
The PRESIDENT: The minister is being relevant, Senator Roberts. I presume you’ve finished your answer, Minister Watt?
Senator WATT: As I say—
Senator Canavan: It’s just a yes or no answer, Murray!
Senator WATT: Yes, it’s quite normal for ministers who represent others to look at their notes. Senator Canavan, we can’t all be the genius that you are. You are a genius—I pay that—especially when you get into your dark web and your bunker and you dig out all those statistics. You’re an absolute genius!
Honourable senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Minister Watt, resume your seat. Order across the chamber, but particularly on my left.
Senator Ayres: Yes, old Telegram Matt!
The PRESIDENT: Senator Ayres, you have a lot to say this afternoon. This is question time. Minister Watt, I’m asking you to refer your comments to me and not to particular senators. Please continue.
Senator WATT: I know Senator Rennick was a bit offended by the fact I singled out Senator Canavan as the only genius in the opposition and the only person who could get into the bunker and find statistics, because we know Senator Rennick is pretty good at that as well.
Honourable senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Senator Hughes. I haven’t called you, and I haven’t called you because the chamber was still disorderly. Senator Hughes.
Senator Hughes: President, you’ve made very clear this week, and we have heard from those opposite—
The PRESIDENT: What’s your point of order, Senator Hughes?
Senator Hughes: I would like Minister Watt to withdraw a whole raft of his commentary and reflections on a number of senators over here and his continual snarky personal smears and vilifications.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Hughes, if you want to raise a point of order about unparliamentary or personal language related to a senator, I need their name at least.
Senator Hughes: I said Minister Watt!
The PRESIDENT: Senator Hughes, don’t backchat once you’re sitting down. You indicated that the minister had had a spray against a range of senators. I have no idea who that was. I am not going to make it up or guess it, so unless you have—
Senator Hughes: I literally said it multiple times!
The PRESIDENT: Senator Hughes, you’ve raised the point of order. You haven’t named a particular senator. You’ve indicated to me who in your view made the offence but you haven’t said about which senator.
Senator Hughes: I said it multiple times. Would you like to check the Hansard?
The PRESIDENT: Senator Hughes, resume your seat. Minister Wong.
Senator Wong: I think the difficulty—through you, President—is it was a generalised proposition that the senator was making. If there is a request to withdraw particular language that has just been said—
Senator Hughes: We got multiple lectures this week.
Senator Wong: If that is the request, I’m sure the—
Senator Hughes interjecting—
Senator Wong: Okay. I’m just saying that a generalised proposition is a difficult one to respond to.
Senator Hughes interjecting—
Senator Wong: I’m trying to assist here.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Birmingham.
Senator Wong: I haven’t finished.
The PRESIDENT: I’m sorry, I thought you had finished, Senator Wong.
Senator Wong: Thank you. I was just waiting. The proposition—
Honourable senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Do you wish to continue?
Senator Wong: There is a generalised complaint about Senator Watt saying things about a number of people. I don’t know what those are, but if the request is that Senator Watt withdraw particular language that’s just been used—
Senator Scarr interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Senator Scarr, no interjections.
Senator Wong: All I’m saying if there is a request to—
Senator Hughes: And he continues!
Senator Wong: Wow. I’m really trying. If there is a request to withdraw particular language now, I would ask the President to call the minister.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Birmingham?
Senator Birmingham: Thank you, President. I did want to pick up on one part of your ruling there, which was to suggest it was necessary for the senator to name a particular senator who had been impugned. I will make it clear that it is possible for groups of senators to be impugned or to have improper motives attributed to them by a senator and that is also against standing orders.
The PRESIDENT: That’s correct.
Senator Birmingham: President, as you’re well aware, it’s not necessary always for a senator to make a point of order and, in the spirit of this week, it would be helpful for strong proactive intervention if senators can’t restrain themselves to actually ask them immediately to withdraw. Preferably they would restrain themselves, Senator Watt.
Senator Watt interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: I haven’t called you, Senator Watt. I am going to respond to those points of order. I am not in the chamber all the time. That’s the point that I made in the statement to the chamber yesterday. It is very difficult for me to ask a senator to withdraw when I don’t know where that language has landed. I take your point, Senator Birmingham, that a slur can be made against a group of senators. That’s not what Senator Hughes was implying. My understanding of what was indicated was that the minister had made, in Senator Hughes’s view, a number of comments to senators throughout the week, not to a group of senators. However, I know that Senator Watt is always willing to own his behaviour and I will, as Senator Watt—
Opposition senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: For the benefit of those interjections, a number of you are always willing, on both sides of the chamber, to withdraw. Some of you are not but most of you are. So I am going to invite Senator Watt, if he thinks he has offended senators this week, to make a general withdrawal without making any comment to comments that you may or may not have uttered.
Senator WATT: I make a general withdrawal.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you, please continue.
Senator WATT: Senator Roberts, the government does have a range of controls in place around the numbers of migrants coming into Australia, the categories of those migrants, whether they be international students or tourists, humanitarian, skilled workers so the government does have a range of controls around the numbers and types of migrants who come into Australia. I think I know where you’re going with this, because you have followed these issues all week and I point out that we haven’t really seen a lot of consistency from the opposition on matters of migration either, because what we do know is that, for instance, when the now immigration spokesperson, the member for Wannon, was in government he was saying things like, ‘We need to get our international students back. We need to get our working holiday-maker visa holders back.’
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts?
Senator Roberts: On a point of order, that’s not relevant to what I asked.
The PRESIDENT: I’ll bring you back to the question, Minister Watt. You’ve finished. Senator Roberts, your first supplementary?
Transcript: First Supplementary Question
Senator ROBERTS: On 15 May, Treasurer Jim Chalmers told Australia that the level of net overseas migration is ‘not something the government determines’. Minister, is that a lie, given your government issues the visas and decides who comes to this country? Why are you letting immigration spiral out of control while hundreds of thousands of Australians are homeless?
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, I am going to ask you to rephrase that question.
Senator ROBERTS: Is that misinformation, given your government issues the visas and decides who comes to this country? Why are you letting immigration spiral out of control while hundreds of thousands of Australians are homeless?
Senator WATT: I reject the suggestion that the Treasurer has misrepresented the facts on this issue. It is a really important issue that Australia is dealing with at the moment. But, Senator Roberts, in answer to similar questions from you over the course of the week, I’ve pointed out a number of steps the government have taken to fix the fundamentally broken migration system that we inherited from the opposition and, in particular, from the now Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, who oversaw the migration system as the Minister for Home Affairs for a number of years.
We’ve already scaled back the pandemic event visa. We’re taking action about the working hours for international students, which has been a real drawcard for international students coming to Australia. We’ve made all sorts of improvements to Home Affairs, in terms of its processing of visa applications. And, of course, when it comes to housing, as I’ve pointed out to you already, you and your colleagues have an opportunity to vote for more housing and you chose to vote against it.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, your second supplementary?
Transcript: Second Supplementary Question
Senator ROBERTS: How many overseas immigrants, net, will arrive in Australia this financial year?
Senator WATT: Again, I know that we’ve addressed this issue in previous answers, both in chis chamber and in estimates, and the issues around the number of net overseas migrants is a matter that is handled by the Treasury. I’ve already acknowledged in previous answers on these questions that post COVID, when we had a couple of years of pretty much zero migration to Australia, it was always inevitable that there was going to be an increase in that migration as we had tourists, working holiday-maker visa holders and skilled migrants coming back into the country. That is exactly one of the reasons why our government is trying to fix the broken migration system that we inherited and trying to build more homes, despite your opposition and that of the coalition.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts?
Senator Roberts: On a point of order, I asked the question: how much net immigration this year?
The PRESIDENT: The minister explained it is a question that should be directed to Treasury, and the minister was answering it in his capacity. The minister has finished.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/J7tBQvIAKwk/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-14 14:35:582023-11-14 17:52:59What Will it Take to Get a Straight Answer?
When will this Labor government make the decision to cut unsustainable, record high immigration? This is a government that is halfway through its term, yet it’s still blaming the previous government. Are we really supposed to swallow this fairy-tale?
Australia’s immigration levels have been allowed to escalate under the Albanese government and they’re driving both the housing crisis and the high cost of living. These two issues have worsened exponentially under Labor.
I had to remind the Minister to answer the question because he was determined to use up the time allotted for answering in banter with others in the chamber, or to deliberately twist my words. When I pressed him to answer he could only pass the buck, talk up Labor’s grossly inadequate housing fund and it’s clear he is not prepared to accept any responsibility. The arrogance and lack of respect he shows to his position and by default, the Australian people, is deplorable.
Failure to take responsibility is a symptom of the ways in which Labor is failing the Australian people. A recent Weekend Australian article has reported that the migration surge is fuelling inflation, and the Reserve Bank backs that up.
The recent tsunami of new arrivals is under Labor’s watch and Senator Murray Watt needs to own it. These performances in parliament he’s indulging in, rather than taking his position seriously, do nothing to restore the people’s trust in government.
Transcript
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Senator Watt. With Labor embarking on the largest immigration program in Australian history, bringing in more than 500,000 people this year alone, more and more economists are warning these numbers are driving inflation and hurting everyday Australian families. Following yesterday’s 12th interest rate rise since Labor was elected, when will the government acknowledge they are completely wrong about high immigration and cut the numbers to sustainable levels?
Senator McKenzie interjecting—
Senator Dean Smith interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Senator McKenzie and Senator Dean Smith!
Senator WATT: Senator Smith, that’s most unlike you! I’m very disappointed in you! I’m very disappointed. Thank you for the question, Senator Roberts. I hear, again, in response to your question, Senator McKenzie demanding more spending for infrastructure. So I guess we’re back to, ‘Spend more in the economy, and drive up inflation!’ That’s where the opposition was at today—
Senator Rennick interjecting—
Senator WATT: Senator Rennick’s jumping up and saying no. The Liberals disagree. Okay!
The PRESIDENT: Senator Watt, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts, I am going to direct the minister to your question, and I will remind those in here that the crossbenchers are entitled to be heard in silence and are entitled to have their questions answered. They get less time than others in this place. I would expect everyone to be sitting in respectful silence. Minister Watt, I refer you to Senator Roberts’ question.
Senator WATT: Thank you. Senator Roberts, I think I answered a very similar question from you the other day. I did acknowledge that Australia’s migration system, after 10 years of Liberal and National government, mainly overseen by the now opposition leader, Mr Dutton, is in utter 	disarray. We have acknowledged that. I know that the minister—
The PRESIDENT: Minister, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts.
Senator Roberts: On relevance—I’m asking when he will cut the numbers to sustainable levels.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Roberts. I will remind the minister of your question. Minister Watt.
Senator WATT: Thank you, Senator Roberts. It is important to put this in context, and we have acknowledged that the migration system that we inherited, overseen largely by Mr Dutton, the now opposition leader, is a mess. It is a completely broken system. We have already taken a number of measures—
The PRESIDENT: Minister Watt, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts?
Senator Roberts: When will they acknowledge they are completely wrong about high immigration and cut the numbers to sustainable levels? That’s simple.
The PRESIDENT: I believe the minister is going to your question, and I will continue to listen carefully. Minister Watt.
Senator WATT: We have taken a number of measures already since being elected to fix the mess of the broken migration system we inherited. For example, this government has ended the Pandemic Event visa, which was being abused in some cases—in many cases. We have changed the previously unlimited working hours that were available for international students, a system that was engineered by the former government, and we’ve also made changes to work exemptions for working holiday visa holders. We’ve also increase the temporary skilled migration income threshold from $53,900 to $70,000, and that is the first increase in a decade.
The PRESIDENT: Minister Watt, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts?
Senator Roberts: When will he deal with cutting the high numbers?
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, I think he’s being relevant to your question. Thank you, Minister.
Senator WATT: Senator Roberts, it’s up to you to choose whether you want to listen to my answer or not. But I’ve already outlined a number of measures that we have taken to fix the migration system, thoroughly broken, overseen by Mr Dutton, and to try to put in place a more manageable migration system and more manageable immigration numbers. We are conscious that this is an issue that needs to be addressed, and we’ll keep working on it. (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, your first supplementary?
https://img.youtube.com/vi/CAlwC_sngko/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-14 14:07:022023-11-14 14:07:06Watt a Clown Show
I asked Senator Tim Ayres, Assistant Minister for Trade, why the Albanese Labor government has allowed one million people to arrive in this country in just one year. Those one million arrivals is made up of around half migration and half student visas. Every single person need a bed and a roof over their head. There’s also an additional 200,000 arrivals with other visas. That’s a total of 1.2 million people, making a population flood the size of Adelaide in just 12 months.
The housing and rental crisis is completely government made. If your rent has gone up, you can’t afford a house, you can’t even find a place to live like those in regional Queensland towns living in caravans, tents, in parks, in cars and under bridges, remember this Labor government brought in over 1,000,000 people into this country in just one year.
With this bill, the Albanese government is claiming that it will build a few thousand houses to ‘fix the problem’. Supply chains for materials are still damaged from the government’s COVID response. Those shattered supply chains are further hobbled under Australia following the United Nations’ 2050 policy driving up energy costs.
The Greens want more houses built, but they won’t let us use timber. In fact, they have a bill on notice to end logging of sustainable forestry. Timber is a renewable resource yet we can’t harvest the wood for the frames. What about steel frames then? The two main ingredients for steel are coal and iron ore,which are Australia’s two major mining commodities, yet the Greens want to end all mining in Australia.
The Greens SAY they want to build more houses, yet if Australia implemented all their policies we’d have no wood, no steel and only expensive and unreliable sources of energy to build these houses.
A cut to immigration would allow our housing and essential services time to catch up.
As you will hear, Senator Ayres completely failed to address my concerns.
Transcripts
Minister, I’m a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia. In that capacity, I note that this bill is completely unnecessary. It’s not needed. Here’s why: if the government cut Australia’s immigration intake by just 10 per cent of the current one million arrivals, it would save the building of many more houses than Labor claims this fund will build. The housing crisis will lessen. Instead, we are here dealing with dirty deals done dirt cheap. The deals are cheap for the Greens, yet taxpayers will be paying billions. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I note that the people of Australia are disgusted to look at this parliament and see the rotten horse-trading and deal-making going on. The Greens hold themselves up on their moral high horse and virtue-signal to the world that they are the pure ones while telling everyone what to do. In reality, they’re down in the mud doing dirty deals like the rest of them.
What deal do we have to look at today? The government is going to build and own houses—not the people of Australia but the government. This is full-blown communism delivered express to your door. As the infamous Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum has repeatedly told the world already, ‘You will own nothing, and you will be happy.’ The goal of the Greens and Labor is to come into this chamber to preach to the world that they’re helping Australians—helping you. The Greens’ rent caps have already led directly to faster rent increases, because landlords understandably want to get ahead of the rent caps. The Greens are already hurting renters. The housing crisis is a problem that government created entirely.
The government is now claiming to have the solution. That’s a fraud, Minister. The Albanese Labor government has allowed one million people to arrive in this country in just one year. That’s 460,000 in net migration and 540,000 students visas. Every one of those needs a bed and a roof over their head. That’s not to mention the additional 200,000 other visas. That’s 1.2 million. A population flood the size of Adelaide has hit this country in 12 months. That’s the cause of the housing and rental crisis. It’s completely government made. If your rent has gone up, you can’t afford a house or you can’t even find a place to live, like the people in regional Queensland towns living in caravans, tents, parks and cars and under bridges. Just remember this: the Albanese Labor government brought one million people into this country in one year.
With this bill, the Albanese government is claiming that it will build a few thousand houses and fix the problem. Who will build them? Supply chains for materials are still damaged due to the government’s COVID reaction and mismanagement, which shattered supply chains. The energy crisis has been inflicted due to the government adopting the UN 2050 net zero policy and driving up energy costs. Australia’s tradies already build houses at the fourth-fastest rate in the OECD. There’s a question that has to be answered: can we more quickly build even more houses? Trying to flood this industry that is already at capacity with huge amounts of taxpayer money is only going to make the funnel spill over. That will mean millions and potentially billions of your taxes wasted. Let’s not forget the government’s figures. They think they can build a house in Australia for $83,000. What kind of house is that? They must be smoking some powerful stuff over in the ministry for housing. It doesn’t matter how many billions this government wants to spend; we will never be able to build enough houses to catch up with the current rate of immigration. That is a clear fact. It’s basic arithmetic. It’s practical.
Next: what do the Greens want us to use to build these houses? They won’t let us use timber. There is a bill on the Notice Paper right now that the Greens introduced to end sustainable forest logging. Timber is the only resource that’s truly renewable, yet the Greens have a bill saying we can’t harvest the wood used in house frames while claiming with this bill that they want to build more houses. I guess that is okay. We can just build houses with steel frames, right? Not according to the Greens. Too many ingredients in making steel are coal and iron ore, Australia’s two major mining commodities. The Greens want to end mining in Australia, so we would have nothing with which to make the steel. So the Greens say they want to build more houses—virtue signalling—yet if Australia implemented their policies we would have no steel, no wood with which to build houses. And if our coal, iron ore and timber industries survived the Greens blight, prices of house timber and steel will be far higher thanks to the Greens restrictions. The hypocrisy is so damn thick we could cut it with a knife.
The Greens policies are antihuman. One Nation’s policy includes many solutions to the government-created housing crisis, taken together holistically because the problem is many factored. Among these immediate solutions to the housing crisis is that we must cut immigration immediately, reduce our arrivals to zero net immigration, meaning only allow the same number of people into the country as the number that leave so departures cancel out arrivals. As Australians know, this country is already bursting at the seams. A cut to immigration would allow our housing stock, our essential services—hospitals, our schools—and other services time to catch up. If we don’t stop immigration or cut immigration, life is going to get far, far worse for Australians, and it is already getting bad with the cost of living being the No. 1 problem on people’s minds. To continue this unprecedented immigration intake in the face of the housing and cost-of-living crisis is an act of criminal negligence against the Australian people.
Minister, why is the government allowing one million students and permanent migrants into the country in just 12 months? How many houses does the government expect the million student and permanent migrant arrivals will need? How many houses does the government expect to build in 12 months? How many houses will the government’s allocation of taxpayer funds build?
Senator Ayres (Assistant Minister for Trade and Assistant Minister for Manufacturing): There was, in fact, a question at the end there. The government does not support the policy prescription that you’ve offered on migration. While you can hear echoes of the proposition that you’ve just put in relation to migration in some of what is best described as circular comments of the Leader of the Opposition on migration and housing, in fact, migration will be an important part and has been an important part of the housing industry in Australia since World War II. In fact, if you spend time on any building site in Australia, what you will find are migrants, permanent and temporary—mostly permanent—who in fact make up a very large part of the labour force building homes, building apartment blocks, building shopping centres all over Australia.
The government’s migration settings will be made over time and will be made in the national interest. I hear your argument with your colleagues down here in the Greens’ political party. The government has always made it very clear: where there are constructive suggestions from anyone on the crossbench we will work with people—senators and members—across the parliament in the national interest where there are sensible amendments proposed to reach agreement on legislation in its passage through this parliament.
There is nothing like the disappointment of a crossbench senator who doesn’t feel like they’ve got their way in the process, but I’ve heard the complaints from crossbench senators over the short time I have been here. I’ll just assure you, and all of the crossbench senators, that the government’s approach has been consistent in terms of this legislation and will be consistent in the future. Where there are opportunities for constructive discussion about government legislation then we will engage in that.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/7dsZpTtVEtw/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-10-05 10:54:542023-10-09 10:22:19Heads in the Sand as Immigration Fuels the Housing Crisis
