I asked about the mechanism for the Mutual Recognition of Qualifications between Australia and India, which recognises that an Australian degree awarded here is equivalent to an Indian degree awarded in India. It also allows Indian colleges, including private ones, to offer degrees to anyone globally, which can then be used to improve their chances of getting into Australia as skilled migrants.
However, there are concerns about the integrity of this system, given that India is notorious for exam cheating. This raises the risk of admitting individuals who may not possess the skills their degrees suggest.
Transcript
The mechanism for the mutual recognition of qualifications between Australia and India recognises an Australian degree awarded to an Australian as being equal to an Indian degree awarded to an Indian, including online study. It’s not only degrees. It’s everything from school certificates to doctorates, although some further work may be required for occupations having professional associations, like medicine, although there is no requirement to do so. This is despite the level of cheating and selling qualifications that goes on in India. I await the legal challenges to being refused a job based on a degree the employer knows is rubbish but which the government has decreed is equal to an Australian degree.
The agreement allows an Indian visa-holder to apply for any job in Australia for which having a degree makes their chances of success higher. That’s almost anything. In other words, the vast majority of these new migrants will not work in their area of qualification, which might be a good thing. One Nation opposes this agreement. Twenty per cent of HECS debts in Australia are for amounts over $40,000. Our children listen to their parents, the media and politicians. They study hard, go to university, get saddled with a near insurmountable HECS debt, and then they head out into the workforce to pay it off only to discover they’re competing with an Indian degree of questionable origin that cost a fraction of their own. Of course, Indian graduates can work cheaper than our graduates can afford to.
One Nation will tear up this agreement. We’ll offer mortgages through a people’s bank to young Australians that include the option of rolling their HECS debt into their mortgage with just a five per cent deposit at five per cent fixed interest over 25 years with the homebuyers own super account allowed to provide the deposit and share in the capital appreciation. While Labor is selling out young Australians, One Nation offers real solutions to young Australians. I note in the seconds I have left that every year $11.1 billion was sent home by foreign students, with Indians being the second largest on the list.
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is currently struggling to attract young recruits. This issue has multiple facets. In this discussion, we discuss these challenges, along with topics like immigration and more.
Transcript
Mike McLaren: The ADF have problems, it seems, getting young people who want to join up the forces, whatever they are. Now, there’s various aspects to that, but I want to discuss it now with One Nation Centre for Queensland, Malcolm Roberts. Malcolm, good morning. Thank you for doing this.
Malcolm Roberts: Good morning Mike. Thank you for having me.
Mike McLaren: Now, one of the issues, it would seem, is that the idea of joining up the forces has been lumped into one, whereas experience shows with other countries, including our own, that it would be better to build on the traditions that the Navy has, the Air Force has, the military have. What do you think?
Malcolm Roberts: I agree with you. The Australian military, all the forces, the Navy, Air Force and Army have a fantastic record, each of them. And I learned from a couple of, very well, senior officers some time ago, that the key to the Australian Armed forces, each of the three departments separately, the key to each one of them is mateship and Australian values and that’s really important that the sense of tradition that comes with that. When you have that sense of tradition and the culture being reinforced, especially by leadership at the top, then you have that culture propagating itself and people want to come in. Now Mike, there is another problem. In addition to not being able to attract younger people, they’re losing a lot of older people.
Mike McLaren: Oh, yeah.
Malcolm Roberts: And the key is morale and the morale is low and why is the morale low? Because we are focusing on too much of this diversity, equity, inclusivity, nonsense and people can see that not everyone’s equal, but you’ve got to have some basic skills before you can get onto the front line. And the key to the Australian mateship is that everyone has a fine training standard and when they’re past that, you know that if you are next to me in the trench, you can count on me and I can count on you, the skills and the mateship, and that’s vital. But when you’re concerned about some of the people around you not being up to scratch because they went through, based upon DEI, not on merit, then that’s going to destroy that mateship. It’s going to destroy the reliability and that’s destroying the culture and it’s coming from the top of the armed forces. They’re eating away at the culture. They have no clue what they’re doing.
Mike McLaren: The whole concept of DEI does seem to be fading, particularly in the US. Whether it will fade as sharply here, I don’t know. But are we going to change do you think? Is the realisation upon us that DEI sounds nice but doesn’t deliver the result really?
Malcolm Roberts: DEI in the case of companies like Boeing and Qantas spells D-I-E, die, and it’s death. So merit has to be restored. In the United States, they’ve had some incidents and they’re waking up to that. And of course along comes Trump and says, “That’s it. No more.” What we’ve been doing with some of that DEI in the Senate is just ridiculing it and smashing it and people are starting to wake up. The Greens who are the foot soldiers for that international concept from the UN and the World United Forum, they’re now getting embarrassed when they push that DEI. So the tide is changing. Trump is going to be one foot on the accelerator and I think it’ll come the same with so many other things in society. Trump has said it’s okay to say that wind turbines are terrible. It’s okay to say that climate change is rubbish. It’s okay to say so many things now that only a few of us have spoken up about.
Mike McLaren: Yes, indeed. We were discussing the other day why it is that the ADF is having trouble recruiting and one of the elements that came into that discussion were patriotism, is it lacking? Somebody told me yesterday that the Gen Z’s don’t support the indicators of patriotism, for example, Australia Day, ANZAC Day. But I had a good look around and it seems to me that might’ve been the case a year or two ago, but that has turned and young people now really are supportive of, well, I guess, indicators of patriotism is the way I see it.
Malcolm Roberts: I think you’re spot on, Mike. There are two things that are fundamentally the foundations for organisation of human societies, human civilizations, and that’s the nation state and the family. The United Nations, as some of the senior people, admitted that they’re on a move to a long, decades-long move to put in place of one unelected socialist global governance. They want to destroy nation states. You can see it in immigration policies they’re pushing. You can see it in some of the other policies they’re pushing, their economic policies. And we don’t have any need, any responsibility to comply with the UN. We should be sticking with standing up for Australia and sticking up with standing for families. We talked to men ago about the DEI. That is about breaking up families. The UN has admitted that. Now coming back to that, what we’ve seen is the people that are waking up to the fashion and the nonsense and truth is starting to come back to Australia in so many ways. People are realising it’s all crap.
Mike McLaren: Just on the business of how young people feel about the country, I think you make a good point when you say one of the reasons why young people might want to join one of the forces is because they want purpose in their life. And you can see that even with a lot of people that I think are misguided with the causes they pursue, they do that because they want some purpose in their life, don’t they?
Malcolm Roberts: Yes. Everyone wants purpose in our lives. The most switched on age and group in my opinion, from my experience, is the adolescent male. They are really switched on. The delinquents we see in most of our cities, and I mean all of our cities, in Queensland, provincial cities including Brisbane, the crime that we see being committed by young people and across the races and across the demographics, it’s not a racial thing, it’s not an income thing, it’s not whether you come from a rich family or a poor family, it’s a lack of meaning, lack of purpose. I mean, young children, they really are children. Young men, when they’re told that the world is going to end in five years because of global boiling and so many other things, and Covid is going to destroy you, all of this nonsense that, what’s to live for? What’s the purpose? So they go and have a bit of what they call fun. But what we’ve seen time and time again, the success rate of helping these people to find some meaning, find some purpose in life, is phenomenal. And once they find that meaning, find that purpose, then it really changes their lives and brings them back into society as contributors and caring. And that’s really far more powerful. A person who cares and considers other people is far more powerful and contributes to society is far more powerful than a delinquent smashing a car.
Mike McLaren: Oh indeed. And it’s much more satisfying for the individual.
Malcolm Roberts: Yes, much more. And one of the other things is that we’re bringing people in record numbers. At the moment when I say we, the Albanese government, and it’s something that the liberal party has done too. Liberal and Labour both pushed hard, heavy, massive immigration since John Howard doubled immigration during his term and he puts this on the big immigration agenda. The Labour Party has brought in close to one and a half million people in the last two years and kept about 1 million people, after you take away the people who’ve left. Now, we had 1.9 million people on temporary visas before Covid. We now have two and a half million people on temporary visas. And then Albanese said, you would only have high immigration. It’s actually catastrophic and massive migration. Young people, that migration has driven the demand for houses through the roof. Rents, people building new houses and people paying off an existing house, are becoming unaffordable, not becoming, they are unaffordable for young people and young people cannot see any possibility quite often of getting a house. How do you start a family when you haven’t got a house?
Mike McLaren: Indeed.
Malcolm Roberts: When you can’t even afford rent. It’s not just meaning and purpose, it’s also looking after family because the age to have a family is strong in most of us.
Mike McLaren: Indeed, yes, that’s a whole story in itself. In fact, if you want to come back on the programme, in the future, we might go into that a bit more because I’ve been looking at that myself, the replacement rate and what’s expected. And of course in the big cities, the story today is that everybody’s going to live in a shoebox. But I don’t know about you, I’m not Nostradamus, but I’ve seen that coming for quite a while now. Anyway, Malcolm, I do appreciate your comments and thank you for coming on the programme this morning.
Malcolm Roberts: You’re welcome, Mike and that’s why we’re advocating a pause, a cut in immigration and actually deporting lawbreakers, sending them home and deporting those who break the law. So I’m happy to come in and talk about immigration anytime you want. It is one of the major serious problems that are affecting housing prices in this country.
Mike McLaren: Oh, absolutely it is. And it’s very clear that the people do not want what the government is doing, but they keep doing it. Anyway, Malcolm, appreciate your time today. Thank you very much for that.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2GB.jpg?fit=756%2C425&ssl=1425756Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2025-02-03 12:49:052025-02-13 14:48:212GB with Michael McLaren: Australian Defence Force
Australia desperately needs housing and population policies that prioritise Australians FIRST. Both the Liberal-Labor uni-party have been implementing massive immigration, opening the floodgates despite making Australians homeless.
Australia has reached a record 2.43 million temporary visa holders, excluding tourists, which translates to a need for up to a million extra houses.
During COVID, when our borders were closed, rental vacancies near universities increased, showing that fewer international students mean more homes for Australians. The truth is, some universities and private education/training providers are abusing the system, using student visas as a backdoor for work rights, and eventually staying in Australia permanently. Many on student visas work full-time illegally and send money back home, with remittances hitting a record $11 billion in 2023. The claim that international students are a major export is a lie, as most work to support themselves here.
Until housing and infrastructure catch up, immigration needs to be dropped to zero and we have to ban foreign ownership. You can only trust One Nation to put Australians first.
Transcript
Thank you to Senator Pocock for raising this issue. Australia desperately needs housing and population policies that work for Australians. The Labor government has no coherent or practical policies. Both chiefs of the Liberal-Labor unity party have been implementing massive immigration. It’s essentially: ‘Open the floodgates to arrivals, no matter how many Australians are made homeless.’ We need a policy that does the opposite and puts Australians first.
Australia just hit a record level of temporary visa holders. Excluding tourists and other short-stay visitors, temporary visa holders in the country now number 2.43 million people. This blows the previous record of 1.9 million out of the water. That’s up to a million extra houses needed for these people. And 680,000 of these are international students—another record. This is putting untold pressure on the housing crisis. When the borders were closed during COVID, nearly all suburbs close to universities experienced higher rental vacancy rates. That means that when international students couldn’t come into the country there were more homes available for Australians. Now, who would have thought?
The truth is that some universities and private vocational education and training providers are completely abusing the system. A student visa is more often seen as a backdoor way to get working rights in Australia and eventually staying here forever. Hundreds of thousands of people on temporary student visas end up illegally working full-time hours and sending the money back to their home country. Personal remittance flows out of Australia almost perfectly correlate with the number of student visa holders in the country. On the latest figures in 2023, the transfer of money out of Australia hit a record $11 billion—out of the country. We can only assume that it has increased since then.
A particular lie is being peddled in this debate. That lie is that international students are one of Australia’s largest exports, at $40 billion a year. That figure assumes an international student arrives here on day one with all their money for course fees, rent, food and transport bills, and other spending already saved in their bank account. In reality most students end up working here for the money to support themselves and sending the remainder back home. The claim that international students are one of our biggest exports is simply not true because it is does not align with reality. Until housing and infrastructure catch up, One Nation will drop net immigration to zero.
Australia has a housing crisis fueled by excessive immigration and a shortage of skilled tradespeople. The Help to Buy Bill 2023 is fundamentally flawed and unlikely to offer real solutions.
Why are we importing millions of migrants when Australians are sleeping on the streets?
The major parties talk about the housing crisis but fail to make a real impact.
One Nation is the only party that can be trusted to put Australians first.
Transcript
We have a housing catastrophe due to rampant immigration—excessive, reckless, record immigration. We also have a housing crisis because we don’t have enough tradies to build the houses that we need. The Help to Buy Bill 2023 is a bill that won’t help anyone. Right now, Queenslanders, in what should be the richest state in the world, are sleeping under bridges and on riverbanks. In one of the world’s richest states, working families with children are living in cars, coming home at night to wonder if their kids are still there. Where do they toilet? Where do they shower? It’s plain inhuman. Rents are skyrocketing—if a rental can be found. House prices are reaching record highs. This is a housing crisis, one of the worst we’ve faced. It’s an inhuman catastrophe.
Last year, the federal government under Anthony Albanese brought in 517,000 net migrants. This year, after being promised that we would have lower immigration, we are tracking to have another new record—one above last year’s. How can you bring in more than a million people in two years? That’s hundreds of thousands of houses. How can you build them? We aren’t catering for the people already here, and now we’re bringing in record numbers—a million in two years. That’s 400,000 new houses needed, in addition to the already high demand and the people living homeless at the moment.
The Albanese government, though, wants to look like it’s doing something—not do something but look like. Enter this Help to Buy plan. Under this plan, the government wants to own a significant part of your house. If it’s an existing place, the government wants to own 30 per cent, and, if it’s a new place, 40 per cent, with the government paying for part of it with low-income earners. While a 40 per cent subsidy might sound attractive, it’s fatally flawed. If the government just borrows more money for this plan, then one thing is going to happen. When you give 40 per cent more money to people to buy a house, house prices are going to go up. House prices will go up. The bill’s core concept and premise is flawed and possibly a lie. We can’t subsidise our way out of a house price problem. Subsidies always increase prices and have throughout history. Looking at the bill’s details, or lack of details, the problem is worse. I’ll look at some of the criteria in a minute.
Thirdly, let’s look at the constitutional basis. This bill is completely outside the federal government’s powers. It’s highly complex. The government has tabled a late amendment to the bill, attempting to clarify a set of constitutional issues—too complex.
I’ll go back to the immigration. In addition to rampant immigration of people coming into the country, prior to COVID, the number of temporary visa holders in the country was around 2.3 million people. As of the end of 24 July, that number is now 2.8 million—more than 10 per cent of our population—all needing a roof and all needing a bed. These are hard numbers and facts. This is what’s causing the housing catastrophe. These are the hard numbers and facts, as I said, yet the government has continued to lie, claiming, ‘We’re just catching up with immigration.’ Really? We haven’t just caught up; we’ve blown the record out of the water, not only for people on resident visas but also for new immigrants coming in. We’re nearly half a million people above the record for resident visas. Using the average household size of 2½ people per household implies the need for more than 200,000 houses just to cater for new arrivals. It’s actually 400,000. This is what we’re seeing in our country.
Then there are the details. For an Australian who enters into a Help to Buy arrangement, where the government owns part of their home, what happens if they renovate their home at their own expense, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours swinging hammers and pulling up carpet, and, as a result of their renovations, their $500,000 home increases in value to $600,000? I wonder whether the minister knows how much of that Australian’s renovation profit the government will take for doing nothing. I wonder whether the minister knows that the income thresholds are set nationally—$90,000 for singles and $120,000 for couples—despite the average house price varying from $504,000 in Darwin to $1.2 million in Sydney. I wonder why the government is not adjusting the income threshold from state to state. What are the price thresholds for houses eligible under this bill, and why haven’t these been set in the legislation? Why are we bringing yoga teachers into the country, through immigration, when we need tradies? Yoga teachers are wonderful, but we need tradies to get on with the job here.
The government has appointed three sets of bureaucrats as part of its solution to the housing crisis. That’s just adding to the complexity and inefficiency. It’s adding to the catastrophe. We need tradies to come into this country. We need people to be vetted properly, to bring in their skills and to contribute. We have so many people in this country out of work, living on welfare, and not contributing. We have an abundance of people with good qualifications who want to come into this country. We can put them to work and fix the housing crisis quickly. These are just some of the issues that I’ll be exploring more in the committee stage. I want to put those comments back on the record.
In the middle of a housing crisis, developers are locking up land, waiting for it to get worse so they can sell it at higher prices.
While cutting immigration is the number one solution to the housing crisis, we also need to look at foreign-owned companies that seem to be waiting for house prices to get even more expensive before they build more.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: A car is the third-biggest investment cost of a person’s life, usually. Housing would be No. 2. Government is far and away the biggest cost during a person’s life. Let’s move on to housing. Are you doing any work in the property market in terms of land development? Some developers are acting like a cartel and keeping land locked away in the middle of a housing crisis, waiting for the demand get even bigger to raise their price. What are you doing in this space?
Ms Cass-Gottlieb: Our exposure will arise in mergers, and we reviewed what was voluntarily notified to us— a merger in terms of the function of masterplanned communities. It was an acquisition that brought together assets; Lendlease was selling some assets which went to Supalai. In relation to the Illawarra area, where we considered there would be too much concentration post the transaction, we required a divestiture in order to retain continuing competition. One exposure we have to this, and an important role we have, is merger control. With the reforms, if passed by the House, we will have much more visibility in relation to the transactions we need to look at. If we were to become aware of cartel conduct or reports of anticompetitive conduct, that would absolutely be within our enforcement remit against anticompetitive conduct. We do not have an overall supervisory function in relation to housing. It arises in relation to maintaining and promoting competition.
CHAIR: The committee advises that it is releasing the Productivity Commission; you go with our thanks.
Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware of any developers withholding land from the market to bump up prices?
Ms Cass-Gottlieb: I don’t believe we are aware of that, no.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/gGWFuojDhMg/0.jpg360480Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2025-01-02 14:10:002025-01-02 14:55:25Developers Locking Up Land
While I’ve covered much of this material in my Senate speeches, Matt masterfully brings it all together in just 1 hour and 18 minutes. He also makes a powerful point about NSW Labor’s attempts to alter voting patterns to entrench their hold on power. Sly move!
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-29-205224.png?fit=624%2C349&ssl=1349624Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-12-29 20:55:272024-12-29 20:55:31Matt Barrie’s Keynote Speech at the Northern Beaches Liberal Party Event
I asked Home Affairs about the total number of permanent residency visas issued in the last financial year, which totalled 185,000. For temporary student visas in 2023-24, there were 580,193 applications and 376,731 visas were granted, with 86,473 issued up to September this year. In the same period, 315,632 temporary residency visas were issued, with an additional 64,820 granted by September.
Visitor visas in 2023-24 reached 4,713,442, with another 1,203,891 granted by September. Working holiday visas numbered 234,556 in the last financial year, with 95,371 issued up to September.
With the crisis in Lebanon, 8,330 temporary visas have been issued to Lebanese nationals, with 15,525 applications lodged. All applicants undergo rigorous vetting, including identity and character checks, with applications screened against a 1,000,000-person immigration alert list. All security checks are completed before applicants arrive in Australia. Applications from Lebanon are typically processed within a few weeks, some prioritised for faster processing if necessary.
Regarding Palestinian visa applications, 3,041 have been granted, 7,252 refused, and 200 remain under review as of September 30.
Security criteria was confirmed to remain uncompromised throughout the process.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again today. How many permanent visas are currently issued for residency in Australia? How many temporary visas are currently issued for residency in Australia?
Mr Kilner: For the Migration Program, the current numbers for this program year will be 185,000 migrant visas. That’s the program numbers for this year.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s permanent?
Mr Kilner: They would be permanent visas, yes. For temporary visas there are a range of different visas that we have. For student visas—most of the key programs for student visas are demand driven—I’ll give you a figure for last program year, as an example, and I can give you a figure for visas that have been granted so far this year. For the last program year there were 580,193 visas granted. There have been 99,868 visas lodged so far this year, from 1 July to 30 September, with 86,473 granted. The number granted for the last program year was 376,731 for students. For temporary residence visas, the number granted for the last financial year was 315,632. So far this program year, up until 30 September, there have been 64,820 visas granted. I’ll also go to visitor visas.
Senator ROBERTS: What was that category?
Mr Kilner: That was temporary residence visas.
Senator ROBERTS: The previous one was temporary visas for students.
Mr Kilner: Yes. There’s a different category—so that was student, and the next one I gave you was temporary visas. For visitor visas, the number granted for the last program year was 4,713,442. For this year to date, up to 30 September, it’s been 1,203,891. For working holiday maker visas, last program year there were 234,556 and so far this year there have been 95,371.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m going to another tack now. Now that the war in the Middle East has progressed to responding to attacks by Hezbollah, a terrorist group from Lebanon, how many migrants from Lebanon were received into Australia at the end of last year?
Mr Kilner: I’ll have to take that figure on notice. I’ll just check if my colleagues have a figure. We may need to take that one on notice.
Mr Willard: I provided some evidence earlier on the number of visas we’ve granted to Lebanese citizens over the past 12 months. Your question was specifically about permanent visas, as I understand it. I don’t have that breakdown but I have that figure, which I could repeat. Since 7 October 2023, 8,333 migration and temporary visa applications have been granted to Lebanese nationals.
Senator ROBERTS: You can get the migrants on notice—the permanents?
Mr Willard: I can get the breakdown on notice, yes.
Senator ROBERTS: How many applications for visas over the last year from Lebanon have been received to come into Australia?
Mr Willard: The figure for applications since 7 October 2023 to 15 October 2024 is 15,525 migration and temporary visa applications lodged.
Senator ROBERTS: What is the vetting process for these visa applications?
Mr Willard: All applications are assessed against criteria for grant of a visa, which covers character, security, health, and a range of other criteria depending on the visa that is granted. We have to be satisfied of someone’s identity, and there’s a range of processes that sit behind all of those assessments.
Senator ROBERTS: Can you lead me through the process? A person makes an application; what then happens to that application?
Mr Willard: Typically, the application is lodged online, which is how over 99 per cent of our applications are received.
Senator ROBERTS: Does that go to a consulate or something in Lebanon, or does it come here?
Mr Willard: It goes to one of our processing offices around the world. Some of them come here. Some go to our embassy in Beirut. Some go to other locations. When the application is lodged, there is a series of risk alerts in place that identify concerns or characteristics to look for around fraud, disingenuity and other concerns. To give you a sense of that process: there are well over a million alerts in place that relate to identities and documents of concern. That’s on something called the migration alert list.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you work with intelligence agencies, home affairs and cybercrime?
Mr Willard: Yes. We get a whole range of information from a range of sources, including security agencies, other agencies within the Commonwealth, law enforcement agencies and partners around the world. In addition to those alerts that relate to identities and documents of concern, there are another 3.4 million entity details which are matched against visa applications. I don’t want to go into too much detail in a way that sets out exactly what the process is, because that provides an opportunity to game the process, but entity matches are any piece of information that we’ve collected that might be able to be matched against an application. There are also 1,000 rules based alerts, which are alerts that come up to the decision-maker to take a particular action on a particular application, depending on the characteristics of that application. We also have 43 predictive models that give a decision-maker an indication of the risk associated with a particular application. That’s not all that happens, but that’s the starting point. Then there is an assessment of the application, the claims that are made and documents that are submitted in support of the application. That’s all considered against the criteria for the grant of the visa. If all the criteria are met, then the application is granted.
Senator ROBERTS: What is the estimated time taken to process visa applications? I’m guessing there is a wide range of times here. Would it be better to process these visa applications prior to these persons being allowed to enter Australia?
Mr Willard: All the applications, when they’re lodged offshore, are processed prior to them entering. In fact, they can only enter if they have been granted a visa—if they’ve gone through that process and have met all the criteria for a visa grant.
Senator ROBERTS: Does that apply to refugees?
Mr Willard: That applies to all of those applicants, including refugees. I’m sorry; can you repeat the first part of your question?
Senator ROBERTS: What is the estimated time taken to process these visa applications?
Mr Willard: At the moment in Lebanon, we’re looking at about a couple of weeks. As you said, there’s a range of processing times, but that’s roughly what we’re looking at.
Senator ROBERTS: Is that a fast-track for people from Lebanon? I’ve got nothing against people from Lebanon. I buy my lunch from them every day. They’re wonderful people, some of them
Mr Willard: What we’re doing in respect of Lebanon is supporting circumstances where Australian citizens are seeking to leave, and a close family member might be someone who needs a visa. It might be their partner. It could be children. It could be a parent. In that circumstance, we’re prioritising that assessment, but everyone still has to meet all of the criteria for the grant of a visa, and that process is taking a couple of weeks at the moment.
Senator ROBERTS: Is there any consideration being given to staying applications for visas for people from Palestine and Lebanon until hostilities cease?
Mr Willard: Across many years, we’ve seen in all sorts of circumstances situations where there are challenges in various countries. The role of the officers who make the decisions, the delegated decision-makers, is to consider applications against the criteria and make an assessment of whether or not someone can be granted a visa.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for that. My interpretation of what you just said is that the criteria are not compromised.
Mr Willard: No, the criteria are not compromised.
Senator ROBERTS: So that’s the most important thing—criteria? But if there’s a human rights crisis, as there is right now in Palestine and Lebanon, you may try and put more resources in. How would you shorten the period?
Mr Willard: It’s an exercise in prioritisation—for example, triaging applications when they come in and, where there’s additional information required, making sure that that’s actioned promptly and that people get information about what they need to provide to satisfy the criteria. It’s also about making sure we’ve got contingency, particularly in Lebanon at the moment, to be able to handle unexpected circumstances. For example, we have a capacity to collect biometrics through a mobile collection facility. We also have some additional officers in country who are supporting staff who are already there and who’ve been going through a long period in Lebanon where it’s been a crisis situation. Providing some additional staff to support them is part of what we’re doing as well.
Senator ROBERTS: Would those staff already be in Lebanon? I think that’s what you said. And they’re redirected to that task?
Mr Willard: We’ve got two posted officers and 10 locally engaged staff in Beirut, and they’ve been doing a tremendous job in difficult circumstances. We’ve had some additional people go in to provide support and capacity for them to rest, recuperate and actually have a break as well.
Senator ROBERTS: Are they from Australia or from somewhere else in Europe or the Middle East?
Mr Willard: There are a few from Australia, and some have been cross-posted from other posts overseas.
Senator ROBERTS: How do you make sure that they can understand the cultural signs in Lebanon?
Mr Willard: There is a series of training and assessments that we do before we post people, and they are trained on cultural awareness training. But for this particular situation they’re also trained in working in high- threat environments. They’ve also been assessed in terms of resilience, because sometimes it is a very difficult circumstance, and officers are selected on those particular qualities.
Senator ROBERTS: So the cultural training is to be familiar with the local culture so that people understand the flags; it’s not DEI cultural awareness?
Mr Willard: It’s a broader training that people go through on their overseas preparation course around cultural awareness. It’s not specific to each country. When they do go into country, though, they are briefed by the local post, particularly around the security circumstances.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I’ll switch to Palestine. How many visa applications from Palestinians have been finalised over the last year, with full risk vetting completed?
Mr Willard: I provided some evidence earlier, and I’m happy to repeat that. There have been 3,041 visas granted to holders of Palestinian travel documents. There have been 7,252 visitor visas refused. In addition, another 45 migration and temporary visas have been refused, eight protection visas have been refused and fewer than five humanitarian visas have been refused.
Senator ROBERTS: So, out of about 10,300 visa applications, 3,041 have been approved?
Mr Willard: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Is it true, as the media stated, that some of those visa applications were processed in around one hour?
Mr Willard: I do have some processing time information that could perhaps provide some detail. Since October 2023 and going through to the end of September 2024, the median processing time for all visas finalised for holders of Palestinian travel documents is 116 days. The average processing time in that same period is 107 days.
Senator ROBERTS: Medians and averages—and I’m not accusing you of hiding anything—can hide many, many things. Were some of the visas approved in less than an hour, or in around an hour?
Mr Willard: We’re not able to report on that level of detail. I would be very surprised if that were the case, but I can’t provide a report to—
Senator ROBERTS: Are you familiar with the claims made in the mainstream media, the mouthpiece media?
Mr Willard: I am familiar. In fact, some of it may have related indirectly to evidence I provided previously, before this committee, in which I was making a reference to, globally, visitor visas processed in one day. But, in making that reference, with all visa applications from all nationalities around the world, the median processing time is a day. That median processing time is on our website.
Senator ROBERTS: From an application being received to the visa being granted is a day?
Mr Willard: It’s the median processing time for a visitor visa for all nationalities around the world. It doesn’t mean it’s the median processing time for holders of Palestinian travel documents. I just provided that figure at 116 days.
Senator ROBERTS: How many of those Palestinian visa applications are still outstanding?
Mr Willard: I gave some evidence earlier. I think the figures—
Senator ROBERTS: How many of them are connected with Hamas or Hezbollah sympathisers?
Mr Willard: For the visa applications outstanding outside Australia, as at the end of 30 September, that figure is 200. I can’t provide a response to the second part of your question because the fact they’re outstanding means they’ve not yet been assessed.
Australia is in a housing crisis. Tent cities are appearing across the country, from parks and bridges to family cars, as rents soar and home ownership becomes unattainable. I’ve seen these conditions firsthand, and it’s heartbreaking. Since 2020, rents have increased by 40%, and the average house price has jumped to nearly 10 times the average income.
A major driver of this crisis is our turbocharged immigration program. While I value the contributions of migrants—being one myself—the current intake is unsustainable. In 2023 alone, over half a million net migrants arrived in Australia. This relentless surge is straining our housing market, health services, infrastructure, and economy.
The math is simple. With 2.45 million temporary visa holders in the country, about one million homes are occupied by these individuals. Yet, we’re building far fewer homes than we need, leaving more Australians homeless and without hope. This unprecedented immigration inflates demand, driving up costs in housing, infrastructure, and everyday essentials. High inflation, soaring interest rates, and gridlocked roads are the direct results of this unsustainable growth. Meanwhile, our health system is overwhelmed, and working families are left to fend for themselves.
The government’s solution? More immigration. It’s time to prioritise Australians—our families, our communities, and our future. Let’s address the housing crisis with meaningful reforms, not empty promises.
Transcript
Australia is in a housing crisis—a housing catastrophe. Tent cities are appearing across the country in the way many people have never seen before. I have been to them. It’s disgraceful. In almost every major city in Queensland I’ve been to, the tents are there. People are sleeping under bridges, in caravans, in parks or in their family car. In August 2020, the national average rent was $437 a week. It’s now $627 a week. That’s an increase of 40 per cent over just a few years. In 1987, the average house price was 2.8 times the average income. Today the house price is 9.7 times the income. That’s nearly 10 times. What hope have our children got?
A major driver of the housing crisis is Australia’s turbocharged immigration program. Listen to the facts that I’ll come up with soon, and remember that I’m not against migration. I was born in India; I’m half migrant. Australia has a very proud history of migrants building this country, but at the moment we have too many. Let me give you those figures. Australia’s net overseas migration used to average a bit over 80,000 a year. For the 2023 year, our net intake was an astonishing 547,000 new people. That’s more than half a million new people net. In the nine months to September 2024, 394,000 immigrants were added to the population. That puts us well on track for yet another year of more than half a million arrivals into the country. That’s net. That’s after the people who’ve left have been removed from the count.
Soon after setting Australia’s immigration record last year, Prime Minister Albanese promised he would cut immigration rates. Instead he increased immigration rates and is on track for a second new record in a row. Before 2020 and excluding tourists and short-stay crew, there were around 1.8 million temporary visa holders in the country. Today that number is 2.45 million temporary visa holders in the country, an increase of a third. Using Australia’s average household size of about 2½ people per dwelling, that means temporary visa holders are taking up one million homes. One million homes are unavailable because of this immigration program.
The Master Builders Association’s October housing review shows that, in the 12 months to 30 June this year, only 158,000 homes were completed. So much for your housing policy. That’s less than we needed to cover new arrivals let alone the homeless and those sharing who want their own place. Every year that this Labor government is in power is yet another year Australia’s housing crisis becomes worse. That is why it’s beyond a crisis; it’s a catastrophe. The ALP and the Greens can promise more houses all they like. Houses aren’t built out of rhetoric. When Australians are sleeping on the street we have to stop the flow of more people into the country.
Some of these temporary visa holders have to leave. Let’s start with the 400,000 overseas students who have completed or discontinued their study and have failed the 100-point test necessary for permanent residency. These students are in a limbo which is best solved by returning home and developing their own countries with the skills learnt here. Then there are hundreds of thousands of long-stay visa holders who have failed to learn English and failed to get a job but who nonetheless avail themselves of social security. I’ll say that again: they failed to learn English, failed to get a job and are on social security that the Australian taxpayers are paying for. If someone has been in this country for five years and has failed to earn their own way then their visa must be critically reviewed to determine if Australia is the right place for them. It’s time to put the temporary back into temporary visa holder. Our country is bleeding; stop twisting the knife.
The unprecedented level of immigration isn’t just leading to the housing crisis; 2.45 million extra people add to inflation. Inflation is caused when too much demand is chasing too few goods. It’s really simple, and 2.45 million new arrivals is a lot of new demand. It’s a hell of a lot. The government’s net zero energy policy has driven up power prices—we can all see that— and reduced the capacity of agriculture and manufacturing to meet this demand, leading to demand inflation. It’s a double whammy on inflation. The Reserve Bank has refused to lower interest rates because, as they have publicly stated, this unprecedented rate of immigration is creating so much excess demand, and they have said that reducing interest rates now would cause inflation to worsen. House prices are at highs. Now we’ve got interest rates high. This is a huge catastrophe.
Why is the government doing this? As Senator Hanson said, we’ve been in a per capita recession now for six quarters. We should be in a recession, according to the performance of our economy. The only reason we’re not in a recession is that they’re flooding the joint with migrants to bump up the gross domestic product. You see, a recession is defined as two quarters of negative gross domestic product. So the only thing saving the recession tag from being hung around Prime Minister Albanese’s neck and Treasurer Jim Chalmers’s neck is the record immigration coming in to take us over zero so we’re just barely hanging in there. They don’t want to be tagged, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, who are in office, when the recession hits. Instead they will let hundreds of thousands of people go without what they need, facing inflation and tens of thousands of people without a home.
Immigration is also affecting our health response. Ambulance ramping is at an all-time high in most states, including in my state of Queensland. It takes time to train paramedics, expand emergency departments and buy new ambulances. The pace of the government’s increase in new arrivals has placed demand on our health system and it simply can’t keep up. Lives are at stake, people are dying, and Labor does not care. It doesn’t care about working families. It doesn’t care about mums and dads working then coming home at night to their family car in a park to see if their kids are still there. That is what this government is doing.
One of the largest budget costs is more infrastructure, especially on roads and transport. These projects are collectively costing hundreds of billions of dollars. The huge demand for infrastructure materials and qualified people is driving up the cost of infrastructure, adding to inflation. Many of these projects wouldn’t be necessary if we didn’t have an extra 2.45 million people in the country. The people coming to work from the Gold Coast to Brisbane, coming to work from the Sunshine Coast, even Caboolture, Burpengary, Morayfield, every day to work in the city of Brisbane are tied up in a car park or are in stationary traffic for hours—their lives just slipping away.
We have people sleeping under bridges. As I said a minute ago, we have a mother and father returning after work to see if the children are still in the car in the park in which they live, or a showground or maybe a tent under a bridge. Australia has the world’s richest reserves of minerals, bar none, and we have people sleeping in tents because the Labor government does not care.
It’s a vicious cycle where the government claims that we can fix the immigration problem with more immigration and that we can fix the housing catastrophe by adding bureaucrats and more immigration—fix housing, the catastrophe, with more immigration.
