Anthony Albanese has lied to the Australian people — it’s important to point that out.
The conversation around Stage 3 tax cuts is a smoke screen that only fiddles around the edges.
Since 2020, the rate of taxes Australians are paying has gone up by 20%. Anthony Albanese will only give Australians $20 a week back.
Here’s a thought PM – if you’re genuine about Australians paying lower taxes, why don’t you index the thresholds so Australians don’t pay more tax just because of inflation?
The housing unaffordability crisis is one of the greatest issues facing Australia. Australians want to have their hard work and savings rewarded. They want a place to call their own and a place where they can stay to raise a family.
Mortgages are skyrocketing and two thirds of young Australians believe they will never own their own home. Rents are also rising on the back of a record low national vacancy rate of 1%. Experts consider a 3% vacancy rate to be tight — a national average of 1% is an absolute crisis.
Right now, many Australians simply cannot afford a roof over their head.
Supply and demand controls the housing market. Yet decades of successive governments have mismanaged both sides of the equation.
One Nation would properly manage our economy and deliver cheaper houses and cheaper rent. How? First, by stemming the flow of overseas arrivals which is driving up unsustainable demand. Over the last year, Australia gained an additional 2.3 million visa holders. We cannot sustain this level of overseas arrivals. Powerful lobby groups reliant on high immigration have been able to label anyone talking about this problem as racist.
Secondly, many Australians can’t afford housing in Australia banning foreign ownership is the only answer. It would increase housing supply and stop pumping up the profits for the Big Banks. As the Reserve Bank raises interest rates, the big banks pass that on at up to 7%, yet the banks borrowed long term funds from the RBA at just 0.1%. They’re pocketing the huge difference leading to record-breaking profits.
On the supply side, government and its red and green tape must get out of the way and let our tradies build homes. Homes for Australians to stem the tide of tent cities and misery that decades of indifferent governments have caused.
Affordable houses, lower affordable rents and a flourishing economy is all possible under One Nation.
I thank Senator Pocock for his matter of urgency and for validating the concept of net immigration that we’ve been pushing for quite some time. Mortgages are skyrocketing, rents keep increasing and two-thirds of young Australians believe they will never own a home, and it’s easy to understand why.
The housing unaffordability crisis is one of the greatest issues facing Australia. In Brisbane, the median house price is 10 times the median income. Experts consider a three per cent rental vacancy rate to be tight. Rents are rising on the back of a record low national rate of one per cent. As in all real markets, there are two things, and two things only, that affect house prices: supply and demand. Successive governments have destroyed both sides of the equation.
This is how One Nation would deliver cheaper houses and cheaper rent. In the short term, we would stop pouring fuel on the fire. Excluding tourists and short-stay visitors, there are 2.3 million visaholders in the country likely to need housing. In addition, there are roughly 400,000 tourists and other visaholders in the country. In the middle of our rental shortage, this high demand is motivating owners to convert housing to full-time Airbnbs. Two point seven million visaholders, more than 10 per cent of Australia’s population, are in the country right now fighting Australians for a roof over their head. The country cannot sustain this level of overseas arrivals. That number must be cut to help housing availability and affordability.
The biggest winners from high house prices are the banks. As the Reserve Bank raises interest rates, the big banks pass that on at up to seven per cent. Yet the banks borrowed long-term funds from the RBA, the Reserve Bank of Australia, at just 0.1 per cent. They’re pocketing the huge differences, leading to record-breaking profits. One Nation would never repeat the mistakes of the COVID period, where the Reserve Bank was allowed to create $500 billion out of thin air.
That led to the inflation that the Reserve Bank is now trying to fight, and the tool it uses is to send mortgage holders broke.
Finally, on the demand side, we need to ban foreign ownership of Australian assets. A single real estate agent in Sydney sold $135 million dollars in property to Chinese buyers in just six months. Australians can’t own a house in China, so why should we let foreign citizens buy property here? And on the supply side, the government needs to get out of the way with its restrictive building codes, so called green land restrictions and a spider web of employment law.
A home is a castle. Decades of indifferent governments from both sides of politics have ruined the Australian housing dream for many Australians. Only One Nation has the guts to make that dream a reality for all Australians.
Affordable houses and rents and a flourishing economy are all possible under One Nation. We just need to start looking after Australians first
I spoke in parliament about the homelessness crisis in Australia and called out those responsible.
In Labor’s urban heartland, everyday Australians are sleeping in tents. These ‘tent cities’ are forming in public parks, showgrounds and under bridges. Australian citizens are being pushed aside to make room for the 2.3 million visa holders this government has let in during its term.
What the heck is this government doing? No stunts can cover up this failure. Imagine what kind of Christmas these Australians will have? The government is sending billions of dollars in foreign aid and contributions to organisations like the WHO and the United Nations, while letting its own people become homeless.
Albanese’s government is the Grinch that is stealing the Australian way of life.
As we go about the business of the Senate today in the Labor Party’s normal chaotic, despotic manner, out there in Labor’s heartland, everyday Australians are sleeping in tents in public parks and in tents under bridges.
Australian citizens are being pushed aside to make room for the 2.3 million visa holders this government has let in during its term. That’s 2.3 million people being brought into a country that’s only building 120,000 new homes a year. That’s 2.3 million arrivals into a housing market that was already short 100,000 homes needed to put a roof over the heads of all those who were here when Labor took office—homeless Australians this government has turned its back on.
How must these people feel, watching this one-term Prime Minister jetting around the world in style, hobnobbing with predatory billionaires at elitist events in lovely locations, dining out on the best food and sleeping in the best hotels. Perhaps the next trip this failure of a prime minister should be taking is to the riverbank at West End, New Farm, South Bank, North Quay or Musgrave Park, all in Brisbane, or to the showgrounds in Gladstone or parks in Bundaberg.
The footage of these Depression-era tent camps is running on the ABC as we speak. I suggest the government watch it and ask themselves what the heck they are doing.
Tent cities are appearing right across Labor’s urban heartland—everyday Australians unable to keep a roof over their heads because there is no roof for them.
Thanks to Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and this Labor government, there’s no place in Australia for Australians. Every tent in these tent cities has a name stamped on it—the names of Prime Minister Albanese, of Treasurer Chalmers and of Immigration Minister Giles. Your heartland is hurting, and no stunts on a bill the Senate had mostly passed already will cover up your failures.
Bring on the next election, because you lot are done.
Mortgages are skyrocketing, rents keep increasing, two thirds of young Australians believe they will never own a home and it’s hard to blame them.
The housing unaffordability crisis is the greatest issue facing Australia. Australians want to have their hard work and savings rewarded. They want a place to call their own and a place they can stay to raise a family.
The median house price in Brisbane is 10 times the median income.[1] In Brisbane it would take the average income 13 years just to save a deposit.
Rents are also rising on the back of a record low national vacancy rate of 1%.[2] Experts consider a 3% vacancy rate to be tight, a national average of 1% is an absolute crisis.
Right now, many Australians simply cannot afford a roof over their head.
Like any market there are two things and two things only that affect housing prices: supply and demand. Decades of successive governments have mismanaged both sides of the equation.
This is how One Nation would properly manage our economy and deliver cheaper houses and cheaper rent:
Cut overseas arrivals, ban foreign ownership, increase supply and stop pumping up profits for the Big Banks.
In the short term, we need to stop pouring fuel on the fire. A huge amount of overseas arrivals are driving unsustainable demand.
Excluding tourists and short stay visitors, there are currently 2.3 million visa holders in the country likely to need housing.[3]
These working visa holders, students and others are putting enormous strain on the rental market, fighting Australians for a roof over their head and driving up rent prices.
The arrivals that can afford it are also buying houses, pushing up prices even higher.
The Albanese Labor government issued a record 670,000 student visas in one year when we only have 100,000 dedicated student accommodation beds.
In addition to these 2.3 million visa holders likely to need housing, there are roughly 400,000 tourist and other visa holders in the country.
While tourism is good for Australia, in the middle of our rental shortage this high demand is motivating owners to take their properties out of the rental pool and convert them to lucrative, full-time AirBnBs.
That means less rental supply for people needing a place to live and higher rents.
2.7 million visa holders, more than 10% of Australia’s population, are in the country right now fighting Australians for a roof over their head.
The country cannot sustain this level of overseas arrivals. It must be cut to take immediate pressure off housing availability and affordability.
Powerful lobby groups who rely on high immigration have been able to falsely label anyone who talks about this problem as “racist”.
Talking about reasonable levels of immigration is about securing a prosperous future for all Australians, including those who come to the country. Ruining our economy is a bad outcome for immigrants as well.
As the problem gets even worse, even mainstream media is now being forced to acknowledge the huge negative effects Australia is seeing from an unsustainable amount of arrivals.
Homelessness is a scourge affecting all our cities, but it's particularly severe in Queensland. Post-COVID migration to the Sunshine State has exacerbated a housing shortage, with some cities recording extraordinary rent inflation. #abc730 pic.twitter.com/yZUxW76iB0
— ABC News (@abcnews) December 6, 2023
The biggest winners from high house prices and big immigration are the big banks and multinational corporations relying on cheap labour.
Mortgages are so profitable for banks that they have become over-reliant on housing prices.
The ratio of borrowing for mortgages versus borrowing for business has skyrocketed to more than 200%, up from less than 40% in 1990.[3A]
That means the Big Banks are less diversified and will lose more money if housing becomes affordable.
As the Reserve Bank raises interest rates, the big banks pass that on at up to 7%, yet the banks borrowed long term funds from the RBA at just 0.1%.
They’re pocketing the huge difference leading to record-breaking profits.
There is billions of dollars at stake for the banks and other big businesses if housing became more affordable. The questions have to be asked whether government is putting the profits of greedy banks and multinational corporations ahead of Australians having affordable housing.
One Nation would never repeat the mistakes of the COVID period, where the Reserve Bank was allowed to create $500 billion out of thin air.[4]
That led to the inflation the Reserve Bank is now trying to fight and the tool it uses to do that is sending mortgage holders broke.
This only pumps up the big banks profits.
Finally, on the demand side solutions, we need to ban foreign ownership of Australian assets.
The government has no idea exactly how bad foreign purchases are.[5] A single real estate agent in Sydney sold $135 million in property to Chinese buyers in just six months.[6]
Australians can’t own a house in China, so why should we let foreign citizens buy property here?
Australian property is also a hotbed for suspected money laundering, with much of this happening in foreign connected purchases.[7]
We need to ban foreign ownership of Australian homes to decrease demand and give Australians a shot at owning their own home.
On the supply side, government needs to get out of the way with their restrictive building codes, green land restrictions and a spider web of employment law.
Our tradies know how to build homes. Government just needs to get out of the way and let them build.
While increasing supply is an important part, it is important to note that supply can only be increased so much in the face of overwhelming demand, fuelled by overseas arrivals and foreign purchasers.
Australia has typically built homes at nearly the fastest rate in the world, fourth out of all OECD countries.[8]
Supply chain issues, high interest rates and rising construction insolvencies mean its very unlikely we will be able to easily build even more supply than the high amount we already do.[9]
Looking at how Australia punches above its weight in building houses and increasing supply already, it’s clear the biggest issue we have to fix is the demand side currently driven by overseas arrivals.[10]
A home is a castle.
The family unit and our society flourish when we have stable places to build our lives and raise families.
Decades of indifferent governments from both sides of politics have ruined this dream for many.
Only One Nation has the guts to make the decisions that will make the dream of home ownership a reality for all Australians.
Affordable houses, lower affordable rents and a flourishing economy is all possible under One Nation.
[1] Housing unaffordability hits grim new peak (afr.com)
[2] The Latest Rental Vacancy Rates around Australia (archive.is)
[3] Tarric Brooker aka Avid Commentator 🇦🇺 on X: “A new all time high for the number of temporary visa holders in Australia likely to require some form of housing.https://t.co/6NQ8HXu3i4” / X (archive.is)
[4] RBA creates inflation by printing money out of thin air – Malcolm Roberts (malcolmrobertsqld.com.au)
[5] Housing ‘scandal’: Foreigners buy twice as many homes as recorded (archive.is)
[6] Chinese millionaires snap up Australian properties in Toorak, Armadale, Malvern, Hawkthorne and Kooyong | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site (archive.is)
[7] No questions asked: money laundering thrives in Australia because of professionals willing to facilitate it | Crime – Australia | The Guardian (archive.is)
[9] ASIC data shows insolvencies in the building and construction industry have hit pre-Covid levels | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
[10] Why more supply will never fix the housing market – MacroBusiness
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Question agreed to.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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)
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