QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Senator WHITTEN (Western Australia) (15:32): I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance, Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Women, Minister for Government Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice I asked today relating to migration and productivity.
The definition of insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting a different result. Australians are seeing the result of this government's insane actions around mass immigration. We are killing productivity with mass immigration.
One Nation does not blame immigrants. We blame you lot that can't or won't accept reality. Australians are feeling it.
They are seeing their standard of living going backwards. This is not speculation. Experts are confirming it.
You can deny it all you like, but the Reserve Bank of Australia has identified capital shallowing driven by mass immigration as suppressing productivity. Investment is not keeping pace with the flood of new labour. Workers have fewer tools and less infrastructure behind them.
The Australian reported that we are heading to the worst decade for productivity since records began in the 1960s. We've lost 10 years of advances in technology that should have made us more productive, but they did not. Two of our close peers, Canada and New Zealand, have given up the obsession with mass immigration.
They gave up the false economy of suppressing productivity for the sake of headline GDP. They are seeing a return to productivity, and per capita GDP growth is recovering. That is what happens when you measure economic success by the flourishing of your people and not by a headline metric that can be gamed.
One Nation measures economic success by the quality of life of each Australian. Our immigration policy reflects the lessons learned from other countries. It slashes low productivity visas and removes people who have overstayed.
We will see negative net migration for the first few years as we get the settings right. The plan balances the needs of rural communities that rely on working holiday-makers, PALM scheme workers and other programs that provide labour in the regions and drive our productive industry. Those programs will be maintained.
The cuts will be targeted at uncapped temporary visas like student and graduate visas. Uncapped temporary visas have been used as a backdoor to residency for too long, and they have dragged down Australia's productivity. We need to prioritise productivity and investment in Australian workers first.
This decade of lost productivity is a travesty. It is the product of an arrogant and self-interested Labor government. One Nation will always put the Australian people first.
This policy puts the lives of Australians at the heart of our economic and immigration settings. Question agreed to.