MATTERS OF URGENCY

Senator BRAGG (New South Wales) (17:56): I welcome the opportunity to make some comments about migration, and I note that, in the Senate tonight, we are probably the most successful migration nation that the world has known, because we have been able to subsume millions of people since the first fleet arrived in Sydney some 250 years ago. Over the last 75 years, I make the point that the Liberal Party has been a party which has heavily supported an orderly migration scheme.

If you go back to the post-war period, Menzies in particular presided over the huge boom in postwar migration, which reshaped modern Australia. Then of course, Harold Holt dismantled the White Australia policy, and then we had Malcolm Fraser, who was known as the great humanitarian, perhaps most for his admission of the Vietnamese refugees, who were at a loss because of a conflict which we participated in, while others declined to support their entry to Australia.

I make the point that, over the last 75 years or so, there has been strong support for building up Australia as a migrant nation, because we've needed people, and that's been done in the last few decades on the basis of nondiscrimination. I think that's an important point to make. Over the last few years, I would say that the confidence in the migration settings have begun to fray.

We have seen 1.5 million people come into this country—on track for 2 million—over the course of Labor's term in office. That has been the biggest surge in our migrant population since the postwar boom, and this has been done at a time when infrastructure has not kept up with the amount of migrants that we've seen. That's why people are going bananas about this, because the volume of people does not match the infrastructure and the housing that has been needed—1.5 million people and 500,000 new homes.

You don't need to be a mathematician or an economist to work out what's gone wrong there. That is why we have pledged that we would link migration to housing completions. If we want to maintain confidence in the migration system, we need to have housing for new Australians as well as the people who are already here.

The most important duty of a government is to protect its people. What the government has failed to do is to protect the people who've been here for generations. They've been done over by this migration policy, which is not in keeping with the orderly systems that we've had in the past.

That's why there's been a loss of confidence, because, quite simply, the government is incompetent. It has let in too many people. It's been desperate for economic growth.

It can't get growth out of the economy, so it's got to bring people in. The only thing that keeps GDP going in this country is migration, because their productivity is shot. The economy is cactus.

Look at insolvencies. Look at the death of small business. Look at the growth of the public sector under this government.

The public sector and migration are keeping this economy afloat in an anaemic way. But this is a per capita recession. It may not be a technical recession, but it's a real recession for most people.

That's why people are going bananas. That's why people have lost confidence in this government's ability to manage this important issue. I make the point that we need to bring down migration.

We need to have fewer temporary migrants. We need to get more skilled migrants. We need to change the mix, and we need to lower the number of people coming in through the system and the people who are already here.

At the end of the day, if we want to maintain our ethos as a proud migration nation—a country that's been able to subsume people from all over the world and been a safe haven for refugees and people who have built lives in, contribute to and love this country—then we need to maintain the community's confidence that the migration system is working for Australia, not working for others.

The fear in the community is that the migration system is out of control, doesn't work for the punters and doesn't work for the people. And I have all the confidence that the people have it right, which is why we need to link migration to housing completions and get more skilled people in as we reduce temporary migration.