QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for the Environment and Water) (14:16): What a pathetic question. What a pathetic attempt from the Greens political party to try yet again to get their social media hits by making completely inaccurate claims. The suggestion that this government is copying One Nation policies on any matter is so ludicrous.

Senator Shoebridge, I remember it was last week that some of your senators voted with One Nation to stop protection of native forests, so if you want to talk about people voting with One Nation or copying One Nation ideas, have a look in your own party room. The PRESIDENT: Minister, please resume your seat. Senator Shoebridge?

Senator Shoebridge: A point of order on relevance. You know it's not relevant. The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Shoebridge, I will draw the minister back to the question.

Minister Watt, please continue. Senator WATT: What this government is doing in our migration policy settings is dealing with the reality that, post-COVID and post the former coalition government, we had a migration system that was completely broken, that was being rorted and that was reaching unsustainable numbers. Now, if the Greens political party believe that continuing to have net overseas migration figures of more than half a million a year is a sustainable migration policy then they're on their own.

It wasn't. It's not sustainable from a population point of view. It's certainly not sustainable from an environmental point of view to have those kind of numbers every year.

That's why we've taken action. We've taken action in a calm, considered and non-divisive way, which is very different to what we've seen from other parties here. What we've done at the same time is ensure that we manage the economic factors arising from our migration policy.

We have taken this action without demonising any group within the community, and that's exactly the way we intend to take it from here. The PRESIDENT: Senator Shoebridge first supplementary?