STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Mr VENNING (Grey) (13:43): How can anyone trust Labor to get migration down? They have lost control and Australians are paying the price. Labor have missed their migration target in every budget they have delivered.

So what does Minister Burke decide to do now? Well, he's putting the slowdown on backpackers. Backpackers do not buy Australian homes; they are temporary workers and they keep regional communities moving.

It's harvest time in the next couple of weeks. Farmers are expecting backpackers to come in any second. They have not been approved.

He's fudging the numbers to make himself look better at the expense of regional communities again. The coalition solution is we're going to tie net overseas migration to the amount of homes we build—less migration, more homes. Australians don't need another Labor target that we will of course miss; they need a Taylor coalition government that will fix the economy, restore our living standards and protect our way of life.

Regional communities are taking the hit, whether it's through the crazy net zero ideology that we've seen kill the community of Whyalla—800 jobs lost on Monday this week. I implore the Prime Minister and Minister Ayres to get over to that community, like they did in February, and look the steelworkers in the face.