Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The fact is that migration would have been higher under their figures. The Minister for Home Affairs gave a terrific speech at the National Press Club where she outlined all of this. As part of that, the draft new strategy that was released on 27 April fed into the budget that was released last night. This is what they had to say. It was chaired by Dr Martin Parkinson, the former head of Prime Minister and Cabinet under those opposite. It said:

… Australia's migration program is not fit for purpose …

Australia now has a migration program that fails to attract the most highly skilled migrants and fails to enable business to efficiently access workers … there is clear evidence of systemic exploitation and the risk of an emerging permanently temporary underclass.

That's what they had to say.

The Leader of the Nats, in case you think they missed out, said this:

We'll be constructive with this government in saying that we welcome the changes that they're bringing forward, we believe permanent migration is important.

Good on you, Dave.

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