Basem Abdo (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's actually sad to see someone who's spent so much time in this House be reduced to trading in myths about immigration to stay relevant. He has failed at coherence, and he is failing at relevance. Our multicultural Australia is a remarkable achievement. It's part of our story. It's part of modern Australia. As much as he's finding it hard to come to terms with—an identity crisis delivered through megaphones, fist pumps—his arguments and what we could understand from them actually lacked coherence, even though they were delivered loudly. In this place, volume should never be confused with substance.

Immigration is a defining feature of modern Australia. It shapes our economy, our workforce and our communities, and it always has. It remains fundamental to who we are. What we're seeing from those opposite is not a serious contribution to policy debate. It's rhetoric that creates confusion to mask their lack of solutions to modern problems. Modern Australia is multicultural Australia. They're inseparable. That remains one of this country's great achievements. We'll put the theatrics aside and deal with facts.

Let me tell you something about my own community. Those opposite like to wrap themselves in the Australian flag, but one place they don't want to see the Australian flag is on Australian products like Australian cars. They destroyed the Australian industry, an industry built on everyday Australians and on migrants who came to this country and built communities like mine. The Turkish and Greek migrants and those migrants from all across the world were part of our supply chains and in our assembly plants, building our cars. Those opposite, now in the leadership race, put their elbows along and claim that they want to defend Australian manufacturing. That's the hypocrisy of those opposite. That's the haste in which they operate.

Our communities believe in an Australia in which local areas have been built because of industry, which migrants helped contribute to. They helped build our economy. They enriched Australia, not just in a cultural way, as we see in festivals and occasions, but by being everyday Australians—working, living and contributing to defining what modern Australia is about.

When you wrap yourself in the flag, fight with us to bring back Australian made products. Fight with us to build a modern Australia which is inclusive and which actually contributes to our economic life and our social life. Those opposite just give us rhetoric that is made to hide the fact that they have no solutions. It's deliberate confusion, spooked by certain political parties which are now coming in to try to hijack their agenda.

I think the facts about the numbers were mentioned by those who spoke before me. They want to cut everything, but what is it that they want to cut and do without? They really need to say it. Is it our healthcare workers; our teachers; our construction workers; our hospitals, who will struggle without staff; our housing projects; our regional communities; or our outer suburbs? What parts of the economy do they want to leave with deep, long-term skills shortages? These are the real-world consequences that are never acknowledged. They don't believe in modern Australia—just as they don't believe in Australian industry, in Australian manufacturing, in the rights of Australian workers or in what modern multicultural Australia is really all about.

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