Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This has been a defining week for Australia, one where the Australian public has been able to see clearly where the people in this parliament stand and who they are fighting for. On Tuesday night, the Albanese government delivered a budget focused on national resilience, economic reform and cost-of-living relief for Australians. The budget confronted the challenge to Australia's resilience that followed the global oil shock caused by the conflict in the Middle East. Our $14.8 billion fuel resilience package will deliver more fuel for Australians and more fuel security for our economy. The budget also delivered a series of economic reforms designed to boost productivity, intergenerational equity and access to housing. Our changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax and trusts will deliver a better tax system and a fairer housing market. These changes will give more young Australians a fair shot at owning their own home.

The budget also recognises the pressures that Australians are under now and takes real action to deliver cost-of-living relief for all Australians and even more tax relief for Australian workers. The Albanese budget does all of this with lower deficits and lower debt, and we're delivering $63.8 billion of savings to help us pay down Liberal debt and fund the services that Australians rely on. It's responsible economic management at a time of global uncertainty, taking the pressure off inflation and building our fiscal buffers. It's a budget that delivers for all Australians, confronting immediate challenges to our resilience, delivering genuine economic reforms to make Australia fairer and more productive in the future and delivering cost-of-living relief for all Australians.

In contrast, the three right-wing parties of this parliament have been focused on the politics of division. The Farrer by-election revealed a number of fundamental truths about the Liberal and National parties. First, the campaign they ran in Farrer shows they have absolutely nothing to offer the Australian public on the issues that matter to them. Second, the result of this campaign showed that the Liberal and National parties are unable to beat One Nation in electorates like Farrer by imitating them. The Liberals tried to protect themselves from One Nation by preferencing them. It didn't work. As a result, there's now no way that the Liberal and National parties can form government without One Nation.

My community in Melbourne's west should know what this means for them and our country. Modern Australia is a nation where more than half of our population is born overseas or has a parent born overseas. It's the story of my community in Melbourne's west. More than two-thirds of my community are born overseas. I have a parent born overseas. Families that call my community home come from all corners of the world. Our doctors, our nurses, our researchers, our IT geeks, our aged-care workers, our entrepreneurs and business owners—they are an invaluable part of every dimension of Australian society and our economy. They are our friends and family, our fellow Australians. They contribute to Australia every day. They make our country a better place every single day. It's who we are. This is the modern Australia that the Albanese government proudly represents in this parliament with a caucus that similarly draws on the contributions of MPs whose stories began in every corner of the globe before becoming a part of our shared story as Australians.

We love modern Australia—the country that we've all built here together. The three right-wing parties in this parliament have a different view. In 1996, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said plainly that all Asian migration to Australia should be stopped. She said that Australia had been 'swamped by Asians', as though being Asian and being Australian were somehow different things. She declared that Asian people 'have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate'. She's never changed that view—20 years later, in 2016, she was again saying that we would be swamped by the Chinese. In 2017 she said:

I don't change my tune … If you look back at what I said 20 years ago—

in 1996—

it's exactly what I'm saying now.

This is the party that the Liberals and Nationals recommended that voters preference in the Farrer by-election. This is the party that the Liberal and National parties cannot govern without the support of.

In the 1990s, the Liberal and National parties made a different choice. People like Peter Costello and Ron Boswell chose to confront One Nation instead of collaborating with them. And thank God they did, because in the 1990s when Pauline Hanson first said that we should stop Asian migration she was talking about the Australians in my electorate who have arrived since then—she was talking about all of the Chinese Australians, Indian Australians, Vietnamese Australians, Bangladeshi Australians, Nepali Australians who make my community the place that it is today. Imagine if the Liberal and National parties of the 1990s made the mistake that the Liberal and National parties of today are currently making.

I'm proud of my community in Melbourne's west. I'm proud of modern Australia. I'm proud to be a part of an Albanese government that represents all Australians, that brings together Australians at times like this instead of playing the politics of division.

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