Dave Sharma (Wentworth, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs. Will the minister please update the House on how the Morrison government's immigration policy has contributed to Australia's economic success and how it will continue to drive growth as the Australian economy recovers from the COVID-19 recession? And is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Wentworth for his question. Certainly, in his role as a former senior diplomat for Australia, he supported Australia's migration program, and I thank him for it. Today, of course, Australia is one of the most successful migrant countries in the world. We know migrants have been part of the essential economic success that we've seen, and migration—certainly, well-managed programs and skilled programs—supports economic activity, jobs growth and jobs creation throughout our country.

As Australia recovers from the pandemic, we know that migration is going to play a vital role in supporting the recovery and in enabling jobs growth, especially through our regions, and making sure that we have skilled migrants is a key priority of the Morrison government. We know that, over the course of the pandemic, we were able to attenuate and alter the program to match the conditions that we saw in a one-in-100-year crisis. That's why the government did things like establish the Global Business and Talent Attraction Taskforce, to ensure we're in the competition for high-value businesses—skills, people with brains and capital, coming to Australia, aligned with our JobMaker program. It's also why we created the priority skills list to ensure that we retain those critical skills in the economy. Health and aged care—we're in the competition to make sure people stay here and have the opportunity to stay and do their jobs and help us out, and we thank them for it.

It's this government that knows also that temporary visa holders in Australia play a critical role in supporting the economy, in supporting the regions, in jobs growth and in job creation. We know it. Australians know it. Regional communities know it. And we're going to continue to support temporary migration to support our economy.

But I'm asked about alternative policies. There are alternative policies to the government's approach, I'm happy to say. In May last year, the shadow immigration minister, Senator Keneally, in the middle of a one-in-100-year pandemic, wrote an article entitled 'Do we want migrants to return in the same numbers? The answer is no'. That's the title of the article. In the article, Senator Keneally proceeded to argue for a substantial cut in immigration to Australia. This would somehow support economic recovery. I'm pleased to say that, as an alternative policy, this was met with universal condemnation by members of this House, including, I'm pleased to say, my friend the member for Cowan, who noted that Senator Keneally could have expressed her arguments better. I certainly agree with her on that. Former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr—a very successful premier, I might add—said that Senator Keneally should drop her 'jobs for Australians first rhetoric', declaring the 'very loose' language showed signs of dog-whistling.

These are the kinds of alternatives that are not good alternatives for Australia. It's this government that understands that migration supports economic growth and will support recovery, and we support skilled and well-managed migration to Australia.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on that note, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.