Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia's success as a prosperous and successful democracy is inseparable from the contribution of migrants. Migrants strengthen our economy, enrich our social fabric and increase the resilience of our communities. In seconding the member for Warringah's motion, I recognise that migrants are not only central to our national identity; they are key to Australia's economic and cultural prosperity. Australians understand this. The Scanlon Foundation Research Institute's The 2024 mapping social cohesion report found that 85 per cent of Australians agreed that multiculturalism has been good for this country, with 82 per cent believing that immigrants improve Australian society.

In recent years, real and urgent economic strain, a national housing shortage, international conflicts and an increasingly polarised public debate have rendered migrant communities more vulnerable to negative and harmful political narratives. Politicians like Pauline Hanson have repeatedly chosen the low road by politicising immigration for their own ends. The coalition has proposed to cut permanent and net migration but without a coherent plan for how we could do that without hurting our economy. Labor's approach has been to fail to specify migration targets while allowing others to imply that immigrants are at fault for the policy failures of successive governments.

The reality is that net migration has fallen significantly in the last two years, after significant, albeit belated, tightening of student visa policies. But we do still have a significant issue with onshore backlogs for both permanent and temporary migration. For the first time, we have more than 400,000 individuals in this country on bridging visas. This is an issue which started when Peter Dutton and Mike Pezzullo oversaw Home Affairs. It worsened after COVID, when the coalition stomped on the immigration accelerator, and then it consolidated under the first term of the Albanese government.

We need to discuss immigration levels in an open, honest and transparent way. Australia's birthrate is at a record low. Immigration is a major driver of population growth. Migration is playing an increasingly critical role in maintaining our quality of life and supporting Australia's long-term economic stability. Without ongoing migration, our workforce will shrink, threatening our capacity to deliver essential services like aged, child and health care. Jobs and Skills Australia data from 2025 shows ongoing unmet labour demand in key sectors such as health care, education, construction and utilities. These are shortages which can be resolved by careful, targeted migration intake.

Migrants increase our economic productivity and resilience. They tend to be younger and more educated than the general population, contributing to productivity and to wage growth. They diversify our labour market, and they often demonstrate great entrepreneurship. They own about one-third of all Australian small businesses. These enterprises translate into job creation, community investment and new enterprise development. Our universities and TAFEs also develop clarity around overseas student numbers, which have a huge impact on institutions like Swinburne University of Technology, which is in my electorate of Kooyong.

Some Australian media outlets, think tanks and politicians avoid honest debates and conversations about immigration. They prefer to mislead and to foster discord. Their narratives oversimplify complex issues, unfairly target migrant communities and risk undermining the mutual respect and shared identity that underpin Australia's multicultural success. They create division and they distract from the evidence based policy solutions needed for the real challenges that face all Australians.

I'm very proud and honoured to represent an electorate in which a third of constituents were born overseas, having come from 150 countries of origin, and as many as one in six speak a language other than English at home. I celebrate each and every one of those nations and those cultures, and I thank those who have come from overseas and who choose to make Kooyong their home. That's why I'm pleased to second this motion calling for careful, responsible, evidence based immigration policy—policy that rejects rhetoric that inflames division and recognises that multiculturalism enriches our culture and our democracy and the richness and freedom of our society.

Julie-Ann Campbell (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Warringah for bringing this important motion to the House today. It speaks directly to one of the core strengths of my culturally diverse community, on the south side of Brisbane, and of multiculturalism and all of the wonderful festivals, traditions, foods, languages and celebrations that that word evokes.

However, the motion also reflects something more sombre: the need for some parts of our society to be reminded about the power of language—the power of language, in this case, to harm and to divide. There is no doubt that Australia is a multicultural success story. We are a nation proud of our diversity, and we are made up of a rich tapestry of cultures. The challenge we have right now is that people are seeking to pull at the threads of that tapestry. When Australian communities are blamed for people's and society's challenges, it deepens divisions. It diminishes the important and hardworking contributions that migrant communities have made, over—as the member for Fairfax would say—scores and scores of years. It strikes at their work.

None of these sentiments were in evidence at the four most recent local Australia Day citizenship ceremonies I attended. These joyous occasions were full of optimism. They were full of pride. They were full of commitment. They were full of enthusiasm. And they were full of patriotism. I want to say that patriotism is not for the exclusive use of those who sit opposite, because patriotism does not see skin colour; patriotism does not see religion. Patriotism does not see those things. Patriotism sees only the love of this country, of Australia, and every new citizen, at each of those ceremonies, had it in absolute spades.

It is that approach that so many migrants bring to starting things, and to supporting and sustaining our economy—particularly our small businesses. In fact, the positive impact these communities have on Australia's economy is significant. The Australian Industry Group states that migrants fill critical roles across key industries such as health care, construction, information technology and education, addressing skills shortages and enhancing the nation's productivity.

This government's approach to migration has been to ensure that policies genuinely serve the country's long-term interests and skills needs and drive the national interest. We are guided by the migration strategy which was released in December 2023, and this drew on the conclusions of the Nixon review. It outlined 44 new and existing policy commitments, along with areas flagged for future reform. Labor is taking deliberate and responsible steps to repair the dysfunctional system that we inherited from those opposite, and this means restoring integrity; it means strengthening safeguards and guiding the system back to a sustainable level.

Crucially, we've already delivered the majority of the strategy's reforms and this includes establishing the national innovation visa to support growth in industries of national significance. It also includes rolling out the new skills in demand visa, which features a core skills pathway designed to meet specific workforce needs and a specialist skills pathway to support innovation in order to generate new jobs.

When you consider that Australia is such a special place, it's important to remember that it's home to the world's oldest continuing culture and that over half of all Australians were born overseas or had a parent who was born overseas. Some of us, like my family, can trace our migrant roots back to the 1800s. I've heard Australia described as a melting pot and I've heard it described as a mixed salad. But whatever analogy you choose to use, it's recognition that there are myriad histories, languages and cultural traditions that form the Australian story. This is something to celebrate. Our community has been made all the stronger and all the more resilient because of it. This is in the national interest.

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.