David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

Having won life's lottery, most Australians understand we have a responsibility to share some of the spoils. When we share our luck with refugees, we profoundly improve the lives of people and their children for generations. It is an unambiguously great thing to do. I consider helping to negotiate an increase in our refugee intake from 13,750 this year to 18,750 in 2018-19 as one of my proudest achievements.

Now, by some measures, we lead the world in resettlement of refugees. But there are currently millions of refugees seeking asylum around the world, not just in the Middle East. There are plenty from our region—like Burma, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and China—who we could make into great Australians. It is well known as well that the religious minorities in the Middle-East—Yazidis and Christians in particular—face severe persecution. There is a broad consensus in this place that our refugee intake should continue. The only question then is: how many refugees should we take and at what cost? The problem is that taking refugees is expensive.

I am advised by the Immigration Department that the current refugee intake costs us about $1 billion a year, including language and training courses, social services and welfare. The Australian Government does not have surplus money for charity. Just as a family that is deeply in debt should not be giving their money away, neither should a government. What's more, there are storm clouds on the economic horizon. If the economy heads south, as it just might, an overly generous refugee intake could cause resentment. It can be too easy for middle-class parliamentarians, who can expect never to have a refugee as a neighbour, to be blissfully ignorant of the potential costs to social cohesion. However, Australia has proven itself as a great absorber of people from many backgrounds over many decades. I believe it is possible both to double our refugee intake and to pay for it. We can achieve this by cutting foreign aid.

Foreign aid has been accurately described as money taken from poor people in rich countries and given to rich people in poor countries. The money we spend on resettling refugees does far more good for people who need our help. The American writer Bob Lupton described the problem with foreign aid in this way: 'When you give something the first time, there is gratitude; when you give something a second time, there is anticipation; the third time, there is expectation; the fourth time, there is entitlement; and the fifth time, there is dependency.' That is where we stand with foreign aid—where something designed to do good ultimately causes harm. This might also explain why foreign aid has proven itself to be a poor diplomatic tool. At the height of tensions regarding the executions of Australian drug smugglers in Indonesia, mentions of our generosity to Indonesia were treated with contempt.

Doubling our refugee intake would cost around a billion dollars a year, while abolishing foreign aid would save around $3½ billion a year. We are better able to look after people here than we are at making foreign aid effective overseas. So my proposal would do more good overall, while sparing the taxpayer. Labor, the Greens and parts of the coalition have called for more refugees, without calling for spending cuts to pay for this. This is not a responsible approach by adults.

I challenge all those proposing an increased refugee intake to accept that there is a trade-off between spending money on refugees and spending money on foreign aid. I challenge them to accept that refugee resettlement does more good than foreign aid. And I challenge them to commit to an increased refugee intake, even if it is funded by cutting foreign aid. (Time expired)