Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's not usual that I find something in the speech from Senator Bragg on housing that I like and agree with, but I absolutely endorse his comment that it is completely wrong to blame migrants for anything that we're seeing in this sector. This motion before us is just a continuation of the themes we have seen in this chamber this week. The shameful behaviour on display in this chamber earlier this week was prejudiced, offensive, deeply disrespectful and un-Australian. I believe it was a shameful abuse of the power and responsibility we have in this place to all of the Australians that we represent. I am very proud that our nation has been, and will continue to be, built by migrants from every race and every faith from across the globe. And I feel absolutely devastated that—because of the actions of one senator, supported by others—vulnerable members of my community have now been made to feel less valued and less safe. This institution that we all serve in has so much power to do good. How shameful that one senator would use that power to punch down, to hurt and to deliberately target Australians of faith.

While I am loath to buy into the absolute nonsense peddled by One Nation senators on migration, which are again reflected in the motion before us, it is important to put some facts on the table. Migrants are not to blame for any of the elements of the housing crisis we have before us. Another fact—it's not convenient to One Nation senators, but it is a fact—net overseas migration has declined more than 40 per cent from the post-COVID peak in 2022 and 2023. It is a fact that, under Labor, immigration is falling. It doesn't suit you politically to accept that, but it is a fact. Another fact is that housing approvals are increasing for new houses. That is a fact. They are up 15 per cent on this time last year. Facts matter in every debate in this place, and One Nation senators continually abuse the facts and use the facts to punch down on the very people who built Australia into the nation and into the country that it is.

It's also important in this debate to talk about the realities of what is happening in our housing policy space and the enormous amount of investment and work our government is doing, because, when it comes to housing, I know there are few issues of more importance to people in my community, but especially to young people, young Australians, in my community who are looking at this generational deal and feeling left out of it. They are looking at what their parents were able to do when it came to housing, they are looking at what their grandparents were able to do, they are looking at what they thought housing meant to their Australian dream—the way they want to raise a family, what they can achieve in life—and feeling cut out of this deal. They are feeling like, intergenerationally, they have been completely ripped off.

The tearing up of that deal and that social contract hasn't happened over the past four years of the Albanese Labor government; it has been generations in the making. There are many actors and stakeholders at fault for that, but migrants are not one of them. But you choose to instead come in here, to continue the themes of this week, which this chamber utterly rejected and condemned, themes which do not reflect this institution, the people who serve in it and everything we seek to uphold as an institution that can do an extraordinary amount of good.

This motion is rubbish! It's not worth the paper it's written on because it seeks to continue ideas which are also rubbish. Ideas which are offensive, ideas which are dangerous, ideas which are harmful and ideas which actually shouldn't be on display in an institution that is meant to represent all Australians and all Australian values. So obviously I reject this motion. I would remind One Nation senators of the value, relevance and significance of fact in any policy debate, but certainly in debates in this place, where our words carry a lot of meaning. I would also remind you of the importance of civility and that it is absolutely not okay to punch down, to endanger and to make the migrants of every faith and every nation who have built our country feel less safe and feel more vulnerable. We reject that. I reject that, just as I reject this absolutely rubbish motion.