Sean Bell (NSW, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is not my first speech. That will come later today. This bill is very simple. It's simply to give Australians a say in determining the level of immigration we want into this country, and One Nation is simply respecting all Australians in proposing we give them a voice. The reason we need to ask this question, and the reason we need answers, is because the other parties in this place have stopped listening. They have stopped listening to the people, and the people have had enough. They want to be heard.

The Albanese government, along with the Liberals and the Nationals—take your pick—have waved through, year after year, mass immigration, and they have done it while ignoring every warning sign. And One Nation has been warning them for a very long time. They have ignored every stressed neighbourhood, every congested highway, every family priced out of a home, every hospital bed shortage and every Australian pushed to the back of the queue. One Nation sees you and we hear you. You have been ignored for too long. We have been raising the alarm time and time again, and we do so again today. The other parties have ignored the concerns and the pleas for help from everyday Australians struggling against mass immigration and the pressure it puts on this country. It is time that it stops.

This debate is about how many people should come to this country. This debate is about the manner in which they come to this country, the levels in which they come. We have proposed a net zero pause for five years. That is a reasonable suggestion, and it is a reasonable question to put to the Australian people so as to give them a voice. The fact is our population, driven by mass immigration, is surging far too quickly for our infrastructure, our hospitals, our schools, our roads and our wages to keep up.

Let's talk about a truth that the government doesn't like to talk about. These mass migration policies that they have supported have led to one of the longest periods of GDP-per-capita recession in our nation's history. One Nation have said it before, and we'll say it again: this mass immigration agenda by the Albanese government has been done to artificially pump up headline GDP, and without it we'll be staring at negative growth, quarter after quarter. This immigration policy, pushed by the Albanese government, is to hide their economic mismanagement. They know that without it they would be blamed for a recession that their poor economic management would have caused. So, instead of fixing the economy, instead of dealing with some of the underlying issues within the economy, they are pulling the mass immigration lever to fix what is essentially numbers on a page at the expense of the standard of living of Australians in this country. The consequences of mass immigration are everywhere. The people of Australia see them every single day—congested roads and overloaded infrastructure. Even Infrastructure Australia, a government body, have admitted that lags in infrastructure investment as they struggle to keep up with a surging population driven by mass immigration are damaging the economy and negatively impacting the quality of life of Australians. This is what millions of Australians live with daily.

Housing affordability is at breaking point, and it is breaking their hearts. Every Australian knows someone who cannot get into the housing market—their sons, their daughters, their family and friends. They know people who cannot find a rental because we've reached a national vacancy rate of 1.2 per cent, with some capital cities as low as 0.6 per cent. That is unacceptable. And it is caused by mass immigration pushed by the Albanese Labor government and the Liberals and the Nationals and the Greens. So why are we not seriously looking at immigration levels and putting Australians first?

All that is before we even consider stagnant wages and job competition. We have approximately 670,000 unemployed Australians in this country and nearly a million more who want additional hours. We are dealing with a labour market flooded by foreign visa holders, and we know that the big businesses, the multinationals, love this. Why wouldn't they? More workers artificially flooded into the market mean lower wages for Aussie workers and fewer jobs for Aussie workers. Australians at the lower end of the jobs market are left behind, and we will see much more of this unless the mass immigration tap is not turned off. The suffering will continue. Our services will continue to be strained.

Australia has grown by five million people since 2007, a 25 per cent increase. More than 60 per cent of that growth has come from immigration. This is not manageable; it is reckless. The worst part about it is that it has been deliberate. Now, we no longer have the services and infrastructure to match our population, because these were not delivered by the government.

So this bill is to give people a say on this. Do they want what we've had to continue—the reckless mass immigration agenda—or do we try something different? This bill will give the people a say, and that is something that politicians in this place seem terrified of. Why shouldn't Australians have the right to vote on whether immigration levels are too high? Politicians know the answer; they know the answer they will get. They know the Australian people will overwhelmingly reject the mass immigration agenda pushed on them by the major parties.

It was very interesting listening to some contributions in this place. I listened very carefully to Senator Scarr, from the Liberals. One of the things he said was that the question of immigration is far too complicated for the Australian people to address. It's far too complicated, and they can't be trusted to come up with an adequate policy solution. That notion that everyday Australians should be denied the right to have a say on a question because 'it's too complicated for them' goes to one of the fundamental differences between One Nation and the Liberal Party: we actually believe that the Australian people are smart enough to understand these problems, that they do understand these problems and that they've been demanding solutions. They've been demanding things like a net zero immigration pause.

Some of those matters that Senator Scarr raised in relation to family reunion visas and things like that would not be difficult to resolve. Government have forward projections. They understand how many people come in through the system via those categories and they could take that into account. They could make allowances in the number of people coming into the country. To raise that as a particular issue—it is simply not something that should stand in the way of a sensible policy that would end mass migration, and a proposal for net zero migration.

One Nation was the first political party pushing this idea, long before others even muttered the words, because we believe, genuinely and unapologetically, in giving the Australian people a voice. We will always ask for you to have a voice. That is why we're asking a simple question: should Australia adopt a policy of zero net migration for a period of five years—yes or no? It's a simple question. We know Australians want a say because mass immigration is affecting every aspect of our economy and quality of life. Australians deserve the respect of being asked and being given a say. If we do not give them their voice we are telling them that their voice does not matter—that we do not care about their concerns and that we do not care to adequately represent the views of the people.

I recall another point that was brought up by Senator Scarr. He said that one of the reasons that we couldn't implement a zero net migration policy is that we've signed some international treaties. We have signed some international treaties and therefore other countries get to have a say in our immigration rate. Other countries get to decide how many people come here, but the Australian people don't have the right to a say. They have been superseded by demands from foreign countries. I think that gets to the heart of this matter: we are listening to everyone but the Australian people.

I say again: the Australian people deserve a voice. They deserve to have their concerns heard. One Nation hears them. We will always give you a voice, and we will always put Australians first.