Fatima Payman (WA, Australia's Voice) Share this | Hansard source

Well, days after reheating a stunt from 2017, the spirit of Senator Hanson now reheats a bill from 2018. With all the talk about One Nation poaching Barnaby Joyce, I'd perhaps be keeping an eye on the Greens. The amount of recycling that's happening in One Nation these days is genuinely impressive. This bill has already been voted down twice—once in 2019 and once last year—and yet here we are. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, a housing crisis and a climate crisis, this is the grand solution being put forward by One Nation: a non-binding plebiscite. Nothing says 'serious policymaking' like asking Australians to vote on a question that won't actually change a single law.

Let me be absolutely clear here: Senator Hanson—through you, Chair—has every right to move whatever bill she believes is in the national interest. That's one of the beautiful things about this country and that's one of the most beautiful things about our democracy. Every senator in this place has the right to put a bill forward that they're interested in or that they think their constituents are interested in. But, just as immigrants must uphold Australian values such as respect, equality and freedom of expression—the very values that explicitly reject racial discrimination and religious intolerance—every member of this chamber should also uphold them. The Australian values statement is unequivocal, and it says:

People in Australia are free to follow any religion they choose.

…   …   …

Religious intolerance is not acceptable in Australian society.

Every immigrant signs this, including me, including Senator Roberts and including Senator Babet. It's unfortunate that the bill before us today suggests that Senator Hanson herself would perhaps fail this values test.

This bill is not about migration levels. It's not about planning or infrastructure or economics. It's about fear. It's about division. It's about distracting struggling Australians, who are having a hard time putting food on the table, paying the next bill, ensuring that their kids have the best shot at life and that there's a roof over their heads, who have these real reasons for life becoming harder and harder. But, in fact, this whole bill is distracting everyone from the core issues that need to be dealt with here.

Let's deal with the myths calmly, factually and with evidence, not with slogans and not with fearmongering. Myth No. 1—population growth is out of control. A senior economist—not me, not Senator Roberts, not anyone else here—from the Australia Institute, Matt Grudnoff, has laid out the facts very clearly. During COVID, population growth fell to historic lows for about 18 months. The population even went backwards as international students and temporary workers left. When borders reopened, the so-called surge was simply people returning home, and, since 2024, population growth has fallen back to pre-COVID levels. Here's the key point: if the population had grown at normal pre-COVID rates, Australia today would have way more people, not fewer. The bounce-back hasn't even caught up to where we would have been if COVID had never happened. So the idea that we're facing some unprecedented population explosion simply isn't true.

Myth No. 2—migration caused the housing crisis. Let's test that claim using the best natural experiment that we've ever had: the COVID border closure. During COVID, population growth collapsed, yet house prices skyrocketed. Why would that be the case? It's because the Reserve Bank slashed interest rates and speculative investors flooded the market. As Matt Grudnoff says, if migration drove housing prices, 2020 should have been the cheapest time to buy in 20 years. Instead, prices surged. Here is the data government after government refuse to acknowledge. Over the past 10 years the population grew by 16 per cent but the number of dwellings grew by 19 per cent. We're building homes faster than the population is growing. That's what the numbers are saying. It's not me. It's not Senator Roberts. It's no-one else here. It's the numbers. It's the facts. Over the longer 20-year period, capturing the entire modern housing crisis, the population grew by 34 per cent and dwellings grew by 39 per cent. The housing crisis exists despite immigration, not because of it. It exists because governments protected investor loopholes like negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts, ignored the supply issue and all the planning and infrastructure that goes into it, and handed housing over to the property market. Again, immigrants didn't create this crisis. Politicians—or rather, bad policies—did.

Myth No. 3—immigrants don't share Australian values. Immigrants are the only group in this country required to prove their loyalty through tests, paperwork, declarations and character assessments. They sign up to values that many politicians themselves don't model. What value is more Australian than working super hard, contributing to society and giving our kids a better future?

Myth No. 4—immigrants are taking jobs or straining services. I mean, come on—they run the services. If we stopped migration tomorrow, hospitals would collapse, construction would grind to a halt, servos would shut, mines would close and the aged-care sector would fall over completely. There'd be nobody to care for your granny when she soils herself. Immigration is not breaking the system; it is holding it together.

Myth No. 5—migrants are a security threat. This fear is being imported directly from Mar-a-Lago. Through you, Acting Deputy President Sterle, Senator Hanson has returned from a Halloween party with Gina Rinehart and her new best buddy Donald Trump, whose administration is now bizarrely ordering the US embassy in Canberra to collect migrant crime data to fuel a global culture war that we're seeing run rampant around the world. Astonishingly, One Nation is happy to bring Trump's playbook into this chamber and do his bidding for him. If you ever want to know who a politician is truly working for, look at who they spend most of their time with. While working Australians were wondering how to pay their next bill, Senator Hanson was busy chasing selfies with foreign billionaires.

Has Senator Hanson ever introduced a bill to crack down on supermarket price gouging or cost-of-living pressures? Has she introduced a bill to tackle negative gearing or capital gains tax discount, or a bill to force the wealthy—you know, her billionaire friends—to pay their fair share? She's always ready to target migrants, Muslims and multicultural communities.