Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two minutes is more than enough to review Labor's Jobs and Skills Summit. Allowing pensioners and student visa holders to earn more will help small businesses in the city and in the bush. This has been One Nation policy for some time. Forty billion dollars in development funding through to 2030? Five billion dollars a year sounds good until we realise that private investment spending in Australia in 2022-23 alone will be $143 billion. Five billion dollars is a drop in the bucket—just enough to provide the Labor Party with endless media and photo opportunities.

This was the best opportunity in years to talk about growing our employment base—mining, agriculture and manufacturing—value-adding and creating breadwinner jobs. Opportunity not taken! Of the delegates, 25 per cent—one-quarter—were union bosses. Yet there was no tangible job creation that might benefit union members. It's no wonder Red Unions are booming! What did come out of the summit? Additional vocational training places—for jobs that don't exist; preferential employment schemes for women and Aboriginals—for jobs that don't exist; 195,000 new migrants every year—for jobs that don't exist. How will our crumbling healthcare system provide for all these new arrivals? Victoria is treating patients in tents and Queensland in the back of ambulances. Where will the housing come from when 100,000 Australians are homeless and that rate is rising? Rental prices are up by 18 per cent this year alone. Inflation is six per cent and on its way to 10 per cent.

Life for everyday Australians is getting very hard very quickly. Labor will make all of these things worse, with increased immigration adding more pressure on health and housing while diluting the power of workers. That will reduce workers' wages and living conditions even further. Just who are Labor working for? We have one flag. We are one community. One Nation is now the workers' party.