Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia's long-term productivity growth rate has hit its lowest point in the last 20 years, dropping to 0.9 per cent. Over the past week, there has been a lot of talk about capital deepening and attracting more investment to Australia. But the truth that Labor don't want to acknowledge is that their insane immigration policy is driving this productivity crisis. We have seen record immigration numbers over the past three years, and early data suggest we'll be back up there again.

Labor has flooded Australia with low-skilled workers while industries are stretched thin, unable to invest in the tools, technology or training that is required to boost efficiency. As a result, everyday Australians are competing for less work in a less productive environment, and wages are flatlining. On top of that disaster, this flood of immigrants needs somewhere to live. So the same Australians that are watching their real wages shrink also get to watch the dream of owning a home evaporate in front of them. It's hard to imagine a more demoralising, dismal state of affairs for young Australians. How can the government talk about productivity without acknowledging this critical issue? How do we expect Australians to work harder when we are stripping them of their rewards?

The out-of-ideas government's response was a so-called economic round table—rebranded, of course, from its original 'productivity' title. They were praying a name change could mask their lack of ideas and solutions. Days of discussions have yielded little more than recycled tax proposals and empty rhetoric. Without serious cuts to immigration, the nation faces further economic stagnation and hardship, leaving everyday Australians to bear the burden of a government that prioritises immigrants over its citizens.