My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Minister Watt. The immigration minister today told the National Press Club that the government intends to return to the Abbott era, including with fresh detention centres and hundreds of compliance officers to force people back into immigration jail. Why are you following Donald Trump's lead by unleashing ICE-style squads of Border Force on our communities? And why doesn't the government abandon its failed plan to work with the coalition and instead work with the Greens to deliver an immigration plan that prioritises family reunions, skills and our humanitarian obligations?

Thanks, Senator Waters. I actually had a briefing about this from Minister Burke's office in preparation for question time, and I suggested to them that I would put a lot of money on the Greens political party trying to draw some parallel with ICE, so congratulations for being nothing if not predictable—very predictable. It does make preparing for question time a lot easier when you know exactly what the Greens are going to ask you, because all the Greens are ever interested in doing is using political issues as political footballs, and they've done it again today. Well done. At least you haven't had a split this week, but the day is still young.

Of course what Senator Waters is proposing is utterly ridiculous. What the government is proposing to do is to ensure that those who overstay their visas do not remain in Australia. It is a simple principle of migration law that, if you do not have a valid visa, then you lose your entitlement to remain in Australia.

Now, what we know is that, in around 2015, changes were made to our migration system which meant that the resources deployed towards removing people from Australia were devoted towards removing people who had committed criminal offences. That has meant that immigration facilities, detention facilities, have been pretty much fully utilised to house criminals who are awaiting deportation, rather than being used to remove those who have lost their entitlement to remain in Australia.

So I can only assume that what the Greens are suggesting is that we should have a system in Australia where, when your visa expires, you should be able to remain here indefinitely, because that's essentially what you're arguing for. What we are saying is that— (Time expired)

Senator Waters, first supplementary?

There are over 400,000 people languishing on bridging visas. Every bridging visa is an admission that the government has failed in fast and fair visa processing. Are you seriously planning to punish these people for the government's own failure in processing?

When you've quite finished, Senator McKim, I'll call the minister. Minister Watt.

Thanks, Senator Waters. Of course the answer is no. The reality is that there are visa holders who are on bridging visas for a range of legitimate reasons, and they need to be processed.

One of the reasons we have seen the number of bridging visa holders blow out so significantly is that, unfortunately, we have seen some people on visas abuse the system, hop from visa to visa, in an attempt to remain in Australia longer than they are entitled to. Now, if you're going to support that kind of behaviour, that actually undermines our entire migration system and it undermines public confidence in our migration system.

What our government is about is putting in place a sustainable, fair migration system that allows Australia to continue to accept numbers of migrants in a way that our country has done for decades but without the rorts that continue to exist in the system and that we're determined to clean up.

Senator Waters, second supplementary?

():  The cost-of-living crisis is being driven by corporate profiteering. Turning housing into a vehicle for investment is what's causing generational inequality. Neither is the fault of migrants. Why are you letting One Nation write your migration policy, when you could be taking on the big corporations and the billionaires who are actually causing the cost-of-living crisis?

Congratulations, Senator Waters, on asking another question that I predicted you would ask today. Two out of three ain't bad. The suggestion that the government's immigration policy is being drafted by One Nation is utterly preposterous. For evidence of that, you only need to compare the numbers that the government have included in our migration policy against the numbers that were included in One Nation's policy this week. There is a significant difference in those numbers because there is significant difference between the policy of the government and that of One Nation.

Now, you may choose to use the lives of migrants in Australia as a political football. You may seek to cause division in our community, as we know the Greens have done around the issue of migration. What we're going to do is maintain social harmony and ensure that Australia has the migration numbers that we need. (Time expired)