Immigration Debate Cannot Be Silenced | Speech Transcript

SENATE SPEECH TRANSCRIPT AND VIDEO

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If Labor and the Greens, supported by Senator Anning, thought their stunt on Monday would silence me, on immigration, then they are dreaming.

The Labor Green alliance is afraid to tell voters that from December 2005 to December 2016 Australia’s population grew from 20.5 million to 24.4 million and that 62% of this growth was from overseas immigration.

Further, they are afraid to ask voters at the next federal election the question “Do you think the current rate of immigration is too high?”

Fear that this information will be given to every voter at the next general election is the reason Labor and the Greens voted against debating my private Senator’s legislation titled Plebiscite (Future Migration Level) Bill 2018.

We know, voters are concerned about the level of immigration and the pace of population growth, but what is less well known is that Labor and their partners the Australian Greens need very high levels of immigration for their political future.

Labor holds all the seats, where the overseas born population is above 50% and heading for 60%. Labor holds the vast majority of seats where the overseas born population is above 40% and heading for 50%.

These electorates are close to Sydney and Melbourne. How does the government expect new migrants to learn about Australian values and Australian law when everyone around them was born overseas?

Over 40% of the members of the lower house in this parliament represent electorates where over 30% of the population was born overseas.

Is it any surprise that the Lowy Institute survey found a ‘sharp spike in anti-immigration sentiment’ in 2018, causing their annual sentiment measure to change from positive to negative?

The same survey found 4 out of 10 Australians say that ‘if Australia is too open to people from all over the world we risk losing our identity as a nation’.

No other comparable country in the world is pursuing legal immigration at a pace where the population is growing at 1.7% a year.

How do we expect migrants to develop a sense of belonging, when the majority of migrants settle in regions where the number of people born overseas outnumbers the number of people born in Australia?

Some in the government have acknowledged we need to slow the rate of immigration, but Labor and the Greens want higher levels of immigration than we have today.

If voters are experiencing problems with 200,000 permanent migrants, a year just imagine what Australia will feel like when Labor returns to permanent immigration levels of 300,000 plus.

Who is to say the immigration level under Labor will not be much higher.

Labor and their partners the Australian Greens are playing a high risk game of poker with our future and the future of our children. These socialist parties want the next election to be about anything but immigration, but every issue keeping Australians awake at night is related to immigration.

Immigration levels are now just too high for us to manage. For the majority of Australians however, high immigration means poorly paid jobs, high electricity and water prices, unaffordable housing , long wait times for access to health services, insufficient money for schools and congestion on public transport and our roads.

Australian voters need to understand the next election is about immigration

One Nation’s policy on immigration has been misrepresented and it is time for me to set the record straight.

We recognize the invaluable contribution of overseas born Australians, who have enriched our culture, committed to our values, our law, our political institutions and I thank them.

When migrants come to embrace our way of life and not to change it, the contribution of migrants and their families to Australia is undeniable.

Most Australians believe multiculturalism has been good for Australia, but the right to express cultural identity comes with the responsibility to accept Australia’s liberal democracy and to read, write and speak English.

I support English as Australia’s official language, because it’s a unifying force and advances migrant communities as well as Australia’s interests. Labor and the Greens believe hand gestures and a few words of English is enough to integrate into Australia and that is why they would not support the government’s proposed legislation to strengthen the English commitments for Australian Citizenship.

Right now the English standard, required for citizenship, is getting 12 multiple choice questions right out of 20. This is the lowest standard of any comparable country in the world.

In a country taking migrants speaking over 100 languages, English helps us get along together and that is critical to the working of our democracy. Parliamentary business is conducted in English and the record of the Parliament is also in English.

How can we expect anyone to cast an informed vote if they cannot understand, in English, the issues of the political parties seeking their vote? There is no guarantee that information provided in other languages is accurate.

Of course it suits Labor to have as many voters as possible unable to understand their poorly thought out policies.

One Nation’s legislation to amend the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 titled Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Commitments for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2018 is currently before a Senate Committee.

Similar legislation was withdrawn by the government, because Labor and the Greens would not support strengthening the commitment required by migrants to gain citizenship. These commitments related to core values and English, requirements are essential to integration.

Labor and the Greens do a disservice to new migrants especially those on the Humanitarian program, when they keep expectations low, because English is necessary for employment and participation in our society.

Labor and their mates in the press find it offensive when I say Australia has the right to choose the number and mix of migrants to ensure that immigration is in the national interest of existing citizens. I will not apologize for saying the interests of existing citizens comes first.

Australia’s Constitution prevents us from asking the religion of those who seek to migrate to Australia, but equally we cannot ignore the potential to integrate into Australia. I believe we should add this criterion in our assessment process.

When we look at countries with high living standards we can see they have relatively small populations and that the population is in harmony with the natural carrying capacity of the country.

One Nation believes the best population growth comes from Australian citizens having children. We want Australians to have the number of children they can afford to look after, but we also want to reduce the barriers for Australians to have children, including lowering the cost of housing which will follow if we reduce the level of immigration.

Governments both Liberal and Labor have based their immigration targets on the ridiculous belief that high rates of immigration will prevent or slow the aging of Australia’s population.

Yes, migrants are younger on arrival than the average Australian but migrants get old and the only way to keep Australia ‘forever young’ is to increase year on year the number of new young migrants settling permanently in Australia. This population Ponzi scheme will end when social cohesion breaks down and that day is not as far away as you might think.

Government’s both Liberal and Labor, argue immigration is good for the economy but economists know that immigration benefits specific special interest groups like property developers.

In the short term immigration reduces per capita income which is why wage growth has been low and will stay low. In the long term immigration gains are very modest but the calculations ignore congestion costs, house prices and loss of amenity and jobs.

If immigration at the current levels is such a great idea, why have we gone steadily into debt so that every worker in Australia pays over $1300 a year to service our debt mountain?

At the end of World War II Australia’s population was over seven million people and 90% of those people were born in Australia.

In 1945 we were short of labour and it was thought we needed to be a much bigger population to defend ourselves. But today we are a population of 25 million people and there is no need to have the highest level of legal migration in the world.

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