Well thank you Brian, thank you Dave – thank you to the Menzies Research Centre for putting this on.
Thank you for the enormously important work you do in this day and age. We need good thinking. We need people who are doing that policy work that is all important for this great nation, so we appreciate that. It is good to be here with the former Prime Minister John Howard, who of course is a great advocate of good immigration policy, which I will be talking about today.
To my Federal colleagues here today, Jonno Duniam of course, Shadow for Home Affairs, who’s been out in the media this morning with me. Sarah, Jess, and Dave. Dave who is in the immigration portfolio, of course, and also important to what I’m talking about today.
Great to have all of you here. And thank you to all of you who are here as well. It’s wonderful to have this audience at such short notice, standing room only at the back, so I do appreciate you being here.
FIVE OBSERVATIONS
Now today, I’m here to announce the first part of the Coalition’s Australian Values Migration Plan, and to talk about the upcoming budget and some of the economic issues we face there.
But before I turn to that, it’s important to set some context, because this goes to the heart of protecting our way of life and restoring the standard of living that Australians have worked so hard to build over such a long period of time.
I want to make five observations about recent decades which are shaping our thinking about the key issues our country faces.
I make these observations not to criticise past Australian governments of either colour – including past Coalition governments to which I belonged.
After all, governments are a product of their times.
They act and respond to their circumstances in front of them.
Australian governments of recent decades all made policies for a very different world – a more benign world than we face today.
And in the main, they delivered prosperity for Australians.
Of course, they didn’t get everything right.
And the frustration of many Australians today about some past decisions is both understandable and reasonable.
To paraphrase a Danish philosopher, we live forwards but we understand backwards.
So, I make these observations with humility, with the wisdom afforded by hindsight, and with a view to our present predicaments, and with a resolve to course-correct.
Observation one:
Past governments welcomed the benefits of globalisation, but they were less attuned to the risks.
Today’s fuel crisis reinforces the fragility of global supply chains – and the folly of allowing our sovereign industries to be hollowed out where those industries are of strategic importance.
The obvious example is liquid fuels.
And that’s why when I was Energy Minister, we established a Minimum Stockholding Obligation and saved our last two refineries from closing. Perhaps we should never have got to that point, but that’s what we did achieve at the end of the last government.
Observation two:
Past governments rested comfortably behind the security conferred by American predominance.
Today, in a different age where events are being shaped much more by the sword and shield – in a time when we can’t just free ride off the generosity of our friends – Australia finds itself poorly equipped to defend and deter.
Observation three:
Past governments blindly repeated mantras about Australia being the world’s most successful multicultural society – and diversity being our strength.
Such doctrines saw us open our borders to people who – far from wanting to join and contribute to Australia – have wanted to take from Australia and even change Australia to suit them.
Observation four:
Past governments moved away from energy pragmatism and embraced energy ideology.
Consequently, power prices have surged – and costs across the economy have skyrocketed.
Labor’s net zero obsession is one of the most economically destructive ideas foisted upon the Australian people – and that is why we have rejected it.
Observation five:
The pandemic required a national response.
Yet National Cabinet became a means for some state governments to normalise heavy-handed intervention.
Moreover, with many Australians reliant on government in that crisis, we inadvertently animated a belief that bigger government is the solution to every problem.
That belief was seized upon by Anthony Albanese and helped propel Labor to power – a point I’ll return to shortly.
In making these five observations, I want to send a message of reassurance to Australians.
The Liberal Party – and the Coalition – has learned from history.
Under my leadership, we will change for the better.
We will deliver policies for the change our nation needs – because our country must change for the better.
A LABOR GOVERNMENT INCAPABLE OF CHANGE
However, after almost four years of governing, it’s clear the Albanese Government is incapable of delivering the change that’s needed for our country.
Labor has no long-term plan for our fuel security.
Labor is ideologically opposed to unlocking our natural resources and building our sovereign capabilities.
Labor’s devotion to net zero and economy-crippling carbon taxes – on vehicles, on manufacturing, on electricity – is driving industries offshore.
Despite today’s announcement, Labor has done little to properly fund and build missiles and drones at speed and scale – which is absolutely critical for our defence. Nor has it increased defence spending as a share of the economy.
Labor has also opened the migration floodgates – bringing in a record 1.4 million people in just three-and-a-half years – putting extreme pressure on housing, infrastructure, and services.
ECONOMIC REVIVAL – BETTER GOVERNMENT, NOT BIGGER GOVERNMENT
Now here’s the truth:
Bigger government and a Big Australia hasn’t meant a better Australia – or Australians being better off.
Australians have experienced the biggest fall in living standards in the developed world since Labor came to power.
Our inflation is worse than every other major advanced economy.
Jim Chalmers blames everyone but himself for Australia’s inflation and high interest rates.
But Australians aren’t mugs.
They know our inflationary and high interest rates is stubborn and increasing before the conflict in the Middle East.
They know Labor has a dangerous addiction to spending which, as a proportion of the economy, is at a 40-year high outside the pandemic.
Moreover, government debt will soon exceed $1 trillion for the first time.
Growth in the economy is an illusion.
Every single dollar of growth under the Albanese Government has been due to population growth – mostly immigration.
From my first day as leader, I set two priorities:
To restore Australians’ standard of living.
To protect our way of life.
That means shifting away from Labor’s government-directed economy back to a free-enterprise economy.
Big government is not the solution for Australia.
We need a better government that gets the big things right.
Better government that gets off Australians’ backs and puts its faith back in Australians.
The Coalition I lead has a freedom agenda at its core.
I want workers to be freer – paying less tax.
I want businesses to be freer – liberated from the reams of government paperwork that turn ambition into anxiety.
I want industries to be freer – unencumbered by roadblocks – so that we can make more onshore, instead of seeing manufacturing going offshore.
I want Australians to be freer – by eradicating the nanny state and giving Australians more choice.
It’s this freedom that will revive the conditions, the confidence, the choices, and the investment needed for a new era of prosperity in Australia.
There’s been lots of talk in recent times about protection, but let me tell you the best way to protect businesses and industries isn’t with bailouts and handouts – they’re nothing more than band-aids.
The best way to protect businesses and industries is getting government out of the way.
The best way to revitalise and reindustrialise our economy is getting the big things right.
By removing crippling taxes.
By reducing choking regulation.
And by restoring cheaper power.
It’s these three things that will make everything across the economy cheaper to grow, to make, to build, to fix, and to service.
It’s these three things that are central to the Coalition’s economic agenda.
IMMIGRATION CONCERNS
Restoring our standard of living and protecting our way of life is also about immigration.
And for the remainder of my speech, I want to focus on this important topic – an issue of deep and growing concern to Australians.
We have an incredibly proud history of welcoming migrants from across the world to Australia..
People who have assimilated, worked hard, built families, helped build our nation, and become cherished and loyal citizens.
My grandfather, William Hudson, was the commissioner and chief engineer of the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme from the late 50’s through to close to completion.
He saw first-hand the success of migrants who came to this country, who embraced its values, and who were committed to building a great Australia.
Growing up near Cooma in the 1970s, I witnessed this extraordinary success story first-hand.
We need to preserve this ethos that underpins our immigration program and a great Australia.
And something, unfortunately, has changed in recent times.
Immigration numbers are too high.
And consequently, Australians can see the country they love changing for the worse.
There is a fact about immigration as old as history that we seldom speak about.
When a country brings in too many people – and the people with the wrong motivations – it’s inevitable that the character of that country changes.
Parts of the UK and Europe are now wrestling with this reality after a period of sustained mass immigration that started in 2015.
Here in Australia, a YouGov poll in January found that 64 per cent of Australians want lower immigration.
Moreover, a Fox and Hedgehog poll in February found that 59 per cent of first-generation migrants want immigration to be cut back.
Just think about that for a moment.
There is a strong backlash to immigration even amongst those from migrant backgrounds.
Broadly speaking, migrants fall into two categories.
There’s those of noble and patriotic intent.
Someone who wants to become Australian, embrace Australia, and contribute to Australia.
Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of people who come to Australia fall into that category.
And then there’s the migrant of subversive intent.
Someone who rejects our way of life – who does not want to change for Australia, but wants Australia to change for them. Who is here for transactional reasons, with transactional intent.
Worse, declining immigration standards have seen our door opened to migrants of subversive intent.
Consider what we’ve seen in recent years:
The Bondi Beach terrorist attack.
Radical Islamic preachers espousing hate with impunity.
Genocidal marches in major cities.
Antisemitism across Australian communities.
These are the ramifications of an immigration system where standards have eroded.
Indeed, just this month, Labor deported one Islamic hate preacher – and cancelled the visa of another offshore – having granted visas to both.
Australians are rightly concerned.
But not only about our door being opened to the purveyors of hate and violence.
Our door has also been opened to people who, while rejecting hate and violence, nevertheless still reject our core values.
People who don’t believe in equal rights for men and women.
People who don’t believe in the rule of law and want to establish parallel legal systems.
People who don’t believe in freedom of speech, association, and religion.
In recent times of course that has included Islamist extremists.
For too long, we’ve turned a blind eye to a reality of immigration and integration:
Those who migrate from liberal democracies have a greater likelihood of subscribing to Australian values compared to those migrating from places ruled by fundamentalists, extremists, and dictators.
In that vein, the Gazan cohort of 1,700 people here on visas presents a high-risk to our nation.
That cohort must be re-assessed entirely with far greater scrutiny.
The Director-General of Security has also been upfront about the growing threat of foreign interference in Australia.
Our door has been opened to people who – far from having an allegiance to Australia – are actively working against our nation.
People intimidating migrant communities.
People trying to undermine our democracy.
People sowing social discord.
All this stems from an immigration system where standards have eroded.
AUSTRALIAN VALUES MIGRATION PLAN
So, ladies and gentlemen:
Australia has a non-discriminatory immigration program.
We do not discriminate based on nationality, race, gender, or faith.
But for an immigration program to work in the national interest it must discriminate based on values.
We must dispense with the naïve thinking that has dominated our immigration policy for too long.
Our nation has paid the price for believing that anyone, from anywhere, will embrace our way of life.
Not everyone wanting to migrate to Australia has a noble intent.
Not everyone wanting to migrate to Australia will be a net benefit to Australia – indeed, some will be a net drain.
Not everyone wanting to migrate to Australia will integrate with the rest of our great country.
Just as energy policy under Labor is dominated by the ideology of net zero, immigration policy under Labor is dominated by the ideology of cultural relativism.
For Labor, all immigration is good immigration.
But that’s simply not true.
It’s not what Australians are seeing with their own eyes.
And Australians are fed-up with politically correct preaching on immigration.
Looking to parts of the UK and Europe, Australians see the erosion of national culture and the Balkanisation of communities that has come from immigration policies that have not prioritised values.
Indeed, Australians are worried we’re on the same disastrous road as those parts of the world, and they want change.
And the Coalition is determined to deliver change for the better.
Today, I’m pleased to announce the first part of the Coalition’s immigration policy.
I’m going to focus on our Australian values migration plan which is just one part of a broader agenda which will include bringing the numbers down to a sustainable level.
But today, we’re proudly going to put Australian values at the heart of immigration policy.
There are three key pillars of our policy to lift immigration standards.
First, putting Australian values first.
Second, shutting the door to people who abuse our immigration system.
And third, showing a red light to radicals.
I’ll discuss each pillar in turn.
PUTTING AUSTRALIAN VALUES FIRST
At present, people applying for a visa must sign the Australian Values Statement.
The values include respecting freedom of speech, association and faith; a commitment to the rule of law and democracy; acting with tolerance; and upholding equal opportunity.
Yet we’ve seen too many instances of visa holders flouting these values.
Visa holders who have broken the law – instead of abiding by it.
Visa holders who have peddled intolerance and intimidated others – instead of respecting individual freedom.
For some visa applicants, signing the Australian Values Statement has become a tick-box exercise without any intent to comply with those values.
They are taking us for a ride.
The Coalition will make the Australian Values Statement a legally binding and enforceable visa condition for all temporary and permanent visa holders.
With this stronger rulebook, there will be no more ambiguity in courts and tribunals.
In short, if a visa holder undermines our democratic values, doesn’t respect the law, or demonstrates they don’t respect our core values, they will be booted out of Australia.
Furthermore, there have been instances where long-standing non-citizens have been allowed to stay in Australia despite committing offences that warrant visa cancellation.
They have been permitted to stay because of their period of residency or other reasons.
But time and ties are no testament to loyalty to Australia.
We’re going to close this leniency loophole.
If a longstanding non-citizen hasn’t demonstrated Australian values, they too will be booted out of Australia.
A centrepiece of the Australian Values Statement is that English is our national language.
English is necessary to live, work, and integrate into Australian society. And I talked earlier about the Snowy Scheme, Cooma, after the war, people who came to the country at that time, they learnt English.
The Coalition will make learning English an obligation for permanent visa holders – not an option.
Central to these values is that citizenship is a privilege – it’s not a handout.
And permanent residency must reflect that same expectation, a genuine commitment to Australia, demonstrated through contribution, integration, and respect for our values.
That principle must also extend to how we allocate taxpayer-funded support.
And that’s why I’m appalled by revelations that nearly 50,000 non-citizens have used Labor’s first home buyer 5 per cent Deposit Scheme.
Labor opened this scheme to permanent residents in 2023.
But such a loan scheme – financed by the Australian taxpayer – should be reserved for Australian citizens.
The Coalition will close this scheme to anyone but Australian citizens.
And this is just the start, we will look at further measures to reserve key social and economic entitlements for Australian citizens, and we’ll have more to say about that in due course.
SHUTTING THE DOOR
Let me turn to the second pillar of our policy:
Shutting the door to people who abuse our immigration system.
On Labor’s watch, we’ve seen an explosion in the number of unlawful non-citizens on our soil.
Some 65,000 people remain here despite their student or protection visas being cancelled and despite having exhausted all avenues for appeal.
Our immigration system is being exploited by people using the pretext of needing protection to stay here for economic reasons.
The Coalition will crack down on overstayers with several measures.
First, we will create a Safe Country List to end frivolous protection claims.
Countries on this list would be those deemed generally free from persecution.
If a citizen of a safe country applies for a refugee and humanitarian visa from outside Australia, it will be assumed to be inadmissible.
And if a citizen of a safe country is in Australia and makes a protection claim, their application can expect to be refused – and their deportation fast-tracked.
To those who say we will be in breach of the Refugee Convention, we will decide who deserves protection and the circumstances in which that protection is granted.
It’s time to take back control from the technocrats, the bureaucrats and the activists.
To stop the abuse of our immigration system, the Coalition will also restore Temporary Protection Visas to their previous role.
These visas were a successful deterrence measure introduced by the Coalition that curtailed cheating of our immigration system.
Temporary Protection Visas should never have been scaled back by Labor.
The prospect of permanent protection encourages abuse of the system.
By incinerating that incentive, we will send a clear message that bogus claims of persecution will never be a pathway to permanency.
We’re also going to oust the overstayers.
We will establish a Joint Agency Taskforce to kick unlawful overstayers out of the country.
They are not welcome if they have seen all the avenues to appeal exhausted and they no longer have a visa.
Our objective is very simple.
If you do the wrong thing, we’ll keep you out, or we will kick you out. You will be deported.
We’re not going to tolerate overstayers who refuse to hop off the appeals merry-go-round despite being told they have no legal right to stay in Australia.
And in that vein, we’re going to stop non-citizens from accessing and using taxpayer funded aid as well.
A RED LIGHT TO RADICALS
Now, let me turn to the third pillar of our policy, showing a red light to radicals.
The Coalition will establish an Enhanced Security Screening Centre.
Using the full suite of intelligence, screening, and enforcement capabilities, the centre will stop radicals, extremists, and terrorists from entering our country.
As part of the enhanced screening process, all visa applicants will be required to provide social media accounts when applying for a visa.
The Coalition’s resolve is clear:
The door will be shut to people who want to import the hatred and violence of other places to Australia.
There must never be another tragedy like we saw at Bondi Beach.
CONCLUSION
Ladies and gentlemen:
Putting Australian values at the heart of immigration policy is crucial to protecting our way of life.
But to protect our way of life – and to restore Australians’ standard of living – we also need to reduce immigration numbers drastically.
That’s something Labor will never do and we will.
But the starting point is building our migration on a foundation of Australian values and higher standards.
This is worth fighting for because Australia is worth fighting for.
Thank you very much.
