Topics: Protest against One Nation, Migration policy, Veterans' health cap scrapped E&OE.......................
TOM CONNELL: Joining me live is Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Dave Sharma. What do you make of the protests? Is it growing attention on Pauline Hanson? Is it students being students? Or is it sort of perfect for One Nation, you know, not just being heckled and, you know, some pretty crass slogans?
DAVE SHARMA: I don't think it hurts them politically. I think if those students wanted to, you know, make their voices heard or influence felt, They should talk to their families and their friends and, you know, in social networks and whatnot. But I think taking to the streets like that, it probably—I think the people that support One Nation probably view it as confirmation that this is the anti-establishment party. And I think, to the extent that students are school age, well, they should be in school. I know a lot of them are university age, but I think their advocacy efforts would be better spent elsewhere.
TOM CONNELL: Well, Let's talk immigration within your portfolio. Any major issues with what you heard today and what you'd oppose? Or try to, you know, strike out in the Senate and do?
DAVE SHARMA: Look, I'd say what I found most striking today was it was more like a political strategy dressed up as an immigration strategy. I don't think the numbers are credible. I don't think the pathway is credible. I think the government is giving up already. They're saying, we don't think we can get support, so they're not even going to put legislation into the parliament. If you look at the figures that were announced, I mean, net overseas migration, 100,000. in the March quarter. means it's 400,000 annualised. Over the past 12 months, it's 292,000, from recollection. That's way above the government's targets and way above what we in the Coalition think we should be annualising.
TOM CONNELL: The annual figure was 292,000, slightly below where the budget had it. You can't just say it's 400,000 by annualising that.
DAVE SHARMA: Well, no, but it's 100,000 in the March quarter, right? That's the most recent quarter that the ABS has stats for— 100,000 net overseas
TOM CONNELL: But this is a lumpy thing that goes up or
DAVE SHARMA: Yeah, know. That's why I also quoted the budget figure. So, the best figure—
TOM CONNELL: The to look at is 292,000, so it's slightly below what the budget said.
DAVE SHARMA: But bear in mind the government's target is 225,000.
TOM CONNELL: Yes.
DAVE SHARMA: So it's significantly above that, and I didn't see a lot of evidence of what the policy tools will be put in place.
TOM CONNELL: Well, you've got things like, you know, no longer having family visas for students. I mean, this is a big change, isn't it? Tougher rules on visitors overstaying and detaining and deporting people. So that's pretty significant, isn't it, for a Labor government to say if you overstay, You're to locked up, you're detained before you go overseas. That's a pretty big change, isn't it?
DAVE SHARMA: Well, look, what we would have liked to see is a lower net overseas migration target, one that's tied to housing. That's our policy, and we've obviously made that clear. We would have liked to have seen more effort and emphasis placed on how we're to remove 77,000 people who are here unlawfully, which is a very large number. But beyond that— you know, credit Tony Burke did mention this— but how are we going to make sure The skilled migration stream prioritises skills in areas where there are shortages. He did emphasise that somewhat. I give him credit for that. But construction workers, agricultural workers in particular.
TOM CONNELL: How does the Coalition tying it to houses work? Because you don't have one person per house.
DAVE SHARMA: No.
TOM CONNELL: So what's the relation there? And then you've also obviously got reproduction rate. So what, what actually is that tying it to housing? How does that work?
DAVE SHARMA: Well, it's a recognition that firstly, basically, the housing supply has been in deficit for the past 20 years, right? I get that.
TOM CONNELL: I'm just trying to understand what the link is between how many houses we build and what the NOM can be, because the average number of people in a property are 2.4.
DAVE SHARMA: Yeah, I think it's slightly lower than that, but, I mean, I'm happy to work with that figure. We need to catch up on our housing stock, right? The best way to do that, because— is, one, to increase the rate at which we build houses, but at the moment, that's about 177,000 The other way is to take pressure off the demand side. So, we make sure net overseas migration is less than that, then it's, you know, yes, it's less than one per household, but we've got a deficit of somewhere, you know, in order of 400,000 500,000 homes.
TOM CONNELL: So, catch up by making it one-to-one, but also there's, you know, deaths versus births as well. Don't you have to factor that in?
DAVE SHARMA: The natural increase in the population, I that's about 25% to 33% of our population growth. The rest in the last few years has been— So, is that getting factored in or not? Well, that is factored in, obviously, mean, that's not something the government can control, right? Nor should we. We should be encouraging Australians
TOM CONNELL: We can't actually control how many houses we build either, so—
DAVE SHARMA: We can do a lot to encourage— House building. Well, think we can do a lot more by doing things like simplifying the National Construction Code, investing in the last mile of infrastructure to bring housing online, and prioritising construction.
TOM CONNELL: Births versus deaths just won't be factored in at all?
DAVE SHARMA: Well, that's obviously factored into our overall population projections, what we're trying to do—
TOM CONNELL: That's stable and do the rest, your calculations on the rest?
DAVE SHARMA: Well, mean, yeah, and you look at the birth rate in Australia at the moment, it's below replacement, right? It's about, 1.8, 1.9 from recollection.
TOM CONNELL: I think it's even lower, but yeah.
DAVE SHARMA: Yeah, so I mean, in that sense, yes, population is only slowly being added to.
TOM CONNELL: Quickly on the vets cap back down, does the government get any credit for what else it's done in this area? I mean, there was a massive backlog of veterans compensation claims. when it came to power that it helped clear. Any credit there?
DAVE SHARMA: Look, I think— I think the Veterans Affairs portfolio has been, struggling for a while, and we have supported them in measures, including through legislation, to help clear the backlog, improve the burden of proof, if you like, for veterans making claims, improve the assistance services available to veterans. But I would say that this cap that they introduced and now they've walked away from was a pretty cruel and punitive step and didn't have much in the way of rationale or justification. And the minister responsible just refused to engage with the aggrieved parties or really with the public over the rationale behind this decision.
TOM CONNELL: Got to leave it there, right out of time. Dave Sharma, thank you for your time.
DAVE SHARMA: Thanks so much, Tom.
[ENDS]