CHRIS KENNY: Let's now get the Coalition perspective on this, and I'm joined by Dave Sharma, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship. Thanks for joining us, Dave.
DAVE SHARMA: Pleasure, Chris.
CHRIS KENNY: Who's right on the immigration numbers? Is it Pauline Hanson to say that One Nation could get it down to— the NOM down to 130,000, or David Farley, her MP, who says you need 100,000 on top of that?
DAVE SHARMA: Well, I think this shows that they haven't really thought through the policy yet. I mean, we don't actually know what their what their number is. On some versions of their policy, we'dactually have net emigration— that's more people leaving Australia than coming in. On some versions, we'd have a number that's not dissimilar to what Labor's running now. Now, we've been clear as the Coalition— we want net overseas migration lower, we want it tied to housing approvals and housing completions, and we want to prioritise skills in industries where Australia needs skills.
CHRIS KENNY: OK. Now, Angus Taylor hasn't put a figure on that desired net overseas migration, but Andrew Bragg has, and he says when you look at the housing situation, that would bring it down to about 180,000. Is that the sort of number we're talking about from the Coalition?
DAVE SHARMA: Well, I think we're talking a number that's less than 200,000. I think Angus Taylor's been clear on that. But, I mean, this shows why you need to do some of the detailed work, what we'reseeing with One Nation. I mean, these have— depending on the migration stream you're targeting, they have different economic impacts, they have different budgetary impacts, they'll have different sectoral impacts. So, we want to go through and be quite careful about, you know, making sure that industries aren't disadvantaged because of this. And we've already seen, you know, the Nationals come out about backpackers because they provide a source of important temporary labour. We've also got the New Zealand inflows, which is not really— you know, we don't control because they have free movement of people, but they're counted in net overseas migration. So, it's actually a fair bit of work to work through the detail on this. We will have all that detail done. We will release the figure and it will be fully costed and there won't be any confusion about our policy.
CHRIS KENNY: will be how can you actually deliver it? Because we've seen over recent years Labor promise a projected net overseas migration figure and miss it by as much as 100%.
DAVE SHARMA: Well, that's because a lot of the schemes that Labor's presided over are demand-driven. Now, there are parts because of international obligations. As I said, New Zealand— we can'tcontrol the number of New Zealanders that move here under that. But a number of the working holiday maker visa schemes we can put controls on depending on the level of the agreement, but also the skilled migration, the family reunion. I mean, we can— and the humanitarian intake. Those are all things that the government can control and they can put a finite number on it. And once that visa category is all taken for the year, that's it. You know, the Home Affairs doesn't issue any more.
CHRIS KENNY: I want to switch to the Bondi Royal Commission. I think you have a couple of areas of expertise that are really pertinent here. One, as a former diplomat and former Australian ambassador to Israel, you're across the security issues, but also used to be the member for Wentworth, so you know the area and the community intimately. Your submission to the Royal Commission focused on— among other things, you focused on how ASIO was very slow to increase the national security alert here when what we saw on October 8th with celebrations in the streets of Lakemba and then the celebrations and threats the next night at the Opera House showed us that there was an alarming level of Islamist extremism rising immediately and directed at Jews?
DAVE SHARMA: Look, my experience as someone who's followed these issues closely was any time, including before the Hamas terrorist attacks, when there was an increase in conflict in the Middle East involving Israel, we saw an increase in antisemitism in Australia. Now, what we saw with the Hamas terrorist attacks was obviously of an order that we'd never seen before, and I knew the conflict was going to be of an order we hadn't seen before. So that immediately made me think the Jewish community is going to be at some risk here. And I think there were signs, certainly, from the Opera House protests that that was the case. Now, ASIO— I mean, they've appeared before the Royal Commission. I don't wish to second-judge them or second-guess them, but I think that question is an important one to be asked. In hindsight, was the threat level not raised as quickly as it should? But the more important point I make is, even when ASIO did increase the threat level from possible to probable, Wedidn't seem to see an increase in law enforcement or police activity or arrests and charges, which I would have thought should have followed naturally from that.
CHRIS KENNY: This is what staggered me, and this is why I'll never forgive Anthony Albanese. He didn't go to Lakemba and say that this sort of hatred was not tolerable in this country. He didn't call a summit with Muslim leaders to crack down on this hatred. He didn't call opposition leaders and police commissioners together and talk about stamping out this hatred at the outset. And no one was prosecuted for what looked like hate speech? Wouldn't we— we should have let the courts decide on the existing laws whether or not this was hate speech, and if it wasn't, maybe new laws were needed.
DAVE SHARMA: I think we needed more of this, the salutary use of law enforcement to send a deterrent message. And if the laws were shown to be inadequate, the parliament could have tightened the laws. But we didn't see that. We didn't see arrests made. We didn't see charges laid. We didn't see protests disallowed or disrupted by police. It was all allowed to go ahead. And as a result, I think antisemitism in Australia built up a head of steam which we then proved unable to contain.
CHRIS KENNY: Yeah, so don't you dare protest against vaccine mandates, but anti-Jew hatred, knock yourselves out. It's disgraceful. Just briefly, the Royal Commission, should it be extended? Someone like you would be happy to give evidence?
DAVE SHARMA: Absolutely. And look, this isn't about me, but I think there are a lot of people who have expertise to offer that the Royal Commission Not because of lack of will on their part, but lack of time, has not been able to hear from. And as Chris Minns today said, it's important that we get this right. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
CHRIS KENNY: Spot on. Thanks for joining us, Dave.
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