Jane Hume calls on One Nation to release modelling behind migration plan

0:00In one action is releasing this migration policy. It comes as the Prime Minister held two meetings with the Opposition Leader last week, as the Federal Government tries to reach consensus on its own migration policy, which is yet to be released. Jane Hume is deputy leader of the Opposition, Shadow Minister for Productivity, deregulation, employment and industrial relations. I spoke to her a short time ago. Good to be with you, Sally. Let's start with immigration. One nation has released a migration policy this morning with a student visa cap of 100,000, a graduate visa cap of 20,000 and limits on partner visas and so-called visa hopping. Our students and partner visas, the same areas that the coalition is planning to target in its own policy. Well, let's start by saying that we agree that standards have been too low and numbers have been too high and Angus Taylor has been saying that about our migration program.

1:00Since he became leader under Labor, we've seen the migration program run out of control. They've missed their own targets each and every year and something has to change. My concern with what we've seen this morning from one nation is it's simply headline numbers without any detail of the modeling that's underneath it, because we know that if you get your migration program wrong, well then all Australians will pay a price. And even already today, economists have come out and said that potentially with the numbers that one nation are throwing around, you could send the economy into recession. And that means everybody will end up paying for a poorly thought through migration policy. Now, Labor has to release its modeling, its migration policy. The coalition will do the same. I think one nation should be expected to do so too. Why has one nation got ahead of the opposition again on another policy area? Well, I wonder whether it's because they haven't done the work underneath it. This is a very important policy.

2:02There are a lot of moving parts. And migration, can we be honest here, has been a really important part of Australia's economic success story for decades, for decades. And in the last couple of years, it's been the only thing that has underpinned our growth. In fact, GDP per capita per person has gone backwards in the majority of quarters that Labor has been in government. So getting this right is really important, but it is only one piece of the economic puzzle. We need to make sure that we also drive productivity if we're going to have sustainable economic growth. Last week, the opposition leader Angus Taylor met with the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to discuss migration policy. A health minister, Mark Butler, says there are productive talks taking place. Is that how you would describe them? Well, it seemed that there were a number of things that we had proposed to the government that they simply have refused to adopt. We've been pretty clear. We want to make sure that we link our migration numbers to the number of houses that are built,

3:05that the housing minister should come to Parliament each year and announce the number of new houses that have been built. And that will then put a cap on the number of people that can come to the country. But the mix of your migration policy is just as important. And getting that right to make sure that you don't push the country into recession is really important. Is the opposition's position on migration closer to Labor or one nation? I'm not going to get into the details of the policy. It will be announced in due course, and I would imagine very soon. The minister, a appropriate shadow minister, John O'Donnell, has been already been out today, saying exactly that, and I don't want to preempt any announcement that the coalition will make. But what I will say is that we are acutely conscious that if you get this wrong, every Australian will pay. We want to make sure that we have a robust, effective, sustainable migration policy. But we want to make sure also that we're bringing the right people to the country that are going to contribute to our economy.

4:05It contribute to our society and assist it to grow and to flourish. How important do you think it is for all political parties to be aware of the way in which they're discussing migration? Having a robust discussion about its economic implications and so on, but not demonising migrants? It's profoundly important. Profoundly important, I think every Australian family, almost every Australian family, has a great migration story in its history. And it's something that we should be really proud of, really proud of. But making sure that we get a future policy right is also profoundly important. Separately on a separate issue, Trade Minister Don Farrell has called on Senator Pauline Hanson to apologise over comments that Senator Hanson made about the late mother of the Prime Minister, Anthony Urbanese, criticising Mr. Urbanese's mother for spending period of time living in public housing. Should Senator Hanson apologise in your view? Yeah, I think that these comments were gratuitous and unnecessary.

5:08And the idea that you would disparage people that have grown up in social housing, I think is a little distasteful. I mean, it doubles down on the fact that Senator Hanson has also disrespected our veteran community with her atrocious comments about Andrew Haiste in that cartoon, calling a veteran a traitor, I think is possibly the worst thing you can do. But this does seem to be a common theme in one nation now that I do that, that's unnecessarily provocative rhetoric. Let's go to digital duty of care. A communications minister, Annika Wells, said yesterday, should be willing to change the draft laws to allow Parliament to decide on new areas of harm rather than the Minister alone. But she noted the intent of the Propos ministerial power to determine what constitutes serious harm is about acting with urgency. Let's have a listen. Now, if the coalition has a different way of meeting that intent of dealing with urgency to address new serious harms, I'd love to hear it.

6:11But I haven't had so much as a phone call from the Shadow Communications Minister on the exposure draft. Does the coalition have any suggested amendments that would address its concerns about the ministerial powers to determine new online harms? Well, let me take a step back and say that we are very supportive of making children safer online. In fact, the under 16 social media ban was an initiative of a coalition in the last term of Parliament. But we very much oppose Labour's exposure draft in its current form. We do believe it goes too far. We think it gives the communications minister very, very broad powers to define categories of harmful content and regulate those online services. And even if you agree with the current Minister and giving her those powers, you have to, of course, extrapolate out to future governments and future ministers. We think that that is inappropriate, that it is potentially an opportunity, a blank check

7:11to regulate free speech and lawful online free speech. We are very uncomfortable with that. Jan Hume, thank you for joining me this morning. Great to be with you, Sally.