Australia politics live: Malinauskas warns Albanese not to follow One Nation down rabbit hole of migration cuts

Follow the day’s news live ‘We need to explain Australia doesn’t have a migration crisis’: Malinauskas Peter Malinaukas says he understands the concerns of Australians worried about migration and the housing shortage in Australia, but that the answer is politicians need to explain there is a housing crisis not a migration crisis happening. We need to explain that Australia doesn’t really have a migration crisis so much as a housing crisis. If we have a housing crisis, we would do well to focus our skills policy on making sure that we’re bringing in the very workers that we require in the housing construction industry. You know, Australia’s got a massive shortage of almost every trade. Everyone, I think, accepts that it needs to be a well-calibrated, balanced migration program. My point is that we haven’t seen much evidence in the political discourse in this country in the last few years making the case for migration. Just to be seeing be a lot of culture wars being executed against migration. And I think that’s self-defeating, and we’ve got a responsibility to stand up against it. Above all else, [we must] preserve our strong migration program … The correct political response to anti-immigration politics and populists is not appeasement. More troubling is the prospect of mainstream politics entering a political race to the bottom for who can cut migration numbers the most. This is not unfortunate – this is madness. Imagine if we did this to the mining industry, there world be an ad on every television station and mobile phone about how we’re killing the goose that lays the golden egg. It is crazy. Continue reading...