Peter Dutton says an unprecedented wave of migration will worsen Australia’s housing crisis and leave the nation’s battlers in its wake.
In his budget reply speech on Thursday, the opposition leader queried the decision to allow 1.5 million people to come into Australia over five years, which he described as the highest intake in the nation’s history.
Speaking from Jerrabomberra in NSW on Friday, Mr Dutton said the nation was built on the success of its migrants, but in a housing crisis it had to be managed.
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“We’ve got to recognise that there are a lot of Australians who are really doing it tough,” he told reporters.
“People can’t find rental accommodation now, and they can’t buy a house … you’re bringing 6000 people a week extra in, I just don’t understand where those people are going to live.”
Cabinet minister Jason Clare said the former coalition government was projecting an even higher migration level before it left office, and less investment in housing than that proposed by Labor.
“There’s been a temporary spike because international students are coming back to study at university, but then the projection is less migration under Labor than the Liberal Party,” Mr Clare told Seven.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said the coalition and the Greens were blocking a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund which would provide 30,000 social and affordable homes.
Also as part of his budget reply, Mr Dutton called for JobSeeker recipients to be able to work up to 10 hours a fortnight while receiving the unemployment payment.
“In our country, we’ve got 438,000 job vacancies and over 800,000 people on unemployment benefits, so we want to get them off welfare and into work,” he said.
“It would give them a lot of extra money in their pocket compared to the $40 that the government is offering.”
Mr Dutton declined to commit to supporting Labor’s proposed $2.85 a day lift in JobSeeker payments.
While the opposition backed some budget measures such as tripling the bulk billing incentive and expanding single-parent payments, Mr Dutton said families had received little support.
“The budget hurts working Australians. Worse, it risks creating a generation of working poor Australians,” he said.
Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume said the government had failed to tackle inflation.
“Unless you slay that dragon, well, essentially you’re not governing. You’re not doing your job,” she told ABC TV on Friday.
“If you’re governing for all Australians, you have to tackle the problem at the source not simply the symptoms. The only way to do that is to bring down inflation.”
Mr Dutton doubled down on claims families with children and a mortgage would be $25,000 worse off under the government and said power bills would still rise despite measures in the budget providing energy relief.
© AAP 2023