Radio interview with Stephen Hill - 2SER FM

STEPHEN HILL, HOST: In his Budget Reply, the Leader of the Opposition, Angus Taylor, announced that an elected Coalition government would disqualify permanent residents from being able to access welfare programs and also the NDIS. Such a move would disenfranchise many migrants from obtaining the Aged Pension, JobSeeker, Family Tax Benefits and Austudy. I asked the Skills and Training Minister, Andrew Giles, what he thought the impact of changes would be upon the many permanent residents living in Australia. 

ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING: I think before you get to the changes, what we see consistently from Angus Taylor is a refusal to actually engage with solutions to challenges Australia faces, and a focus always on dividing Australians by looking to lay the blame at people. And it was really instructive that one of his own Senators called him out for his divisive rhetoric that he used in his Budget Reply. I know that many Australians are really concerned about this. The Budget Reply speech is normally an opportunity for an alternative Prime Minister to set out their vision for the country, yet we didn't hear anything from Angus Taylor about education, skills, about any plan to grow Australia and realise the potential of Australians. Instead, this dark rhetoric emulating One Nation in what many Australians rightly see as a race to the bottom, not a vision for the future. 

HILL: This announcement continues the Opposition's focus on immigration. There's this talk about permanent migrants not being able to access services. Is there a risk that the Coalition's changes to permanent residency could lead to Australia adopting a two-tiered immigration system, such as countries like Germany, where migrants are not fulsomely welcomed and are merely treated as guest workers? 

GILES: Well, for sure. There's a couple of points to be made here. The first one is modern Australia is a country built on pathways to citizenship and permanency. And one of the challenges that we grappled with in coming into government was that there were very large numbers of Australians kept permanently temporary by conscious policy decisions of the government Mr Taylor was a member of, making it harder for people to get citizenship. This notion of being a guest worker society is something that we in the Labor Party have always rejected and will reject – it is a society which divides people, not one which seeks to bring people together. And for me, I see enormous strength in our diversity. I've just been visiting some apprentices at Ausgrid and it was fantastic to see people from very different backgrounds coming together, learning their trade. That's what I see in Australia each and every day. That's such a strength we have if we choose to realise it. And it's so disappointing that Mr Taylor doesn't recognise that fact of modern Australia. 

HILL: I believe there are several million permanent residents living in Australia and a really big issue are migrants from China, India, Nepal, Singapore and Indonesia who don't have the option of dual citizenship. This would mean that they would be forced to renounce the citizenship from their original country. What would be the consequences of migrants from these countries if the Coalition's immigration policy was enacted? 

GILES: It shows a lack of concern for the reality of the lives of many people in Australia, particularly from the countries you've mentioned. And we've seen so many hurtful and offensive comments from the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party about Chinese Australians, from Shadow Minister Senator Nampijinpa Price about Indian Australians, and this compounds it by not understanding some of the real challenges that go to a person's pathway to citizenship. Decisions made by governments like that of China, which make it very, very difficult for people to continue their engagement with family members overseas. I think understanding that is much more important than stigmatising people for who they are. I mentioned earlier the contribution of Liberal Senator Andrew McLachlan, and I think it's a really important one because the Liberal Party used to stand up for a belief in the individual, for treating people as they are, not by reference to the group they happen to be a member of. They stood proudly against racism. Now we see the Liberal Party treating people differently by reason of their background. We even see the notion of a discriminatory immigration policy floated. 

HILL: In Angus Taylor's speech, we're hearing a lot of what used to be Pauline Hanson's vernacular of mass migration. How much do you think that the Opposition's policy is now merely being dictated by the need of the Coalition to out-Hanson Pauline Hanson? 

GILES: It seems clear that everything Angus Taylor does is driven by his sense of the threat of One Nation to him, not his sense of responsibility to build a stronger Australian nation. You see that in just about every utterance. And it's really disappointing, to use the most neutral term possible, that the Liberal Party the party of people like Robert Menzies, has descended to this level. That it is so addicted, following Pauline Hanson down any rabbit hole whatsoever. 

HILL: A lot of the anti-migrant rhetoric is focused on the increased cost of accessing accommodation, and the Government with its Homes for Australia is aiming to build 1.2 million homes. But one issue that's putting a wrench in the wheels is a lack of qualified tradespeople. As the Skills and Training Minister, can you talk a little bit about the progress you've made to try and accelerate overseas credentials getting recognised? 

GILES: As my friend Minister O'Neil makes clear, the housing challenge that we are confronting today has been a generation in the making. Part of that has been a generational challenge in trade skills. Turning that around is a huge focus of my efforts. Just this morning, I was with my New South Wales counterpart launching a TAFE Centre of Excellence focused on building modern housing skills out in Penrith electorate. We've also got a lot of work to do when it comes to making sure our skilled migration mix is playing a complementary role, not challenging our domestic skilling. We're seeing that through more construction visas being granted. But this Budget has recognised something that has been talked about for a little while, which is we've got to make it clearer and easier for people with skills from overseas to have those skills recognised and used in Australia, so we get the balance between people taking their skills into the labour force more efficiently while maintaining the very high standards that Australians are entitled to expect.

HILL: That was the Skills and Trades Minister, Andrew Giles.