Dan Tehan gets a question and he looks about as happy about it as your boomer uncle being made to acknowledge their non-binary nibling.

In Labor’s cruel hoax of a budget, 1.8 million new arrivals are predicted to live in Australia over a 5-year period. Can the Prime Minister guarantee that this number won’t go beyond two million?

Tehan is in a LOT of trouble in Wannon, where independent candidate Alex Dyson is coming uncomfortably close to Tehan in the polls. We are hearing that Tehan is making A LOT of phone calls all over the place to try and shore up support and stop people from talking about climate. So that sounds fun.

I’m also not sure how something can be a “cruel hoax” and then also condemn Australia to years of economic insecurity, because if it is a hoax and only a “budget for five weeks” then how is it also real and powerful enough to tank the economy for a decade? Do these people own a dictionary?

Tony Burke takes the question but before he gets there the LNP’s Cameron Caldwell gets booted under 94A.

The guarantee is simple that only a Labor Government can return immigration to sustainable levels. And the laughter is loudest from the man who went the other direction in the strongest possible way. (Peter Dutton) Because to get immigration back to sustainable level, we had to first make sure that we were restoring integrity to the system. Because let’s not forget, let’s not forget the way integrity had been taken from the system under those opposite.

Tehan pretends he has a point of order. He does not have a point of order. Much like he does not have a defensible position on wind farms (which he was for, but now is against because he thinks that will win him his seat)

Burke:

To deal with net overseas which the question asks about, you have to go to the components of net migration. The area with the biggest growth was international students. So the net overseas migration, the 31% reduction year on year is a there that this Government has taken action on the unlimited nature of how international student visas were in place.

Now, when it was actually put to the Parliament whether that should be fixed, those opposite, including the shadow minister who just asked the question, didn’t amend the bill to say – oh, maybe it should be a different number. They actually voted for student visas to be unlimited in Australia. Unlimited in Australia. That’s their position and then they want to get up and ask about what will happen with respect to net overseas migration.

There is a gap from a previous speech that the Leader of the Opposition gave, where he claimed a number as to how low he would get net overseas migration. He’s made a couple of announcements to it, but he’s actually still 220,000 places short. 220,000. If you reduced, if you reduced the student visa system to zero, you still would not fix that gap.

You still would not fix that gap. And it’s not surprising that those opposite had no idea about how to run a system that is sustainable with integrity. Because look at what was said with that with how they ran immigration.

A company whose owners were suspected through the ownership of another company of seeking to circumvent US sanctions against Iran.

…Those opposite ran a system in complete disrepair. Complete disrepair. The only visa they said that they would act on is to bring back known for cash visas where you qualify for a visa in Australia on the basis that you’ve got cash and that’s it.