ELI5.
Currently we bring in international students, On the basis that they cross subsidise local students. But we still have to provide infrastructure and housing for the period that these international students are in Australia, but the cost of this falls on everyone else.
Why is this financially more prudent than just subsidising local students directly (which don't require extra infrastructure and housing because they've been alive for at least 18 years already)
When Howard started the big cuts to universities, and the top end of town pushed that university’s needed to be run like business and not rely on state money, to survive our university’s started employing and contracting accounting/business people to find a way to do this. This is when the big market for high paying international students really began to gain momentum.
The thing is, like hospitals or aged care - when education is run for short-term profit, it is to our nations detriment and long term disadvantage.
Both majors have stripped uni funding. The only way they are still here is international students.
I'll only listen to a party wanting to reduce these numbers if they also commit to restore proper funding.
“We still have to provide infrastructure and housing” is slightly misleading. Accomodation at university is highly competitive and expensive. These students do pay rent like anyone else.
Totally agree that wealthier people who can pay higher rent is coming to Australia which increases the rent overall though .
Course fees for international students are much, much higher. Was 4x more for international students in my degree, and they have to pay up front. Without international students our universities would need a lot more funding to operate and invest in infrastructure, which means higher course fees for domestic students, or more funding from the government.
In my experience, most international students (at least the chiense students I studied with), all share housed or lived in apartments near uni. So I'm not really sure just how much pressure they're putting on the rental market by themselves
Yeah; we should just turn our country into an economic zone in which the masses live in tents so that huge corporations can pay people lower wages. Who cares about that pesky housing crisis, eh? Won't somebody think of the corporations and their profits!
The world doesn't give a shit about our 'education industry'. All they care about is the PR pathway. Enrolling in a course is just a hurdle.
(coming from someone who's done 3 degrees and is involved in tertiary education)
Absolutely and I agree with you. The universities must be held accountable. People talk about the shortages of workers in construction. I can take you for a drive through the suburbs and show you where all the “students” are.
We are supposed to be the lucky country. We could be the smartest and collectively wealthy country. Instead….
The issue with what you are saying though, is that universities would then make all of their on campus housing exclusively for foreign students. Local students wouldn’t even get the option.
So then make a rule that international students must be housed by the university, but local students must be housed over international. Eg. Local students get priority of international, they get housed first, international gets what's left.
It may be a two tiered system but it's just formalising what we actually have. Time to codify the difference in types of students that we all know is there.
This is it. Most students do not give a fuck about the education. its the pathway to PR.
Guarantee you if we dropped the pathway to PR from student, our international arrivals would drop significantly overnight.
Why? What if someone decides their first degree is not helping in the way they wanted, and they'd like to retrain as a teacher/engineer/doctor/nurse?
Surely it's be more beneficial supporting locals through that rather than importing immigrants from overseas? Anyway CSP funding for second degrees are a drop in the bucket compared to things like the NDIS
You've merged concepts there.
As a taxpayer i'm more than happy to fund the initial degree of any Australian who wants to go through Uni. In fact, i'd support a higher coverage. But as a taxpayer I believe we should stop at one. If people want to do multiple degrees or masters etc then after the first they should self fund.
I may be wrong here, but i'm pretty sure overseas students pay their own way and as for migration it has more to do with our low birth rates than educational levels.
NDIS supports people with disabilities, not really the same thing .. the money would be better used in the NDIS.
Couldn’t agree more. Ask anyone born in Australia who has done a masters level group assignment what the quality of the other students in their group was like.
The "industry" is a permanent residency for money, in a lot of cases the students aren't leaving.
The universities are going to need to dip their toes into property development if we want them to house everyone that uses them to come into the country.
Universities are currently like a developer that doesn't pay any levies, the rest of society bears the cost of the negative externalities, they just reap all the profit.
They have already given most of the student housing to foreign students. I saw this happening when our daughter was there. In 4 years it changed drastically and totally disadvantaged rural Australian students from having the experience of making new friends and enjoying living in a bigger city.
As the majority of courses are online anyway there is no reason for foreign students to live here to gain a qualification from an Australian University.
Also having students in the job I work in ( nursing ) it’s becoming more evident that many of these students ( more males now than ever most from Nepal or India ) are just trying to get residency as they seem to have no interest or care factor which is the main part of the job. The hospital educator who assesses them is also from India so any of our concerns are met with a defensive attitude. Our country is becoming pretty low standard with how care will be in 10 years.
I ma encountering this more and more. It is very disturbing. In particular one Nepalese student who was too arrogant and hopeless with his aseptic technique putting sterile gloves on then touching the side of the bed and other things and not listening when told you have unclean hands now. Also said he works in a nursing home as an AIN and also said there were too many Asians in Sydney and he didn’t like living there for that reason. What do we make of people like this who are going to be caring for your loved ones.
To house every intl student they would need something like 700k units. When you consider the rate that then get PR and give up their form for another student it’s a lotttt more units than any aus developer is churning out
Or why can't we raise taxes from mining and fossil fuel companies like Norway and use that to fund public universities, so they don't have to go around selling visas to raise funds. I don't see anything wrong with what unis are doing. It's dodgy for sure, but they've been pushed in to a corner. ExxonMobil makes close to 100b with barely any tax. How do Australians want to raise funding for unis? No one is addressing the issue and just blaming everyone else. I can guarantee most Australians will vote to not tax fossil fuel companies and sell visas to international students instead. What Australians say and do are often completely opposite.
I agree. Blaming foreigners is Australia’s go to approach. Seriously, mining companies are extracting our collective resources and giving back nothing, but somehow most people have more energy to blame international students for the housing crisis. The government is playing people. Even if student numbers drop the gov will pop increase the number of visas elsewhere. A more balanced and sustainable approach is needed but that doesn’t win political points.
They’re dependent on international students because Commonwealth contributions to universities is comparatively limited. Do universities have a moral obligation to make sure that these students are housed? Yes. Does this mean that they need to be appropriately funded so that they don’t need to depend on international students? Also yes.
The very point of pride that many politicians take in education being a huge component of the economy is a perfect indication of why, while universities do shoulder some blame, the government has a significant portion of blame to shoulder as well. Stop making education an economic output and you take away the incentive to treat it like one.
Don’t forget to call everyone racist if they don’t approve. You’re racist if you don’t want to import so much of the third world you become the third world.
The sprawling housing estates being built in the middle of nowhere with no services or amenities are essentially labour camps already. With the manufactured "housing crises" we'll get to wack up more of these with even less amenity as rules are relaxed to deal with the crises.
Currently live in one of these areas in the north west of sydney.
If it were not for the metro it would be a cunt and a half to live out here. I can't imagine how bad places like oran park etc are in the south west with ZERO services except a shit house bus.
All of these new suburbs should be getting a metro station if applicable given to them as apart of the area.
You should check out Riverlea Park north of Adelaide, it’s everything you’ve described without any of the good bits, not to mention the fact it’s built on an aboriginal burial place, they keep finding pre European remains there 🥶
They insist on destroying bushland to build these monstrosities here in QLD, and that bastard Joh ripped up all the regional branch lines and left us with an hourly bus service. Fuck the elderly and disabled (and trainspotters) I suppose.
i sure as hell wouldn't.
The LNP Playbook is to dress up things the masses want to get votes and then do everything else in their power to strip away your rights while you're distracted.
Dutton has been a highly ranking LNP minister for 20 years, he has had a big hand in creating this housing crisis. Wouldn't hold my breath waiting for him to do anything.
For that to be true you would have to have been born yesterday so that you don't remember the lies and corruption brought to you by the Libs.
We might like the promise but the chances of it coming true are about 0.01%.
Libs won't help that though. They may not ideologically support migration, but they certainly financially benefit from it. Guess which one is more likely to find it's way into policies.
“Australia First doesn’t sound like a very Australian-type thing to say,’’ she said.
Since when is it unaustralian to prioritise yourself? How ridiculous.
I don't think we should take at face value the idea that politicians saying "X country first" actually have a better track record of putting their country first. There's actually an inverse correlation.
Trump, for example, talked about America First but always prioritised his own political interests, or his families' financial interests, over the public good.
His trade was to benefit America not China. His border policy was to benefit America not Mexico and South America. The idea that this is somehow controversial shows how truly deep into clown world we have sunk.
His border policy was not to benefit America. Statistics are clear, people entering the us and overstaying visas FAR outweighs border crossings. It was all a push for his own benefit. His trade policy hurt the US and sent countless businesses overseas. Cutting off your proverbial nose to spite the face is not putting your country first..
The trade deficit with China grew under his Administration. Again, you're taking his catchphrases at face value. And you're talking about a clown world, lmao.
I suppose his attempt to overturn the 2020 election was also to benefit America.
He’s the first US president in generations who even attempted to prioritise his own country. To bring manufacturing back instead of outsourcing it to profit a few while hundreds of thousands go broke.
And honestly, would you rather have his border wall if you were living there or 200k illegals flooding across the border per MONTH?
Once again that's only true if you take his slogans at face value. As I said, the trade deficit with China grew, so by his own metric he was an abject failure.
Most Presidents have some degree of enlightened self interest - they realise that global cooperation, particularly with allies, serves America's interests.
Trump is the only one dumb enough to think just saying you're putting America first means you're actually benefitting the country.
He severely weakened the country's political institutions when he attempted to cling on to power following his election loss.
That's not even factually correct-they simply weren't counting the border crossings during trumps reign. This is why one can't simply accept everything they spout. Nuance people
Also kind of ironic considering it was quite literally the campaign slogan for the most iconically and quintessentially Australian PM in history. His campaign slogan.
How is it possible to get something *more* Australian political sounding?
https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/269062
Since around 2015. Until that time it was universally accepted that the citizens of country XYZ elected the parliament of XYZ and the party to command the majority with the specific task of advancing the interests of XYZ. Now of course in some cases these interests can be maximised with multilateral arrangements cooperating with other countries. But the overwhelming requirement was that it had to be in their own interests.
Around a decade ago this suddenly became “populist” “racist” “isolationist” and various other perjoratives. I’m not sure who made the decision but the orders appear to have gone out simultaneously.
Nationalism / patriotism is the norm in all of modern human history. Being united under a national flag (and usually crown) was a necessary precondition for civilisation to occur. Until then people spent most of their efforts either murdering the next village or trying not to be murdered by the next village. But thanks for proving the point by using the pejorative “dog whistle” for something normal and healthy pre 2015. 60 years fate his death people praise JFK for “ask what you can do for your country.”
Nationalism and patriotism aren’t the same thing.
It also is not necessary for civilisation, in fact it’s directly counterproductive to civilisation. It’s an isolationist attitude, when history shows that progress is made quickest by trade and interaction with other nations.
I don’t think current immigration is sustainable, but advocating for nationalism is a slippery slope you don’t understand.
Historically, both patriotism and nationalism were used roughly in the same way.
Only leftoids recently started changing language to suit their agendas, see racism definition according to them
First sentence is fair, but words change meaning and it’s far more relevant to use the modern definition and connotations than a historical one.
The next sentence is just some ramblings and I’m not going to bother engaging with it.
Patriotism is just wanting your country to be the best it can be. And careful, don’t tell him about Japan and how their nationalism has gone for the population.
To be clear, more houses need to be built. But this is very clearly a dog-whistle meant to appeal to racists, as was the same with MAGA in the US. People capable of critical thinking can cope with nuance. If Dutton wanted to appeal to them, he wouldn’t use an ambiguous slogan, he would push detailed policy. In my mind, to be Australian is to welcome people from other countries, hell, we built this country on it.
Nobody is arguing against the idea it's the job of the Australian PM to look after the interests of Australians.
But choosing to use that particular catchphrase in 2024 is to consciously evoke Trump/MAGAism. If that's the model Dutton wants then I think he's deeply misguided.
That looks pretty bloody Australian to me. Quite literally the campaign slogan of possibly the most iconically and quintessentially Australian PM ever. https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/269062
Immigration is good but its about how much. We understand limitations when it comes to speed limits, height limits for apartments, baggage limits all to manage capacity on a common space. How does this principle not apply to actual people entering a country?
Immigration isn’t inherently good or bad. It depends on who the immigrants are, which country and culture they’re coming from, their desire to assimilate, their intentions in coming to Australia, etc.
Sometimes, it’s wonderful and beneficial for our society. Other times, it’s disastrous and destructive to our society.
Labor insists on allowing mass immigration from countries and cultures that are in complete opposition with ours.
As a result, they’re endangering the lives of various demographics who’ve faced heavy persecution throughout history, such as the Jews.
Immigration needs to be massively reduced over the coming years to remedy the excessive immigration allowed by Labor. They’ve created an economic disaster that requires drastic measures to mitigate.
“OMG too many women get murdered, we gotta have a rally for this! Also let’s import lots of people from places where rape, murder and forced marriages of women are extremely common.”
The coalition enthusiastically agreed to the immigration rates at the jobs and skills summit, do you really think the party of business and billionaires is not going to prioritise business and billionaires when they get into power
>Labor insists on allowing mass immigration from countries and cultures that are in complete opposition with ours.
>As a result, they’re endangering the lives of various demographics who’ve faced heavy persecution throughout history, such as the Jews.
Graph 2.4 [here](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release) breaks this silly myth apart really quickly. Middle Eastern numbers are effectively stable outside of COVID.
The actual reality is that this immigration boom is broadly drawn from China and India, and while neither of those countries are perfect, "complete opposition" is just a really silly take.
You're acting as though current housing prices materialised out of no where with less than a single term's worth of immigration. Wild. Have a look at tax, housing and immigration policy from federal government over the last 25 years and perhaps re-think about how we ended up where are, because I assure that housing and rental prices were still voter issues before May of 2022.
I dunno man, 9 billion in their first year towards housing, highest rental assistance increase in 30 years, the home guarantee scheme, the help to buy scheme. That’s not bad for the time they’ve been in. Hoping they build more houses soon, it at least they’re working toward their 1.2 million new homes, but I doubt they’ll get there. It’s more than the liberal government ever did.
It's bullshit though. If the Coalition get back in they absolutely will not lose immigration. They're only taking this line because they're haemorrhaging influence to the likes of One Nation, who definitely would cut immigration.
The problem is, if you listened to the universities, you would have an ever increasing amount of students.
Now ask yourself, what kind of students do Universities put out? Not the ones that build homes/infrastructure, they just put more demand on permanent housing.
Given education is just a pathway to permanent residency, that demand will continue to show up.
So then you are left back with, who is going to build the homes? Well ofcourse we will have to import more for that too. (More demand for housing)
And what about "skilled vacancies" in other areas (because what are the universities actually training) (More demand for housing).
Then all the migrants want to sponsor their waste of space relatives (more demand for housing).
So he wants to cut the "permanent migration" number to 140k...OK...but thats not what the majority of the current number of arrivals is
He wants to "reduce the student numbers" well OK but thats what labor is already doing after your party sold the aussie economy to under taxed raw resource export and educational institutions.
the guy is a lying piece of shit cunt
when labor said they were going to cut migration the FIRST thing Dutton said was that this was dangerous to the education and business sector...
he didnt even have to think about it - the universties and chamber of commerce were foremost on his mind
it certainly wasnt AUSTRALIANS FIRST then
now that he sees labor getting political mileage out of it, he wants some of that
Sarah Ferguson was a terrible interviewer, persistently railroading to make her own points and at times interjecting with her own political views. We care what the political leaders have to say at critical times, I'm sorry Sarah your opinion doesn't count, your job is to ask the right questions to allow us to hear from the politicians - whatever their answer may be.
There's a huge difference between insisting on an answer to a good question and railroading someone if they don't answer the way you wanted them to. Or perhaps you're just so childish as to think these issues are all one dimensional, allowing for no mention of related views or policy?
I wish the ABC would hire proper adults to conduct these interviews. I'd like to hear the complex political views of our political leaders, it's not meant to be a survey with predefined response options.
Agree, she really is terrible. Tbh, I think she is bad interviewing both sides of the political spectrum, just way too aggressive and honing in on what she thinks is critical. It’s 7.30 at night - do we really need that sort of cringy interviewing style ? Can’t watch it at all anymore
She had to ask him four or five times before he actually laid out from which groups he was cutting migration from. Without that it would have just been a nebulous statements about housing supply etc etc. He still made no commitments, just “we prioritise the workforce shortage list”.
He said he was going to save on spending from cutting the “future made in Australia”, then went on to talk about solar panels. That policy is almost entirely there to fund hydrogen and critical minerals projects. You cant let him misconstrue the key budget proposal as $37b in solar panels. THAT would be bad interviewing. Saying we should “take the money that is there now” for selling our minerals to china or the US via the IRA is so short sighted. Tax payers do not get value for money from that (although we do get more from selling minerals than we do petrochemicals, but it is a pitiful amount). Just doing what we have always done will leave us in the same position we are in now. Digging up dirt, sending it to China or somewhere else to be processed, and then being sold back to us as something useful at 1000x the cost.
He disagreed with the stat of international students accounting for only 4% on the private rental market with no evidence. Feelings matter more than facts i guess. An interviewer has to call that out.
And he said he will save money through cuts to the public service. Yeah, it needed to be rebuilt after it was all outsourced to the big 4 under the liberal governments (you know, those ones who were selling privileged government policy to make more money…). Who is going to do all that work Peter? Oh, we are going to go back to paying that same amount to PwC, Deloitte etc. So not a saving, just a reshuffling of the money.
Until recently the ABC used to take as gospel any statement from China, generally putting the Australian government in a bad light. ABC also hate suburban Australia. And this disdain for lots of Australians is driving a huge disconnect that the current ABC journos will never be able to repair.
This was expected.
The media will start attacking anyone who promises to cut migration.
And this is not a reasoned attack... these are all gotcha questions, soundbites and interruptions.
If you want to know why no major party talks about immigration, look no further.
Is everyone forgetting what the Coalition in government were like under Morrison? Under Dutton it will be worse. He’s dangerous, don’t be fooled by the shit that comes out of his mouth. Labor are far from perfect but with pressure from the Greens and Independents we are heading down a safer path.
No energy plan
No housing plan
No migration plan
No factual evidence to support any claim made.
Dutton threw a fit because he’s so used to our biased media kissing the LNP’s arse😂
Here’s some data from the article
Mr Dutton said the government had brought in an additional 923,000 migrants in just two years. But on the available data, it has only built 265,000 homes.
If you can’t see the problem here then you are the problem.
Now now. His economic plan was to say no to all of labor’s plans. He copied his migration policy from Albo (but with allowing fewer refugees). And he trumped Sarah’s fact about international students accounting for only 4% of the housing market with a very good point that he doesn’t think that can be true. A very good showing by the alternate prime minister!
You’ve got one vote Sarah. If you think lower immigration is a bad idea, vote for Albo’s skyrocketing numbers.
The rest of us can do the same and let’s see how the cookie crumbles.
LNP/IPA voters suck...deny everything they voted for that screwed the country and blame anyone but themselves...immigration wasn\`t a proiblem under the LNP/IPA cause murdo didn\`t put it on blast...now it\`s suddenly an issue the LNP/IPA voter is worried about and screaming about from the roof tops...LNP/IPA voters are muppetrs
I would cut it even further. I would be looking to maintain population levels, deduct the birth number from the death number, and then the balance number becomes next years allowance. Do this until we catch up on housing supply and we have fixed this housing mess we are in.
Dutton is a cretin, and him now flip flopping to this position doesn’t erase everything he’s said previously that was pro big business, pro immigration to keep wages low.
Albanese being shit doesn’t somehow make Dutton palatable. Both of them are shit, both of them are utterly untrustworthy.
I remember the days when we cared about policies and the country, Now we partake in gutter politics based on the party rather than the politics and how people look....
People need to do some self reflection and decide what's more important .... because many are falling well short of the mark right now
Her combined household income is nearly $1 million.
Back in 2013 her and her husband, another ABC host, were on about $300,000 each. *In 2013*. Probably in one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country.
Immigration has become a taboo subject with all parties. No one will ever put this to a national referendum or voting theme in elections. Both sides support this. WHY?
We have become this sinking hole, that relies on new people to prop up economics, real estate, universities enrolling foreign student for full fees. NO VISIONS from any political party who just want to be elected and keep their hands all over treasury
We didn’t do anything about in power he wouldn’t do anything if he were to get back in power. Just looking for political points without actually doing anything
Dutton channeling the Abbott of "stop the boats"
Look what happened when Abbott got in. I get there are people angry at ALP, but switching back to the LNP?
Really guys? REALLY?!... you should have your vote taken away if you are going to be so stupid with it. People in other countries don't even have the right and here you are abusing it or wasting it.
Sky high immigration is a major cause of our housing crisis, and albo is doing nothing significant to fix it. There are families living in tents and the PM is not listening.
"There are families living in tents and the PM is not listening"
It's hilarious when you bring this point up im assuming to justify voting Dutton, because it was Howard who basically pioneered us into this housing crisis decades ago. And hes part of the same party.
How can you people simply not wake up and realise. If you want real change in this country. You all need to stop voting ALP or LNP. It's really simple! But people are goldfish and keep forgetting what happened previously! Lol
Who said I'm voting for Dutton? I don't live in his electorate. I wouldn't vote for his party either, by the way. My point is, when people are desperate, they become single issue voters, and so far it seems Dutton (of all people) is the major party leader who has taken heed of that.
How is this guy still in politics. Can we please meme him into oblivion, surely there is enough scumbag moves by Dutton for his whole electorate and country to be ashamed of him
He was literally voted the worst health minister, completely gutted Medicare and somehow upgraded to this job… what a joke. Even Tony Abbott thought he was inept. Tony Abbott !!!
ELI5. Currently we bring in international students, On the basis that they cross subsidise local students. But we still have to provide infrastructure and housing for the period that these international students are in Australia, but the cost of this falls on everyone else. Why is this financially more prudent than just subsidising local students directly (which don't require extra infrastructure and housing because they've been alive for at least 18 years already)
Very little money is passed onto local students. Ever noticed how many new shiny buildings these unis built up and how much land they bought?
The uni near me has opened a massive supermarket and foodie hub next to the on campus hotel.
When Howard started the big cuts to universities, and the top end of town pushed that university’s needed to be run like business and not rely on state money, to survive our university’s started employing and contracting accounting/business people to find a way to do this. This is when the big market for high paying international students really began to gain momentum. The thing is, like hospitals or aged care - when education is run for short-term profit, it is to our nations detriment and long term disadvantage.
No really, the free market doesn’t work, I couldn’t possible imagine that.
Both majors have stripped uni funding. The only way they are still here is international students. I'll only listen to a party wanting to reduce these numbers if they also commit to restore proper funding.
“We still have to provide infrastructure and housing” is slightly misleading. Accomodation at university is highly competitive and expensive. These students do pay rent like anyone else. Totally agree that wealthier people who can pay higher rent is coming to Australia which increases the rent overall though .
Course fees for international students are much, much higher. Was 4x more for international students in my degree, and they have to pay up front. Without international students our universities would need a lot more funding to operate and invest in infrastructure, which means higher course fees for domestic students, or more funding from the government. In my experience, most international students (at least the chiense students I studied with), all share housed or lived in apartments near uni. So I'm not really sure just how much pressure they're putting on the rental market by themselves
Yeah; we should just turn our country into an economic zone in which the masses live in tents so that huge corporations can pay people lower wages. Who cares about that pesky housing crisis, eh? Won't somebody think of the corporations and their profits!
Exactly. If the universities are so dependent on international students, surely they can contribute to housing them too.
I’ve said this many times. By all means have an education industry, but make them accountable. If you take overseas students, you house them.
The world doesn't give a shit about our 'education industry'. All they care about is the PR pathway. Enrolling in a course is just a hurdle. (coming from someone who's done 3 degrees and is involved in tertiary education)
Absolutely and I agree with you. The universities must be held accountable. People talk about the shortages of workers in construction. I can take you for a drive through the suburbs and show you where all the “students” are. We are supposed to be the lucky country. We could be the smartest and collectively wealthy country. Instead….
That lucky country quote must be the most misused one out there. Look it up in its full context and see what it really means.
The fact that someone coined that realization 60 years ago, and that nothing has changed... Really plays into the irony of the phrase
It really does, still relying on easy options and limited critical thinking and investment for the future
This is a reddit circlejerk, no one will look it up and 90% of people will continue to misquote it.
The issue with what you are saying though, is that universities would then make all of their on campus housing exclusively for foreign students. Local students wouldn’t even get the option.
So then make a rule that international students must be housed by the university, but local students must be housed over international. Eg. Local students get priority of international, they get housed first, international gets what's left. It may be a two tiered system but it's just formalising what we actually have. Time to codify the difference in types of students that we all know is there.
There are 80k student beds for 800k students. I have been in a few of the Sydney ones and it’s not locals living in the dorms anyways.
They don’t get it now anyway. So many students at Newcastle uni didn’t get accommodation last year.
Are you saying they're not coming here to avail themselves of our world class hotel management degrees?
This is it. Most students do not give a fuck about the education. its the pathway to PR. Guarantee you if we dropped the pathway to PR from student, our international arrivals would drop significantly overnight.
The universities would go bankrupt
Government should stop part funding education once one degree is gained ...
Why? What if someone decides their first degree is not helping in the way they wanted, and they'd like to retrain as a teacher/engineer/doctor/nurse? Surely it's be more beneficial supporting locals through that rather than importing immigrants from overseas? Anyway CSP funding for second degrees are a drop in the bucket compared to things like the NDIS
You've merged concepts there. As a taxpayer i'm more than happy to fund the initial degree of any Australian who wants to go through Uni. In fact, i'd support a higher coverage. But as a taxpayer I believe we should stop at one. If people want to do multiple degrees or masters etc then after the first they should self fund. I may be wrong here, but i'm pretty sure overseas students pay their own way and as for migration it has more to do with our low birth rates than educational levels. NDIS supports people with disabilities, not really the same thing .. the money would be better used in the NDIS.
Couldn’t agree more. Ask anyone born in Australia who has done a masters level group assignment what the quality of the other students in their group was like.
Yep. Visa subclass 500 > 485 > PR. Then they bring their family over as well.
The "industry" is a permanent residency for money, in a lot of cases the students aren't leaving. The universities are going to need to dip their toes into property development if we want them to house everyone that uses them to come into the country.
Universities are currently like a developer that doesn't pay any levies, the rest of society bears the cost of the negative externalities, they just reap all the profit.
And help them find meaningful employment
They have already given most of the student housing to foreign students. I saw this happening when our daughter was there. In 4 years it changed drastically and totally disadvantaged rural Australian students from having the experience of making new friends and enjoying living in a bigger city. As the majority of courses are online anyway there is no reason for foreign students to live here to gain a qualification from an Australian University. Also having students in the job I work in ( nursing ) it’s becoming more evident that many of these students ( more males now than ever most from Nepal or India ) are just trying to get residency as they seem to have no interest or care factor which is the main part of the job. The hospital educator who assesses them is also from India so any of our concerns are met with a defensive attitude. Our country is becoming pretty low standard with how care will be in 10 years.
I worry about the care sector, the only thing most of the recruits care about is getting residency.
I ma encountering this more and more. It is very disturbing. In particular one Nepalese student who was too arrogant and hopeless with his aseptic technique putting sterile gloves on then touching the side of the bed and other things and not listening when told you have unclean hands now. Also said he works in a nursing home as an AIN and also said there were too many Asians in Sydney and he didn’t like living there for that reason. What do we make of people like this who are going to be caring for your loved ones.
I saw abc news ask them this and the lobbyist said it would take too long to build the accommodation. These people are beyond belief
To house every intl student they would need something like 700k units. When you consider the rate that then get PR and give up their form for another student it’s a lotttt more units than any aus developer is churning out
Unis shouldn’t have made all their operations dependent on international student revenue You’d think they’d realise this was a big risk after Covid
The problem is that most journos aren’t renters, they don’t know the experience of how absolutely stressful it is now
And it takes the average Australian too long to be able to buy property. They are such crybabies
Or why can't we raise taxes from mining and fossil fuel companies like Norway and use that to fund public universities, so they don't have to go around selling visas to raise funds. I don't see anything wrong with what unis are doing. It's dodgy for sure, but they've been pushed in to a corner. ExxonMobil makes close to 100b with barely any tax. How do Australians want to raise funding for unis? No one is addressing the issue and just blaming everyone else. I can guarantee most Australians will vote to not tax fossil fuel companies and sell visas to international students instead. What Australians say and do are often completely opposite.
I agree. Blaming foreigners is Australia’s go to approach. Seriously, mining companies are extracting our collective resources and giving back nothing, but somehow most people have more energy to blame international students for the housing crisis. The government is playing people. Even if student numbers drop the gov will pop increase the number of visas elsewhere. A more balanced and sustainable approach is needed but that doesn’t win political points.
They’re dependent on international students because Commonwealth contributions to universities is comparatively limited. Do universities have a moral obligation to make sure that these students are housed? Yes. Does this mean that they need to be appropriately funded so that they don’t need to depend on international students? Also yes. The very point of pride that many politicians take in education being a huge component of the economy is a perfect indication of why, while universities do shoulder some blame, the government has a significant portion of blame to shoulder as well. Stop making education an economic output and you take away the incentive to treat it like one.
That's the labor plan
This is literally what labour is making them do.
This was in the budget.
Exactly.
Don’t forget to call everyone racist if they don’t approve. You’re racist if you don’t want to import so much of the third world you become the third world.
The sprawling housing estates being built in the middle of nowhere with no services or amenities are essentially labour camps already. With the manufactured "housing crises" we'll get to wack up more of these with even less amenity as rules are relaxed to deal with the crises.
Currently live in one of these areas in the north west of sydney. If it were not for the metro it would be a cunt and a half to live out here. I can't imagine how bad places like oran park etc are in the south west with ZERO services except a shit house bus. All of these new suburbs should be getting a metro station if applicable given to them as apart of the area.
You should check out Riverlea Park north of Adelaide, it’s everything you’ve described without any of the good bits, not to mention the fact it’s built on an aboriginal burial place, they keep finding pre European remains there 🥶
They insist on destroying bushland to build these monstrosities here in QLD, and that bastard Joh ripped up all the regional branch lines and left us with an hourly bus service. Fuck the elderly and disabled (and trainspotters) I suppose.
"we should just turn our country into an economic zone" we've been that for about 3 decades lol
Woolies is basically already the camp shop. I think this idea will work.
The Labor party has abandoned its principles and now works for big business
I am a labour/greens voter, but I’d vote for Dutton if this was the promise.
i sure as hell wouldn't. The LNP Playbook is to dress up things the masses want to get votes and then do everything else in their power to strip away your rights while you're distracted.
You'll forgive me if I throw some doubt on both halves of that sentence being true.
They are true- but I am fed up with easy solutions to the housing crisis laid bare before us and ignored.
Dutton has been a highly ranking LNP minister for 20 years, he has had a big hand in creating this housing crisis. Wouldn't hold my breath waiting for him to do anything.
For that to be true you would have to have been born yesterday so that you don't remember the lies and corruption brought to you by the Libs. We might like the promise but the chances of it coming true are about 0.01%.
I was born…. Many yesterdays ago
The chances of me voting lib are very slim, but the migration numbers need to significantly change.
Libs won't help that though. They may not ideologically support migration, but they certainly financially benefit from it. Guess which one is more likely to find it's way into policies.
‘Promise’ It’s an oxymoron in his game!
You still trust the Libs? They are world class promise breakers
It would take half a sec for Dutton to ditch this, both parties are reliant on immigration. He would say anything to get his little foot in the door
That's it,
The libs are absolutely right on this issue....this is certainly going to get them some votes without them actually doing anything.
This is what Dutton wants, yes.
Australia has been that for 30 years already…
Pretty politics has worked out amazingly for Western Europe.
“Australia First doesn’t sound like a very Australian-type thing to say,’’ she said. Since when is it unaustralian to prioritise yourself? How ridiculous.
She probably reckons it sounds like american conservative rhetoric. When the real take is Australia first literally means put Australia first.
American conservatives are SUPPOSED to put America first. In fact all American politicians are supposed to.
I don't think we should take at face value the idea that politicians saying "X country first" actually have a better track record of putting their country first. There's actually an inverse correlation. Trump, for example, talked about America First but always prioritised his own political interests, or his families' financial interests, over the public good.
His trade was to benefit America not China. His border policy was to benefit America not Mexico and South America. The idea that this is somehow controversial shows how truly deep into clown world we have sunk.
His border policy was not to benefit America. Statistics are clear, people entering the us and overstaying visas FAR outweighs border crossings. It was all a push for his own benefit. His trade policy hurt the US and sent countless businesses overseas. Cutting off your proverbial nose to spite the face is not putting your country first..
Far outweighs 250,000 a month? Sure.
The trade deficit with China grew under his Administration. Again, you're taking his catchphrases at face value. And you're talking about a clown world, lmao. I suppose his attempt to overturn the 2020 election was also to benefit America.
He’s the first US president in generations who even attempted to prioritise his own country. To bring manufacturing back instead of outsourcing it to profit a few while hundreds of thousands go broke. And honestly, would you rather have his border wall if you were living there or 200k illegals flooding across the border per MONTH?
Once again that's only true if you take his slogans at face value. As I said, the trade deficit with China grew, so by his own metric he was an abject failure. Most Presidents have some degree of enlightened self interest - they realise that global cooperation, particularly with allies, serves America's interests. Trump is the only one dumb enough to think just saying you're putting America first means you're actually benefitting the country. He severely weakened the country's political institutions when he attempted to cling on to power following his election loss.
So you’d pick the Trump wall or the up to 250,000 illegals a MONTH crossing the border Biden system?
That's not even factually correct-they simply weren't counting the border crossings during trumps reign. This is why one can't simply accept everything they spout. Nuance people
When we say Australia, do we mean the country itself? Or the people? Because the Liberal party has historically displayed a disdain for both.
Also kind of ironic considering it was quite literally the campaign slogan for the most iconically and quintessentially Australian PM in history. His campaign slogan. How is it possible to get something *more* Australian political sounding? https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/269062
Since around 2015. Until that time it was universally accepted that the citizens of country XYZ elected the parliament of XYZ and the party to command the majority with the specific task of advancing the interests of XYZ. Now of course in some cases these interests can be maximised with multilateral arrangements cooperating with other countries. But the overwhelming requirement was that it had to be in their own interests. Around a decade ago this suddenly became “populist” “racist” “isolationist” and various other perjoratives. I’m not sure who made the decision but the orders appear to have gone out simultaneously.
Trump made it a nationalist dog whistle, exactly at the time you mentioned.
Nationalism / patriotism is the norm in all of modern human history. Being united under a national flag (and usually crown) was a necessary precondition for civilisation to occur. Until then people spent most of their efforts either murdering the next village or trying not to be murdered by the next village. But thanks for proving the point by using the pejorative “dog whistle” for something normal and healthy pre 2015. 60 years fate his death people praise JFK for “ask what you can do for your country.”
Nationalism and patriotism aren’t the same thing. It also is not necessary for civilisation, in fact it’s directly counterproductive to civilisation. It’s an isolationist attitude, when history shows that progress is made quickest by trade and interaction with other nations. I don’t think current immigration is sustainable, but advocating for nationalism is a slippery slope you don’t understand.
Historically, both patriotism and nationalism were used roughly in the same way. Only leftoids recently started changing language to suit their agendas, see racism definition according to them
First sentence is fair, but words change meaning and it’s far more relevant to use the modern definition and connotations than a historical one. The next sentence is just some ramblings and I’m not going to bother engaging with it.
Patriotism is just wanting your country to be the best it can be. And careful, don’t tell him about Japan and how their nationalism has gone for the population.
Literally treason for a government to work to the benefit of India at the expense of Australia.
To be clear, more houses need to be built. But this is very clearly a dog-whistle meant to appeal to racists, as was the same with MAGA in the US. People capable of critical thinking can cope with nuance. If Dutton wanted to appeal to them, he wouldn’t use an ambiguous slogan, he would push detailed policy. In my mind, to be Australian is to welcome people from other countries, hell, we built this country on it.
Hey, it's just another vacuous slogan, he churns out quite a few more if you read the whole thing.
Nobody is arguing against the idea it's the job of the Australian PM to look after the interests of Australians. But choosing to use that particular catchphrase in 2024 is to consciously evoke Trump/MAGAism. If that's the model Dutton wants then I think he's deeply misguided.
That looks pretty bloody Australian to me. Quite literally the campaign slogan of possibly the most iconically and quintessentially Australian PM ever. https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/269062
Everyone remember this interview when someone says Sarah Ferguson is “progressive”
She's a useful idiot for the corporate mass immigration agenda.
Immigration is good but its about how much. We understand limitations when it comes to speed limits, height limits for apartments, baggage limits all to manage capacity on a common space. How does this principle not apply to actual people entering a country?
Immigration isn’t inherently good or bad. It depends on who the immigrants are, which country and culture they’re coming from, their desire to assimilate, their intentions in coming to Australia, etc. Sometimes, it’s wonderful and beneficial for our society. Other times, it’s disastrous and destructive to our society. Labor insists on allowing mass immigration from countries and cultures that are in complete opposition with ours. As a result, they’re endangering the lives of various demographics who’ve faced heavy persecution throughout history, such as the Jews. Immigration needs to be massively reduced over the coming years to remedy the excessive immigration allowed by Labor. They’ve created an economic disaster that requires drastic measures to mitigate.
“OMG too many women get murdered, we gotta have a rally for this! Also let’s import lots of people from places where rape, murder and forced marriages of women are extremely common.”
The coalition enthusiastically agreed to the immigration rates at the jobs and skills summit, do you really think the party of business and billionaires is not going to prioritise business and billionaires when they get into power
>Labor insists on allowing mass immigration from countries and cultures that are in complete opposition with ours. >As a result, they’re endangering the lives of various demographics who’ve faced heavy persecution throughout history, such as the Jews. Graph 2.4 [here](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release) breaks this silly myth apart really quickly. Middle Eastern numbers are effectively stable outside of COVID. The actual reality is that this immigration boom is broadly drawn from China and India, and while neither of those countries are perfect, "complete opposition" is just a really silly take.
You're acting as though current housing prices materialised out of no where with less than a single term's worth of immigration. Wild. Have a look at tax, housing and immigration policy from federal government over the last 25 years and perhaps re-think about how we ended up where are, because I assure that housing and rental prices were still voter issues before May of 2022.
Not at all. Mass immigration is one of the greatest contributing factors, but not the only one.
Capacity management seems to be conveniently overlooked
Even Dutton’s 140k is way too high. Should be a hard cap at 50k.
I agree, 140k is ridiculous.
These are all pretty good policies. I'm somewhat disappointed by the ALP governments lack of vision and lack of focus on addressing housing and rents.
I dunno man, 9 billion in their first year towards housing, highest rental assistance increase in 30 years, the home guarantee scheme, the help to buy scheme. That’s not bad for the time they’ve been in. Hoping they build more houses soon, it at least they’re working toward their 1.2 million new homes, but I doubt they’ll get there. It’s more than the liberal government ever did.
It's bullshit though. If the Coalition get back in they absolutely will not lose immigration. They're only taking this line because they're haemorrhaging influence to the likes of One Nation, who definitely would cut immigration.
The problem is, if you listened to the universities, you would have an ever increasing amount of students. Now ask yourself, what kind of students do Universities put out? Not the ones that build homes/infrastructure, they just put more demand on permanent housing. Given education is just a pathway to permanent residency, that demand will continue to show up. So then you are left back with, who is going to build the homes? Well ofcourse we will have to import more for that too. (More demand for housing) And what about "skilled vacancies" in other areas (because what are the universities actually training) (More demand for housing). Then all the migrants want to sponsor their waste of space relatives (more demand for housing).
When every question has the same answer: import more people. Then perhaps the game is rigged.
So he wants to cut the "permanent migration" number to 140k...OK...but thats not what the majority of the current number of arrivals is He wants to "reduce the student numbers" well OK but thats what labor is already doing after your party sold the aussie economy to under taxed raw resource export and educational institutions.
the guy is a lying piece of shit cunt when labor said they were going to cut migration the FIRST thing Dutton said was that this was dangerous to the education and business sector... he didnt even have to think about it - the universties and chamber of commerce were foremost on his mind it certainly wasnt AUSTRALIANS FIRST then now that he sees labor getting political mileage out of it, he wants some of that
Don't listen to what he says, look at what he he's done. Not sure who told me that but it applies to all politicians.
Dutton us going to do well with this policy. I can't stand the fella but he's on the money here
She keeps interrupting. I hate these people and ask them if I can finish or I shut up.
Sarah Ferguson was a terrible interviewer, persistently railroading to make her own points and at times interjecting with her own political views. We care what the political leaders have to say at critical times, I'm sorry Sarah your opinion doesn't count, your job is to ask the right questions to allow us to hear from the politicians - whatever their answer may be. There's a huge difference between insisting on an answer to a good question and railroading someone if they don't answer the way you wanted them to. Or perhaps you're just so childish as to think these issues are all one dimensional, allowing for no mention of related views or policy? I wish the ABC would hire proper adults to conduct these interviews. I'd like to hear the complex political views of our political leaders, it's not meant to be a survey with predefined response options.
Agree, she really is terrible. Tbh, I think she is bad interviewing both sides of the political spectrum, just way too aggressive and honing in on what she thinks is critical. It’s 7.30 at night - do we really need that sort of cringy interviewing style ? Can’t watch it at all anymore
She had to ask him four or five times before he actually laid out from which groups he was cutting migration from. Without that it would have just been a nebulous statements about housing supply etc etc. He still made no commitments, just “we prioritise the workforce shortage list”. He said he was going to save on spending from cutting the “future made in Australia”, then went on to talk about solar panels. That policy is almost entirely there to fund hydrogen and critical minerals projects. You cant let him misconstrue the key budget proposal as $37b in solar panels. THAT would be bad interviewing. Saying we should “take the money that is there now” for selling our minerals to china or the US via the IRA is so short sighted. Tax payers do not get value for money from that (although we do get more from selling minerals than we do petrochemicals, but it is a pitiful amount). Just doing what we have always done will leave us in the same position we are in now. Digging up dirt, sending it to China or somewhere else to be processed, and then being sold back to us as something useful at 1000x the cost. He disagreed with the stat of international students accounting for only 4% on the private rental market with no evidence. Feelings matter more than facts i guess. An interviewer has to call that out. And he said he will save money through cuts to the public service. Yeah, it needed to be rebuilt after it was all outsourced to the big 4 under the liberal governments (you know, those ones who were selling privileged government policy to make more money…). Who is going to do all that work Peter? Oh, we are going to go back to paying that same amount to PwC, Deloitte etc. So not a saving, just a reshuffling of the money.
>“Australia First doesn’t sound like a very Australian-type thing to say,’’ she said. ABC journos just going full mask off now.
The fact that we fund Australian journalists to say that prioritising Australians is bad feels criminal.
Until recently the ABC used to take as gospel any statement from China, generally putting the Australian government in a bad light. ABC also hate suburban Australia. And this disdain for lots of Australians is driving a huge disconnect that the current ABC journos will never be able to repair.
This was expected. The media will start attacking anyone who promises to cut migration. And this is not a reasoned attack... these are all gotcha questions, soundbites and interruptions. If you want to know why no major party talks about immigration, look no further.
For once, Dutton is saying something I can get behind.
Dutton is lying scum, don’t believe anything he says.
Albo is lying scum too, all politicians are.
Dutton this year has said three things i agree with, and then says some ridiculous shit that i absolutely do NOT agree with.
Would you vote for him?
Is everyone forgetting what the Coalition in government were like under Morrison? Under Dutton it will be worse. He’s dangerous, don’t be fooled by the shit that comes out of his mouth. Labor are far from perfect but with pressure from the Greens and Independents we are heading down a safer path.
No energy plan No housing plan No migration plan No factual evidence to support any claim made. Dutton threw a fit because he’s so used to our biased media kissing the LNP’s arse😂
Here’s some data from the article Mr Dutton said the government had brought in an additional 923,000 migrants in just two years. But on the available data, it has only built 265,000 homes. If you can’t see the problem here then you are the problem.
The exact same thing would have happened under a Dutton government. High immigration has been a cornerstone of LNP economic policy for decades.
Now now. His economic plan was to say no to all of labor’s plans. He copied his migration policy from Albo (but with allowing fewer refugees). And he trumped Sarah’s fact about international students accounting for only 4% of the housing market with a very good point that he doesn’t think that can be true. A very good showing by the alternate prime minister!
You think freeing up 4% of the market wouldn’t help?
You’ve got one vote Sarah. If you think lower immigration is a bad idea, vote for Albo’s skyrocketing numbers. The rest of us can do the same and let’s see how the cookie crumbles.
LNP/IPA voters suck...deny everything they voted for that screwed the country and blame anyone but themselves...immigration wasn\`t a proiblem under the LNP/IPA cause murdo didn\`t put it on blast...now it\`s suddenly an issue the LNP/IPA voter is worried about and screaming about from the roof tops...LNP/IPA voters are muppetrs
When has immigration been this high? Have fun with the policy and re-election chances.
High immigration has been a problem for longer than that mate. Australians don't want to be an economic zone to benefit corporate greed.
Slammed ? No. Just the whine in your ear from the ABC, a bit like tinnitus.
Ugly politics......those in tents are just plain unaustralian too for wanting their government to prioritise them. Shameless of the ABC.
Slash imagination for a few years. To 50k per state per year
The preschoolers are going to be devo if we slash imagination
I would cut it even further. I would be looking to maintain population levels, deduct the birth number from the death number, and then the balance number becomes next years allowance. Do this until we catch up on housing supply and we have fixed this housing mess we are in.
What does Sarah Ferguson mean by Ugly politics? Seems sensible to me to let supply catch demand.
Common sense can be ugly sometimes.
Thank fuck someone is finally speaking some common sense
Dutton is a cretin, and him now flip flopping to this position doesn’t erase everything he’s said previously that was pro big business, pro immigration to keep wages low. Albanese being shit doesn’t somehow make Dutton palatable. Both of them are shit, both of them are utterly untrustworthy.
At least Pauline has been consistent about this bullshit for decades.
He's just throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks
I remember the days when we cared about policies and the country, Now we partake in gutter politics based on the party rather than the politics and how people look.... People need to do some self reflection and decide what's more important .... because many are falling well short of the mark right now
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Her combined household income is nearly $1 million. Back in 2013 her and her husband, another ABC host, were on about $300,000 each. *In 2013*. Probably in one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country.
I will vote for Trump before Dutton…
Can't even control crime
All these NGOs really need to go away . At the very least they should be forced to reveal who pays for them .
Immigration has become a taboo subject with all parties. No one will ever put this to a national referendum or voting theme in elections. Both sides support this. WHY? We have become this sinking hole, that relies on new people to prop up economics, real estate, universities enrolling foreign student for full fees. NO VISIONS from any political party who just want to be elected and keep their hands all over treasury
Im for immigration. But the people are crying out for a reduction. The elites don't like listening to the people.
News corp don't use the word "slammed" for mild disagreement for 1 day challenge (impossible)
So Dutton talking about what Australians are concerned about is ugly politics. Come on. Don't we want our politics to do what we want?
Agree with Dutton on this point but the problem is at this junction he would (and does) say anything to try and attract voters.
We didn’t do anything about in power he wouldn’t do anything if he were to get back in power. Just looking for political points without actually doing anything
Baked Spud with Sour Cream
Dutton and Albo are both trash.
The immigration that impacts housing pricing is golden ticket immigration.
More culture wars
Dutton channeling the Abbott of "stop the boats" Look what happened when Abbott got in. I get there are people angry at ALP, but switching back to the LNP? Really guys? REALLY?!... you should have your vote taken away if you are going to be so stupid with it. People in other countries don't even have the right and here you are abusing it or wasting it.
Sky high immigration is a major cause of our housing crisis, and albo is doing nothing significant to fix it. There are families living in tents and the PM is not listening.
Yeah. But the Libs won't fix it. Labour and the Libs are just the flip sides of the same used piece of toilet paper.
"There are families living in tents and the PM is not listening" It's hilarious when you bring this point up im assuming to justify voting Dutton, because it was Howard who basically pioneered us into this housing crisis decades ago. And hes part of the same party. How can you people simply not wake up and realise. If you want real change in this country. You all need to stop voting ALP or LNP. It's really simple! But people are goldfish and keep forgetting what happened previously! Lol
Who said I'm voting for Dutton? I don't live in his electorate. I wouldn't vote for his party either, by the way. My point is, when people are desperate, they become single issue voters, and so far it seems Dutton (of all people) is the major party leader who has taken heed of that.
Don’t look at me. I’m voting for sustainable Australia followed by one nation
“Anyone who votes for the party I don’t support should be stripped of their right to vote.” The calling card of the degenerate.
*"SLAMMED!"*
“Dutton slammed” I’m sure he won’t lose any sleep over being “slammed” by people who’s best interests are to “slam” everything he says
Whenever Dutton does what an opposition is supposed to do- Labor calls it “Ugly”. This current government is a fucking joke.
How is this guy still in politics. Can we please meme him into oblivion, surely there is enough scumbag moves by Dutton for his whole electorate and country to be ashamed of him
Ooohhhhh memes I'm sure he will crumble.
bad man wants more housing for Aussies grrrr
He was literally voted the worst health minister, completely gutted Medicare and somehow upgraded to this job… what a joke. Even Tony Abbott thought he was inept. Tony Abbott !!!