Mr KERR(10.54 a.m.) —The Migration Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 1996 seeks to extend the migration agents registration scheme by another 12 months, to 21 September 1997. The opposition supports the bill and supports its exemption from the Senate cut-off rule. The Labor government had before parliament in 1995 an almost identical bill to extend the same scheme by one year, while awaiting a report from the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. The then coalition opposition held up the passage of that bill to a point where the MAR scheme was at risk of collapse. Without wishing to impute any motive at the time, because the bill was part of a package of other measures, I think it was really quite mischievous that that bill was not allowed to go forward, even after the then government proposed that it could be severed from those other measures.

The coalition participated fully in the standing committee which reviewed the scheme. The then shadow minister, Senator Short, was on the committee and fully endorsed the recommendations in the report entitled Protecting the vulnerable?: the Migration Agents Registration Scheme, which was published in May 1995. Since that time, the government has changed. I would simply make the point that, given that Senator Short and the coalition were part of that review process, there ought to be no significant need for further delay in terms of responding to the report. The coalition ought to be well placed to make a decision in relation to improvements to the scheme and to respond to the recommendations in the standing committee's report.

Nonetheless, we think it appropriate that the government be permitted 12 months in which to review its position and to make some judgments as to what courses of action it would regard as most appropriate in this area. But, in terms of some of the recommendations made by the joint standing committee, particularly those that were directed towards protecting the vulnerable, we would hope that it would not wait a full 12 months to respond. It is quite open for the government to respond much more quickly on many of those matters, I believe. I would certainly be happy to have discussions with the minister in relation to cooperating to ensure that we are able to address, without any delay, those practical areas in which we may have agreement. That would be the way in which we would intend to deal with this bill.

I should perhaps take just a couple of minutes, however, to respond to some comment in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning and the publication of a poll on attitudes to migration. I do so only because I think it is important to realise that polls of this nature have been held frequently over the last couple of decades and results of the kind that have been published in the Sydney Morning Herald are not unfamiliar to anybody who has been following the debate in this area.

I agree with the conclusions drawn in the editorial of the Sydney Morning Herald, but what I find particularly reassuring is the strong support amongst the Australian community for the processes of multiculturalism that have been established in this country and also the fact that, where concern is expressed about the level of migration, it is overwhelmingly driven by concern about issues of employment rather than by any sense of racism. I think that is very reassuring for the Australian community, because there are some who would take the crude measures in that poll and seek to divide our society.

We are a society that has made a success of having many people from many different backgrounds settling in this country and making it their home. In truth, we have no option but to continue to make that a success. There are now something like 3½ million Australians of non-English speaking background as part of the postwar settlement of this country. They and their families are here as a fact of life in the Australian landscape. Governments of any persuasion, in truth, have no alternative but to devise policies of access and equity—policies that are designed to enable this great social change that has occurred in our country to go forward as a success. If we allow it to fail, then we tear our own society apart. That, of course, is not something that anyone could countenance.

I think it is important to make those short comments about the poll in the Sydney Morning Herald, to realise that it says nothing that we would not have discerned from polls held over the last 20 years and to reinforce the need for continuing multipartisanship on these issues of fundamental importance to our country. I must say that that consensus is fraying a bit around the edges. There are issues which are deeply dividing the parties at the moment regarding some of the policy initiatives of the new government.

For my part I would seek to heal those divisions as far as possible and, whilst strongly criticising particular measures that the new government makes, adhere to the view that it is in our interests as a nation that we work together to ensure the success of this great social experiment which Australia embarked on after the end of World War II when it began a process of substantial migration which has continued up until the present day.

Finally, contrary to many public understandings, levels of migration into Australia at the moment are at historically very low levels. It is important to realise that. There is a substantial debate amongst many people of academic standing to the effect that migration is a net employment generator, that it is an important source of economic growth and renewal for the Australian economy.

But I suppose it is fair to say that, in times when there are relatively high levels of unemployment, that is a hard message to sell. There is an intuitive gut understanding in many Australians who resent people coming into the country when their own children face difficulties in finding employment. These are issues that we need to address seriously and straightforwardly with the Australian community. For my part, as shadow minister for immigration and assistant to the Leader of the Opposition on multicultural affairs, I intend to do that.