It goes without saying that Australia is a country with an immigrant character. But just because we always have been and always will be a settler society, doesn't mean that immigration should be anyone, from everywhere, all the time. Right now, sustained record migration is putting downward pressure on wages, upward pressure on housing costs, and serious strain on our social and physical infrastructure. We simply do not have the houses for a half a million newcomers every single year. So what I say to my colleagues in Canberra is that numbers must come down. And we have to make it absolutely clear to every single person who comes here that you have to take seriously the words of the citizenship pledge: “from this time forward, under God, I pledge my allegiance to Australia and its people whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey." Read my remarks to this year's CPAC at The Tony Abbott Newsletter: tonyabbott.au/p/87f3f7d4-dbf…
