22 November 2021, Senate, Canberra, Australia
If you want to champion against discrimination, you don't want One Nation.
One Nation wants autistic children to be taken out of public schools because, and I quote, they're a "strain" on the rest of the class. People don't choose to be autistic. Taking them out of school is discrimination. And One Nation just loves it.
One Nation wants a ban on any immigration from majority-Muslim countries. Even if the person isn't Muslim. People don't choose what country they're born in. That is discrimination. One Nation has no problem with that either.
One Nation is opposed to same-sex marriage. People don't choose to be gay. That is discrimination. One Nation has no issue with that either. One Nation is not a fighter against discrimination. One Nation seeks to profit from it. It's just a fundraising exercise for them.
And that's all this is: this bill is supposed to be about fighting the discrimination of people who haven't been vaccinated against COVID-19. The only people who need protection from discrimination are people who can't receive the vaccination for reasons outside of their control.
They shouldn't be discriminated against, but if you're able to get vaccinated and you choose not to, discrimination is the wrong word. That's not discrimination. You have freedom to make a choice, but if you make a choice, those choices have consequences.
You can't call every consequence a choice - of choice - a discrimination. If you get behind the wheel of a car and drive twice the speed limit, you might be comfortable taking that risk with your safety, but you'd be putting other people's lives at risk and you don't have the right to do that. And you will more than likely lose your license. You are not being discriminated against.
You choose to do something that puts other people's lives at risk. And you will be accountable. You'll be held accountable for that choice. It is that simple. That's what we're talking about here. People who don't get the vaccine, I'm making a choice, you have a choice. We all have choices to make. We all get a choice.
You're making a choice that means you're more likely to get COVID and you're more likely to spread it to someone else. And that is your choice. It is your right. I want to make that clear and I support that choice, but you don't get to decide how the rest of Australia responds to that choice.
You can't force someone else to react a certain way to you because of your freedom to choose. That's not how we do things in this country. We've got freedom of speech in Australia. But you can't stop people reacting to what you say with your freedom of speech. We have a freedom of assembly, but you can't stop the rest of us from calling you out if you're being disruptive and rude. Having the freedom to choose isn't the same as having freedom to avoid the consequences of that choice. Some might say that if you're vaccinated, because you're required to, in order to keep your job, you've been forced to get vaccinated. That's not right. And that's not being truthful at all.
That is not correct. If you want to work with vulnerable people, you need to do a police check. If you want to work with kids, you do have to have a Working with Children check. That is the way it is. And we do that to keep people safe. How bout that? We put others before ourselves. You can decide not to choose those checks.
No one's forcing you, but if you don't do them, you can't work where you want to work. It's as simple as that, that is the way it is. If you want to work as a cabbie you need a license to drive a cab. People without licenses are not being discriminated against. If you want to work in aged care, you need to have a flu vaccine.
That rule has been in place before COVID-19 was even a twinkle in a Chinese bat's eye for goodness' sake. That's the way it is. You have a right to choose. You don't have a right to put vulnerable people's lives at risk. You don't have that right. And so you shouldn't have that right. You don't have the right to go into an aged care home unvaccinated and risk starting a COVID outbreak for the elderly.
I have constituents with autoimmune conditions who run businesses. If they're forced to serve unvaccinated customers, they'll have to choose between risking their lives or shutting down their businesses. You don't have the right to force them to make that choice either. We have pubs in Hobart that will have to close
if a single COVID [positive] person walks into them. Those pub owners should be able to choose to protect themselves and their staff. And they should be able to say, I can't afford to have an unvaccinated person in here. They're already on their knees. They should not be forced to pay for another person's choice not to get the vaccine.
This is the point. Nobody has the right to make someone's life less safe. That's not what freedoms mean. That's not what freedoms mean at all. You had the freedom to make your own choices. Everyone else has the freedom to respond to your choices and you don't get to control that no matter how much you might want to.
Now, I get that some people have a lot of fear about the vaccine. I understand that, for some, putting that needle in your arm is a hard choice to make. It's good to ask questions about how the vaccine was developed, where it comes from and how we know if it's safe. And I've asked plenty of those questions myself.
I put it to the Department of Health. I've put it to the TGA and I wouldn't have it any other way. That's a democratic process in this country. But the problem is politicians like Senator Hanson and Senator Roberts are using people's fear to boost their own election campaigns. And they're using fear to make money.
And that's what this is about from One Nation.
They not being straight with you people out there. Not straight at all. It's all about cash. It's all about power and it's all about One Nation's seats. And that's all this is - a grab for cash and seats from One Nation. I reckon a lot of their supporters would think twice if they saw the absolute hypocrisy of these politicians, these two, honestly. One Nation pretend to be on the side of the people, but they are happy to tell fibs to their own voters.
if it means they can make a quick buck or two. Take an example. Senator Hanson went on Sky News and said that the TGA had published data saying a whole bunch of people had died from COVID-19 vaccine and the journalist pulled her up straight away and told her that's wrong. The journalist called her out for misleading Sky's viewers.
And you know what happened? Senator Hanson backed down. She admitted she had the facts wrong. That she'd have to look at it again. But the next day, the very next day, she went right back to saying the same crap anyway, like nothing had happened. Like that's acceptable behavior in this country. That's leadership, is it, Senator Hanson? My goodness.
I've got things wrong in the past. I accept that and I'll admit it and I'll fix it and I'll move it on. That's how it works. If you get it wrong and say you got it wrong and stand by that. What sort of person accepts they're wrong, but just keeps saying the wrong thing anyway? What sort of person does that?
Let's be clear. I don't want people being forced to get vaccinated. I don't think we should ever do that, but I think there's a world of difference between opposing that and supporting this damn bill. This bill says the freedom of the unvaccinated is more important than the freedom of the vaccinated.
Really?
It says that nine in 10 Australian adults, who have gone out and got the jab, don't get a choice themselves. That we don't have a choice to keep COVID out of our work sites, our aged care homes, our pubs, our cafes, our houses, away from our kids. It says some people should be allowed to make consequence-free decisions.
That some people should be able to yell fire in a crowded room and get away with it. Scot-free. I don't think so. Not on my watch. Here's the thing: being held accountable for your own actions isn't called discrimination. It's called being, you wouldn't believe it, a goddamn, bloody adult. That's right, it's being an adult. It's putting others before yourself.
And that's what this country is supposed to be about.
We don't have lockdowns or border restrictions because state premiers love discrimination. That's rubbish. We have them because state premiers don't want to be - don't want people dying. Because they don't want to be playing Russian roulette with our own people's lives. That's why they doing it. That is why they're doing it.
One Nation is the champion for the right for unvaccinated COVID- carrying mainlanders to get to come to Tasmania and create an outbreak. I don't think so. I don't think so. It's not going to happen under my watch and I doubt very much if it's going to happen under Premier Gutwein's watch. We're not going to stand for it.
One Nation are just the enemy of health workers and officials who would have to clean up after the outbreak. Everybody pays for COVID-19. Every day we have to deal with lockdown and restrictions is a day when a business goes bust, a family breaks down in despair and a person takes their own life. The way out of lockdowns and restrictions is vaccinations, because there is nothing else on the table.
Let's be honest about that.
It's how we protect ourselves. It's how we protect each other. It's how we stand together, it's how we fight back. It is the only weapon we have. We need to do everything we possibly can to keep ourselves safe. Our kids safe. Our grandchildren safe. And our friends and family. That's what we need to do. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. They have to be made.
You are patriots. We should be celebrating vaccinated Australians. You're fighting for our freedoms to take control of our lives again. That's what you're doing and good on you. A proud day for you today and so it should be. Good on you for showing the courage to do so. You're the best we have.
You are the front line fighters and you are displaying the kinds of qualities that make this country the great country it is. Cause that's what it takes: sacrifice.
I was brought up believing in responsibility, to look after people that can't look after themselves, and that nobody owes you anything. So go out and earn what you want. Go out there and earn it. This bill flies in the face of all of that. And that's why I absolutely oppose every, every bit of it.
Jacqui Lambie: 'That's what it's like to be the bottom of the crap pile', Social Services Amendment speech - 2017
23 March 2017, Canberra, Australia
I want to tell you a little bit about my story. I want to tell you very quickly what happened to me when I was medically discharged from the armed forces in 2000. When I was medically discharged, I thought, 'No worries—the Department of Veterans' Affairs will help me get back on my feet and they will look after me.' That did not happen to me. So for me to be able to survive as a single mum with two kids I had no other choice but to go to Centrelink.
I had worked. I had been serving at Rotary tables from the time I was 10. I was working at the speedway at 12 and I had my first job at Kmart when I was 14 years and nine months. I worked in nightclubs and I worked in a supermarket during that time. I took a gap year and went and worked in the real world. That is what I did. So you can imagine what it was like to me, how shameful it felt and how demeaning it was for me, to work my whole life to become a single mum living with two kids and to try to support them on a disability support pension.
During that period, times were tough. There were times when I had to say no to my son, who was great at football, great at athletics and great at basketball, and who had the vantage of being able to represent his state. I told him on two occasions, 'I'm sorry, mate, but you can't go because I can't afford for you to go.' At one stage there he was wearing football boots that were too small for him, from the winter beforehand, because I could not afford to get him some. He had to wait. There were times when I would sit in a corner and cry because I felt so ashamed. For two days, I did not know how I was going to put bread and milk on the table. There was a time when my fridge broke and for three weeks we lived out of an esky. I put the esky under the house, so the ice would last longer. That is what my life was like. There were three occasions where I could not afford my rego—for four weeks one time, six weeks another time and 10 weeks another time—and I drove around without a registered car. On two separate occasions, I drove around without a licence because I could not renew it.
In 2006, I was going bankrupt and I would have lost my family home. I struggled for another 12 months until I went into Nick Sherry's office and begged him to help me to get my super released. Nick Sherry was very good to me—former Senator the Hon. Nick Sherry. He got that money for me within three weeks. But I paid dividends for that, because there are no clauses in there to cover when you are sick or injured or in dire straits. You will still get taxed because you are taking it out early. I lost a great deal of my super. But in the meantime, at least it saved my house. It gave us a little bit more breathing space. Had it not been for the honourable Senator Sherry, then I can assure you, Madam Deputy President Lines, I would have gone bankrupt. That is what my life was like for seven years.
I had to beg and borrow to fight a government bureaucracy in the court system until I won and paid that money back. But I can tell you that I was so far behind by the time that I won that case—and my money was backdated—that my bills had piled up. Seven years on a disability support pension; I sure as hell did not come out in front. This is what it is like. It is not a choice for many of us to be on welfare. It is shameful and it is embarrassing and it is bloody tough. But we do it not because we want to but because circumstances put us there.
This is what it is like, it is not a choice for many of us to be on welfare. It is shameful and it is embarrassing and it is bloody tough. But we do it not because we want to, but because circumstances put us there. For you to take more money off those people, you have no idea how bloody tough it is. Every little cent counts to those people. What you are doing is shameful. If you really realise the damage that you are continually doing to that part of society, you’d stop doing it. I am just asking you, I know you haven’t been through that but there are some of us in here that have and it was difficult during our lives and we’ve paid the price for that through no fault of our own. I just wish you’d reconsider what you’re doing because you know, we’re not living when we’re like that, we’re surviving, we’re in a bloody war zone and we’re surviving. That’s all we are doing, each day we are surviving. We are surviving to put bread on the table. We are surviving to make sure our kids can get the basics in life. We are trying to make sure our kids are better, so our kids can go to decent schools if we want that choice. I was really lucky in some areas and I thank St Brendan-Shaw College who allowed me to, when I got in very difficult situations for three years, to not pay school fees for my children. But they let them stay there. So I want you to know that’s what it’s like to be at the bottom of the crap pile through no fault of our own.