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.
Russell Broadbent: 'I listened to the Member for Dawson deliver what amounted to a diatribe about the rise of Islam in this country', speech against Islamophobia - 2016
7 November 2016, Parliament House, Canberra, Australia
Deputy Speaker, the House of Representatives I first entered in 1990, I realise with the benefit of that wonderful thing called hindsight, was a different kind of place to what it is now. For one thing, words still mattered, speeches mattered, mattered enough for members to actually listen to them. To react to them, to engage in real debate, sometimes what was said in the chamber even was reported. Alas, those days when parliamentary proceedings were seen as more than today’s daily televised sideshow of Question Time have passed.
But out of nostalgia, this traditionalist persisted with one sliver of those former ways. With each new parliament I listen with interest to what apparently it is now appropriate to call first, rather than maiden, speeches. They provide great insights into colleagues, their history, their hopes, their aspirations.
So it was in the last day in the last session in September that I sat in the chamber during the adjournment debate, waiting to speak on some of the remarkable first speeches delivered earlier in the day. I had prepared to congratulate new members on what was some marvellous, sometimes entertaining, and sometimes very moving addresses. But Mr Speaker, as I sat waiting for your call, my spirit of good humor evaporated as I listened to the Member for Dawson deliver what amounted to a diatribe about the rise of Islam in this country. The member’s speech was replete with generalisations, there were appeals to fear and prejudice that appalled me.
My instinct was to at the very least disassociate myself at the first opportunity. I should have remembered the advice John Stuart Mill gave 110 years ago: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing”. That I did nothing, said nothing when my turn on the adjournment did come, is not something I can be proud of. Controlling my tongue on the basis that saying what I thought would only result in the Member for Dawson receiving more attention than his contribution deserved, was not the right thing to do. Nor was worrying that differences between Coalition members would be exploited by our political foes. That had been the response of other members in this and the other chamber to another provocative speech that week from a new senator from Queensland. She too played on the fears of those Australians feeling economic and social exclusion. She too made those bogus claims that Australia was in danger of being swamped by Muslims. Dangerous Muslims who were arriving with their violent extremism. Dangerous Muslims who did not share Australian values. Same speech, different house.
My silence on the adjournment that night did not prevent the views of the senator and the Member for Dawson being widely circulated. It did not stop their words from further inflaming the views of the prejudiced. It did not stop the government’s opponents from exploiting the unfortunately different views that exist on my side of politics.
Speaker, during the break, I thought long and hard about how to respond to those that encourage division. How to respond to those who exploit fear and the vulnerable and disillusioned for political gain. How to respond to the Member for Dawson. How to politely point out to the prime minister that a man who holds office in the Turnbull government seemingly has views that are at odds with his own description of our country given in New York recently by the prime minister, when he said, “we are not defined by race, religion, or culture, but by shared political values of democracy, rule of law, equality of opportunity, and a fair go.” Noble sentiments. Good sentiments, repeated in the parliament when the prime minister and leader of the opposition spoke as one on the issue. The kind of sentiments that should have replaced my silence.
Speaker, it was a long and lonely walk before the penny dropped as to why I had not called out the Member for Dawson on the spot. The issues swirling in our multicultural nation for me are public, passionate, but for me, they are not personal. The truth is I didn’t act as I should have because I am not Muslim, Chinese, Afghan, Greek, or Greek-looking, nor Italian, nor Sri Lankan, nor Sudanese. Not Aboriginal.
I might have noted in that adjournment speech that the Member for Chisholm Julia Banks spoke passionately about the little girl who was called a “wog” and how she had to go home and grab her brother’s dictionary and look up what wog meant and then deal with the pain of others seeing her as different because of her darker skin and her dark hair. She looked a little different, so was a point of attack. I haven’t been called a wog, a daego, a chink or a raghead. You see Mr Speaker, I am plain whitebread, cut for toast.
I was born in the town that Gillian Triggs, the human rights commissioner, said she would never hold a function in, Koo Wee Rup. In might be expected for someone with my background to shrug their shoulders when members of parliament’s remarks are directed at a particular race, or to ignore the hurt those remarks can cause. To defend the member’s right to free speech as if that was a right that should be unlimited. To nod wisely because the member was simply reflecting the view of those who elected them, “don’t blame me, blame them”. It’s another of the changes in this place that I referred to earlier. The now prevalent belief that members in this place should follow, not lead. For my part I remain steadfastly Burkean in my view of the proper relationship between the elected and their electors as I was those 16 years ago.
So I remind you of the words of Edmund Burke, that great parliamentarian, “Your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgement and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices to your opinion”. That is the principle I have always followed perhaps remaining true to my conscientiously held belief contributed to the 1998 defeat I suffered along the way. Just as Ewen Jones paid the ultimate political price in Herbert this year for his stand in always deferring to his better angels on matters of principle. But I believe I enjoy a special relationship with the community that I now serve.
They may not agree with my positions I take, but they know I am on their side. That I am serving them in the best way I know how. So to all of us in the parliament should reflect on our relationship with the Australian people. Right now it’s broken.
A bit of humble representation from the powers that be wouldn’t hurt. It’s time for us to rise above the politics of fear and division because our love of diversity, difference, and freedom will endure. Our love of the rule of law, respect for one another, tolerance for one another will endure. Our love of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and love of country will endure. Our love of shared values, a fair go for all and shared responsibilities will endure.
At the recent election the Coalition received 42% of the primary vote, Labor close to 35%, the Greens a tick over 10. 87% of Australians did not vote for minor parties. Only 1.9% of Australians gave their first preference to One Nation party. Family First, the Australian Democratic Party and Nick Xenophon Team all received greater vote than One Nation. Why then is someone on my side of politics cuddling up to Hansonite rhetoric? Those propositions and policies will only hurt the Coalition parties in the long run in the same way the once great Labor party now is the captive of the Greens relying on their preferences to win 31 of their seats in this house.
Speaker, I do understand the fear of Islamic based terrorism. The government is responding with every resource available.
I do understand the concerns of the Australian people over these issues. I am not immune to the fears expressed to me by the people that I meet.
At the same time we cannot condemn the whole of the Muslim community for the actions of a crazy dangerous few. That’s not fair. Otherwise the people who hate all that is good about this nation will win and we are the losers. Australia, we’re better than this. We need not walk in the footsteps of the world. We as a nation can stand apart. Confident. Fearless. Together. United. Unafraid.
Together we as a people can stem the tide of divisiveness infecting Western countries around the globe. Right here, right now, we can turn to take the higher road. Believing in one another to defend against the purveyors of fear and disunity. Let this nation be the circuit breaker and travel the road of the wise, leaving the foolish to perish in division.
We should always have empathy and consideration for those doing it tough. We must speak to the people in their language about the basic concerns affecting their daily lives. If not, we further push those that feel alienation and disaffection, by economic and social exclusion, into the arms of the One Nations of this country.
Or as Michael Gordon said in The Age article on the 30th of September, “The problem in Australia is not with the people but with a leadership more intent on making political points than expressing empathy, or pressing the case that we all gain from an inclusive pluralist society, or addressing inequality, or celebrating the multicultural success stories”.
One of them was unfolding that weekend. Whether or not the Western Bulldogs were to raise the premiership cup at the MCG, the story of how the club faced extinction, survived and thrived by supporting all elements of the community facing multiple challenges. At a time of widespread institutional weakness the club was a model on how to win a social licence, said Labor MP Tim Watts. Back in June the club celebrated World Refugee Day by having its 11th annual citizenship ceremony at the Whitten Oval, when 45 migrants and refugees from 21 countries sang the national anthem and then the Bulldogs club song. Along with their citizenship, they received Bulldogs membership packs. Club president Peter Gordon strolled among the throng on Thursday’s final training session. He recognised many of them in the crowd. Joyous, united, and prepared to invest without reservation, the dream, the face of modern Australia.
Speak of the vast majority of the Australian people fit the Western Bulldogs view of the world. It is our challenge now to show those that feel alienated, disenfranchised, that they also share a bright future investing in a dream without reservation. Our responsibility in leadership is to bring those that feel like they have been left behind, to know our intention is for all Australians to share in the wealth and opportunity in this nation. For all Australians to feel they have hope in the future, some control of their lives to representative democracy and enjoy a sense of belonging so that they can confidently stand firm against those peddling policies of fear and division.
Speaker, the politics of fear and division have never created one job, never come up with a new invention, never started a new business, and never given a child a new start in life, or lifted the spirits of a nation.
Deputy Speaker, at this moment I don’t know what Muslims are asked to do but I know what Christians are asked to do. To do justly. To love, mercy and kindness, and to walk humbly with their God.”
Pauline Hanson: 'If politicians continue to promote separatism in Australia, they should not continue to hold their seats in this parliament', maiden speech - 1996
10 September 1996, House of Representatives, Canberra, Australia
Ms HANSON (Oxley) (5.15 p.m.)–Mr Acting Speaker, in making my first speech in this place, I congratulate you on your election and wish to say how proud I am to be here as the Independent member for Oxley. I come here not as a polished politician but as a woman who has had her fair share of life’s knocks.
My view on issues is based on commonsense, and my experience as a mother of four children, as a sole parent, and as a businesswoman running a fish and chip shop. I won the seat of Oxley largely on an issue that has resulted in me being called a racist. That issue related to my comment that Aboriginals received more benefits than non-Aboriginals.
We now have a situation where a type of reverse racism is applied to mainstream Australians by those who promote political correctness and those who control the various taxpayer funded ‘industries’ that flourish in our society servicing Aboriginals, multiculturalists and a host of other minority groups. In response to my call for equality for all Australians, the most noisy criticism came from the fat cats, bureaucrats and the do-gooders. They screamed the loudest because they stand to lose the most–their power, money and position, all funded by ordinary Australian taxpayers.
Present governments are encouraging separatism in Australia by providing opportunities, land, moneys and facilities available only to Aboriginals. Along with millions of Australians, I am fed up to the back teeth with the inequalities that are being promoted by the government and paid for by the taxpayer under the assumption that Aboriginals are the most disadvantaged people in Australia. I do not believe that the colour of one’s skin determines whether you are disadvantaged. As Paul Hasluck said in parliament in October 1955 when he was Minister for Territories:
The distinction I make is this. A social problem is one that concerns the way in which people live together in one society. A racial problem is a problem which confronts two different races who live in two separate societies, even if those societies are side by side. We do not want a society in Australia in which one group enjoy one set of privileges and another group enjoy another set of privileges.
Hasluck’s vision was of a single society in which racial emphases were rejected and social issues addressed. I totally agree with him, and so would the majority of Australians.
But, remember, when he gave his speech he was talking about the privileges that white Australians were seen to be enjoying over Aboriginals. Today, 41 years later, I talk about the exact opposite–the privileges Aboriginals enjoy over other Australians. I have done research on benefits available only to Aboriginals and challenge anyone to tell me how Aboriginals are disadvantaged when they can obtain three and five per cent housing loans denied to non-Aboriginals.
This nation is being divided into black and white, and the present system encourages this. I am fed up with being told, ‘This is our land.’ Well, where the hell do I go? I was born here, and so were my parents and children. I will work beside anyone and they will be my equal but I draw the line when told I must pay and continue paying for something that happened over 200 years ago. Like most Australians, I worked for my land; no-one gave it to me.
Apart from the $40 million spent so far since Mabo on native title claims, the government has made available $1 billion for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders as compensation for land they cannot claim under native title. Bear in mind that the $40 million spent so far in native title has gone into the pockets of grateful lawyers and consultants. Not one native title has been granted as I speak.
The majority of Aboriginals do not want handouts because they realise that welfare is killing them. This quote says it all: ‘If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish you feed him for a lifetime.’
Those who feed off the Aboriginal industry do not want to see things changed. Look at the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. Members receive $290 a day sitting allowance and $320 a day travelling allowance, and most of these people also hold other very well paid positions. No wonder they did not want to resign recently!
Reconciliation is everyone recognising and treating each other as equals, and everyone must be responsible for their own actions. This is why I am calling for ATSIC to be abolished. It is a failed, hypocritical and discriminatory organisation that has failed dismally the people it was meant to serve. It will take more than Senator Herron’s surgical skills to correct the terminal mess it is in. Anyone with a criminal record can, and does, hold a position with ATSIC. I cannot hold my position as a politician if I have a criminal record–once again, two sets of rules.
If politicians continue to promote separatism in Australia, they should not continue to hold their seats in this parliament. They are not truly representing all Australians, and I call on the people to throw them out. To survive in peace and harmony, united and strong, we must have one people, one nation, one flag.
The greatest cause of family breakdown is unemployment. This country of ours has the richest mineral deposits in the world and vast rich lands for agriculture and is surrounded by oceans that provide a wealth of seafood, yet we are $190 billion in debt with an interest bill that is strangling us.
Youth unemployment between the ages of 15 to 24 runs at 25 per cent and is even higher in my electorate of Oxley. Statistics, by cooking the books, say that Australia’s unemployment is at 8.6 per cent, or just under one million people. If we disregard that one hour’s work a week classifies a person as employed, then the figure is really between 1.5 million and 1.9 million unemployed. This is a crisis that recent governments have ignored because of a lack of will. We are regarded as a Third World country with First World living conditions. We have one of the highest interest rates in the world, and we owe more money per capita than any other country. All we need is a nail hole in the bottom of the boat and we’re sunk.
In real dollar terms, our standard of living has dropped over the past 10 years. In the 1960s, our wages increase ran at three per cent and unemployment at two per cent. Today, not only is there no wage increase, we have gone backwards and unemployment is officially 8.6 per cent. The real figure must be close to 12 to 13 per cent.
I wish to comment briefly on some social and legal problems encountered by many of my constituents–problems not restricted to just my electorate of Oxley. I refer to the social and family upheaval created by the Family Law Act and the ramifications of that act embodied in the child support scheme. The Family Law Act, which was the child of the disgraceful Senator Lionel Murphy, should be repealed. It has brought death, misery and heartache to countless thousands of Australians. Children are treated like pawns in some crazy game of chess.
The child support scheme has become unworkable, very unfair and one sided. Custodial parents can often profit handsomely at the expense of a parent paying child support, and in many cases the non-custodial parent simply gives up employment to escape the, in many cases, heavy and punitive financial demands. Governments must give to all those who have hit life’s hurdles the chance to rebuild and have a future.
We have lost all our big Australian industries and icons, including Qantas when it sold 25 per cent of its shares and a controlling interest to British Airways. Now this government want to sell Telstra, a company that made a $1.2 billion profit last year and will make a $2 billion profit this year. But, first, they want to sack 54,000 employees to show better profits and share prices. Anyone with business sense knows that you do not sell off your assets especially when they are making money. I may be only ‘a fish and chip shop lady’, but some of these economists need to get their heads out of the textbooks and get a job in the real world. I would not even let one of them handle my grocery shopping.
Immigration and multiculturalism are issues that this government is trying to address, but for far too long ordinary Australians have been kept out of any debate by the major parties. I and most Australians want our immigration policy radically reviewed and that of multiculturalism abolished. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. Between 1984 and 1995, 40 per cent of all migrants coming into this country were of Asian origin. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course, I will be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country. A truly multicultural country can never be strong or united. The world is full of failed and tragic examples, ranging from Ireland to Bosnia to Africa and, closer to home, Papua New Guinea. America and Great Britain are currently paying the price.
Arthur Calwell was a great Australian and Labor leader, and it is a pity that there are not men of his stature sitting on the opposition benches today. Arthur Calwell said:
Japan, India, Burma, Ceylon and every new African nation are fiercely anti-white and anti one another. Do we want or need any of these people here? I am one red-blooded Australian who says no and who speaks for 90% of Australians.
I have no hesitation in echoing the words of Arthur Calwell.
There is light at the end of the tunnel and there are solutions. If this government wants to be fair dinkum, then it must stop kowtowing to financial markets, international organisations, world bankers, investment companies and big business people. The Howard government must become visionary and be prepared to act, even at the risk of making mistakes.
In this financial year we will be spending at least $1.5 billion on foreign aid and we cannot be sure that this money will be properly spent, as corruption and mismanagement in many of the recipient countries are legend. Australia must review its membership and funding of the UN, as it is a little like ATSIC on a grander scale, with huge tax-free American dollar salaries, duty-free luxury cars and diplomatic status.
The World Health Organisation has a lot of its medical experts sitting in Geneva while hospitals in Africa have no drugs and desperate patients are forced to seek medication on the black market. I am going to find out how many treaties we have signed with the UN, have them exposed and then call for their repudiation. The government should cease all foreign aid immediately and apply the savings to generate employment here at home.
Abolishing the policy of multiculturalism will save billions of dollars and allow those from ethnic backgrounds to join mainstream Australia, paving the way to a strong, united country. Immigration must be halted in the short term so that our dole queues are not added to by, in many cases, unskilled migrants not fluent in the English language. This would be one positive step to rescue many young and older Australians from a predicament which has become a national disgrace and crisis. I must stress at this stage that I do not consider those people from ethnic backgrounds currently living in Australia anything but first-class citizens, provided of course that they give this country their full, undivided loyalty.
The government must be imaginative enough to become involved, in the short term at least, in job creating projects that will help establish the foundation for a resurgence of national development and enterprise. Such schemes would be the building of the Alice Springs to Darwin railway line, new roads and ports, water conservation, reafforestation and other sensible and practical environmental projects.
Therefore I call for the introduction of national service for a period of 12 months, compulsory for males and females upon finishing year 12 or reaching 18 years of age. This could be a civil service with a touch of military training, because I do not feel we can go on living in a dream world forever and a day believing that war will never touch our lives again.
The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business. How can we compete with Japan, Germany and Singapore, which enjoy rates of two per cent, 5.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively? Reduced tariffs on foreign goods that compete with local products seem only to cost Australians their jobs. We must look after our own before lining the pockets of overseas countries and investors at the expense of our living standards and future.
Time is running out. We may have only 10 to 15 years left to turn things around. Because of our resources and our position in the world, we will not have a say because neighbouring countries such as Japan, with 125 million people; China, with 1.2 billion people; India, with 846 million people; Indonesia, with 178 million people; and Malaysia, with 20 million people are well aware of our resources and potential. Wake up, Australia, before it is too late. Australians need and want leaders who can inspire and give hope in difficult times. Now is the time for the Howard government to accept the challenge.
Everything I have said is relevant to my electorate of Oxley, which is typical of mainstream Australia. I do have concerns for my country and I am going to do my best to speak my mind and stand up for what I believe in. As an Independent I am confident that I can look after the needs of the people of Oxley and I will always be guided by their advice. It is refreshing to be able to express my views without having to toe a party line. It has got me into trouble on the odd occasion, but I am not going to stop saying what I think. I consider myself just an ordinary Australian who wants to keep this great country strong and independent, and my greatest desire is to see all Australians treat each other as equals as we travel together towards the new century.
I will fight hard to keep my seat in this place, but that will depend on the people who sent me here. Mr Acting Speaker, I thank you for your attention and trust that you will not think me presumptuous if I dedicate this speech to the people of Oxley and those Australians who have supported me. I salute them all.