Malcolm’s Official Speeches in Parliament

Labor’s ‘Rent to Buy’ Plan Will Increase Housing Prices

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The Help to Buy Bill 2023, introduced by the Albanese Labor government, will make Australia’s housing crisis worse. The bill proposes to allow the government to own a significant portion of the house – 30% for existing homes and 40% for new ones. Providing buyers with an additional 40% purchasing power will only drive up house prices further, as highlighted by the Productivity Commission’s warnings about increasing demand leading to higher prices.

The bill is also criticised for being poorly targeted and not addressing the fundamental issue of housing supply and demand. The limited number of spots available under this scheme suggests the government know it will introduce inflation. Key questions about how profits, losses, and renovations will be treated are unclear. Participants in this scheme could be far worse off.

One Nation proposes a way for all Australians to be able to afford a house. We focus on addressing both supply and demand issues. These include throttling the amount of immigrants in the country from their record highs to pre-COVID numbers (for a start), banning foreign ownership of Australian residential properties, allowing Australians to leverage their superannuation funds towards owning homes, establishing fixed 5% mortgages, cutting GST on building materials and gutting the bloated building codes.

Under the government’s “Help to Buy” bill, you’ll become a slave in your own home. Under One Nation’s plan, the Australian dream of owning your own home will become a reality.

Transcript

The Help to Buy Bill 2023 is a bill that won’t help anyone. Right now, Queenslanders are sleeping under bridges and on riverbanks. In one of the world’s richest states, working families with children are living in cars. Where do they toilet or shower? It’s inhuman. Rents are skyrocketing—if a rental can be found. House prices are reaching record highs. This is a housing crisis, one of the worst we’ve faced. It’s an inhuman catastrophe.  

The Albanese Labor government wants to look like it’s doing something. Enter the Help to Buy Bill. Under this plan the government wants to own a significant part of your house. If it’s an existing place, the government wants to own 30 per cent; if it’s a new place, 40 per cent—with the government paying for part of it with low-income earners. While a 40 per cent subsidy might sound attractive, it’s fatally flawed. If the government just borrows more money for this plan then one thing is going to happen. When you give people 40 per cent more money to buy a house, house prices are going to go up. The Bills Digest notes: 

In 2022, the Productivity Commission concluded that—unless it is well-targeted … assistance to prospective home buyers presents too great a risk of increasing housing demand and, consequently, house prices. 

The government’s own Productivity Commission warned them this plan would increase house prices. Even the Labor government recognises this. That’s why they’ve severely limited the amount of places available under the scheme—so that house prices aren’t drastically increased. There’s a contradiction right there. If the government is only opening limited spaces so there’s no impact on house prices, then it’s an admission the scheme will not help many people. 

The problem of increasing house prices is one of too much demand for the amount of supply. This bill will only increase the amount of demand and increase house prices. In the absence of more supply, we need to decrease demand, not increase it. As Dr Cameron Murray from Fresh Economic Thinking accurately said: 

If you want people to have cheap housing, give them cheap housing. You can go and do all the financial tricks in the world but at the end of the day if they’ve paid that price, someone’s paying the price. 

This bill’s core concept and premise is flawed and possibly a lie. We can’t subsidise our way out of a house price problem. 

Looking at the bill’s details or lack of details, the problem is worse. Firstly, let’s look at profit and loss and renovations. One of the most concerning questions is how the government will treat profits and losses and renovations. To these questions, this bill has no answers. How much of the profits will the government take if you sell your house? We don’t know. How much of the loss will taxpayers pay if house prices go down or the homebuyer defaults on their mortgage? Australian house prices have aggressively and consistently risen for 30 years. What if they fall? The bill is silent on how this would be handled. Would taxpayers be forced to pay for the entire loss on someone’s mortgage? The government basically acts as a mortgagor second to the bank. Does this mean the bank gets first call to recoup all their losses and the taxpayer simply has to cop the loss on whatever is left over? We don’t know. 

If someone improves the value of the house with renovations, does the government take 40 per cent of the improved value while doing nothing? We don’t know. Imagine tearing up carpets, swinging hammers and sanding with bare hands for six months or a year, and the government takes 40 per cent of the profits from that hard work of yours. That’s entirely possible under the bill as currently drafted. Under the government’s Help to Buy Bill, Australians could become slaves in their own homes. We cannot wait for this bill to be passed and a minister to make a decision later down the track. These matters must be clarified and explained in the bill. Homebuyers and taxpayers deserve to know what the risk is here. 

Secondly, let’s look at some criteria. The eligibility criteria are clunky and don’t cater for differences between states. The maximum income is set at $90,000 for singles and $120,000 for couples. This is despite the average house price and the required mortgage varying hugely between states and between towns. In Darwin, the average house price is $504,000. In Sydney, it’s $1.2 million, more than double, yet the same income thresholds apply. The price thresholds are not available in the bill, and it appears the government has not yet published thresholds. When it comes to the housing crisis, one size doesn’t fit all, yet that’s exactly what this bill tries to do. We’re just meant to pass the bill as a blank cheque and trust that the bureaucrats and the minister will get it right down the road—maybe. 

Thirdly, let’s look at the constitutional basis. This bill is completely outside the federal government’s power. Some reviewers have said that Help to Buy is built on a ‘complex constitutional foundation’. That may be the understatement of the year. Put very simply, under the Constitution, this is not the federal government’s job. To make this bill legal, there are a huge number of constitutional headaches, state government agreements and transfers of powers. Federal parliament simply shouldn’t be dealing with this. It’s outside of the powers granted to us under the Constitution. 

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Tax Reform Urgently Needed to Create a Fairer System for All Australians

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I believe we need to have comprehensive tax reform. Australia’s current tax system is destructive. Individuals on average incomes pay a staggering 68% of their income in various taxes, meaning they work nearly half the year just to cover government obligations. With median incomes at $67,000, many Australians are struggling.

We need reform to address the regressive nature of the tax system, which hits the less fortunate the hardest. Let’s strive for a fairer, simpler tax future for all Australians.

Transcript

In my first speech, in 2016, and many times since, I’ve called for comprehensive tax reform. The tax system in Australia as it exists is our country’s most destructive system, and not just exorbitant tax rates. I’ll give you some figures from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Someone on the average income paid 68 per cent of their income to government in the form of rates levies, fees, charges, special charges and special levies—68 per cent. That means someone’s working from Monday to mid-morning Thursday to pay the government. 

Since then, it’s got much more complex and more absurd, and some of the data I’ll give you is more recent. Some of the figures are indicative, not definitive. The ABS average income figure is $100,000. The median income figure is $67,000. Life is tough for people on the median. In 2015 Joe Hockey said that a typical person in Australia pays 50 per cent in tax—works from January to June to pay the government, and then gets to keep from July to December. Basically, as I said, people are working at least half the year—probably 68 per cent of the year—for government. 

Then we think about the tax. Tax on a house, according to a News Corporation article a few years ago and according to recent figures, is 45 to 50 per cent of the house price, The effective tax rate is 80 to 100 per cent. International accountant and auditor Derek Smith in Queensland says that 50 per cent of the price of bread is tax, which is an effective tax rate of 100 per cent. Petrol excise and tax varies. At 70 per cent, the effective tax rate is 230 per cent. So, a worker on the average income on payday gives 21 per cent of his or her gross income to the government. With what’s left—that’s 79 per cent—she the next day wakes up in her house and pays 80 to 100 per cent to have that house and makes some sandwiches because food is too expensive to purchase wherever she works. So, that’s a tax of 100 per cent. Then she fills up at the petrol station on her way to work, and that costs her 230 per cent tax. 

Then we have GST. GST can be levied on bills, including stamp duty, so we’ve got a tax on a tax. So, there are three aspects. First, there’s the total tax paid. Second, how is it levied? And third, is it enforced fairly? Ultimately, the people pay a tax in the form of higher prices. So, it doesn’t matter if a company is being taxed or if another entity is being taxed; they pass it on to the customers. 

Cost of living, inflation, overregulation and many other factors make sure that today’s system of government impositions—government cost recovery—is highly regressive. Look at the carbon dioxide tax and offsets—a UN tax, driven by the UN, introduced by the Liberals-Nationals in 2015 under Greg Hunt and Malcolm Turnbull and now ramped up under this government with Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese. We’ve got a highly regressive imposition of taxation and other charges by the government. The Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that the median income is $67,000. People on that median income are doing it extremely tough because of government and the mishmash that’s evolved in the taxation system. 

That takes care of terms of reference (a) and (b) in Senator Rennick’s motion. I agree with them; in fact, I agree with his whole motion, and I thank him for his motion. I’ve raised the need for comprehensive tax reform many times, so I support this motion. 

Then we see the core, one of the bedrocks of our federal system and Constitution—competitive federalism. That is being converted under the current tax system to competitive welfarism, destroying productivity in this country. The way competitive federalism should work is it promotes competition between the states—not cut-throat competition, just competition for efficiency. As I said yesterday, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, as Premier of Queensland, abolished death duties in Queensland and people moved to Queensland to retire, which developed the Gold Coast. The other states then saw their people were leaving, so they abolished death duties too. Now we’ve got Labor—and the Greens, I think—wanting to put in place a central death duty as a state duty—centrally imposed, no competition, no accountability. When you have a marketplace in governance because the state can’t operate according to their needs and the needs best suited to their constituents, then you have competitive federalism, a marketplace in governance, and that is priceless. One of the reasons we’ve got such low accountability in state and federal parliament is it’s too easy for the states to blame the feds and the feds to blame the states, as I said yesterday. The GST undoes competitive federalism and replaces it with competitive welfarism. It’s a reward for states like Tasmania and South Australia to be inefficient and not use their resources and, instead, bludge off of Western Australia. 

I mentioned yesterday that systems drive behaviour and behaviour shapes attitude, and the combination of behaviour and attitudes along with values and leadership and symbols determine the culture, which is the most important determinant of productivity, security and accountability. Energy prices, as I said, are a huge regressive tax on the poor. Massive record immigration is a huge regressive tax on housing, especially on the poor. As I list some of these examples, as Senator Rennick listed some of his examples, I urge you to think about the impact on our culture in this country. 

The tax system is Australia’s most destructive system. What behaviours does it drive? We’ve got the best and brightest accountants and lawyers in this country fighting the government, not helping our producers to fight our competitors overseas—the Koreans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Americans. We’ve now got a tax system that’s grown-up like Topsy; it’s a mishmash of dishonest promises to various vested interests for favours. What behaviours does that drive? Is that productive? It’s certainly not productive. Inefficient or suboptimal allocation of capital, allocation of resources, leads to inefficient or suboptimal decisions and a waste of resources and inefficient allocation to minimise tax rather than to maximise wealth and value. 

Then we have the ATO in a position where it can level complaints against people and businesses—small businesses particularly, because they don’t have the lawyers to back them up. In addition to prosecuting those cases, they adjudicate on those cases. How can that be justice? It’s not justice. It leads to corruption—and we saw that in the Australian Taxation Office just a few years ago. 

There is the complexity of various structures that Senator Rennick mentioned; he’s got far more experience in that than I have. They’re unfair to people who can’t set up structures. Senator Rennick discussed some of the modern structures in the technologies that have come up. That increases the appeal for workarounds. 

Then we’ve got something that Senator Hanson has talked about for many years, since 1996: multinationals basically pay no or little company tax. These use their resources for free. We’ve got the world’s biggest freeloader, the biggest tax avoider in the world, Chevron, taking our gas and sending it overseas, using our infrastructure, using our security forces, using our education system and not paying much at all for the gas. This is a figure I got from Jim Killaly, the former Deputy Commissioner of Taxation, Large Business and International, who retired in 2015 or 2016. I’ve met him. He said in both the nineties and in 2010—and it’s quoted in the newspapers—that 90 per cent of Australia’s large businesses are foreign-owned and since 1953 have paid little or no company tax. Who’s paying that share of tax? It’s the men and women of Australia, working families. 

Since 1953, when we had double taxation legislation enacted by the Menzies Liberal government, we’ve had foreign companies paying little or no company tax. In the 1980s, we had Labor, with the petroleum resource rent tax, making sure that large companies such as Chevron pay little or no tax when exporting our gas from the North West Shelf. Then we had transfer pricing rorts and so many other rorts, which Senator Rennick went into. So terms of reference (c) and (d) are definitely worth keeping. 

The tax reform, while it’s necessary and arguably one of the most important things in this country, is difficult because the uniparty, Liberal and Labor, sees new ideas, seizes on new ideas and then basically tells lies and misrepresents to destroy our tax system. Paul Keating, as Treasurer to Bob Hawke, introduced the concept of the GST. Later, when John Hewson raised it as opposition leader, who smashed it? Paul Keating smashed it. He destroyed the GST concept even though he’d come so close to putting it over the line in Australia. 

When Pauline Hanson, who wasn’t a senator at the time, got hold of the transaction tax, it was also sent to Costello by the originators of that taxation system and taxation proposal. Peter Costello, as Treasurer—and a good treasurer—was asked about it and he said: ‘Sounds like a good system. We must have a look at it.’ Then Senator Hanson introduced it to the public, and he used it to try to destroy her. 

And look at my motion for stopping bracket creep—a motion on a Labor bill for stopping bracket creep. Labor stood right up there and said it supports work to remove indexing of bracket creep, but it voted against it. The LNP, the Liberals and Nationals, did something similar. They stood up—Senator Hume, I think it was—and said, ‘We support removal of bracket creep, the stealth tax, the hidden tax, the deceit tax,’ but they voted against the indexation of bracket creep. Barely a few weeks later, Senator Sharma, in his first speech, said that one of his goals was to get rid of bracket creep. Well, pile on, but just a few weeks earlier he had voted against removing bracket creep. 

As Senator Rennick has already mentioned, the tax system has been wangled and mismanaged to protect special interest groups feeding off tax loopholes. The terms of reference (e), (f), (g) and (h) are all necessary. Tax is the cost of government. That’s necessary. But it’s now got to the point where tax, in this country of ours, is the cost of excess government interference and excess waste—well, all waste. It’s the cost of poor governance, and it’s the poor who pay regressively for it. 

I support Senator Rennick’s motion as a step to exposing the harm and inefficiency of the tax system. Because of the complexities of the tax system and because of the politics around it, I think the first thing to do is to get an agreement to understand that the tax system is so destructive and so inefficient. Senator Rennick’s motion is a commendable first step to exposing the inefficiencies and the unfairness in the tax system. Once there’s an agreement on the inefficiencies, then we need to develop principles—not a system but principles: for example, simplicity; efficiency, so the tax system actually collects more than the cost of implementing that tax; fairness; objectivity; and the fact that it’s inescapable, so we don’t have multinational companies coming here, stealing our resources and assets, using our infrastructure and our people, and skipping the country without paying their fair share. So we develop principles and get agreement on them, and then, once that’s done, the specific system falls out. 

I see Senator Rennick’s motion as leading to an important first step in identifying the problems and some of the solutions and then, ultimately, we can take the next step: comprehensive tax reform, defining the ultimate system and the transition of baby steps to getting there. I support Senator Rennick’s motion. Question agreed to. 

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Judge One Nation for Yourself

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Not for the first time, the Senate heard the word “racist” being used improperly. The Oxford Dictionary defines racism as “having the belief that some races of people are better than others; showing this through violent or unfair treatment of people of other races.” The word “racism” exists to protect people from violence. Throwing around the word “racist” in an unedifying display of rudeness and intimidation devalues its meaning. When this happens, the word loses its power to protect those who genuinely need it.

Left-leaning parties are using the word to discourage the public from closely examining One Nation’s policies, and recognising that we act in the best interests of ALL Australians.

I issue an open invitation to anyone who believes One Nation is a racist party: please come along to a One Nation event in your area and see for yourself. Everyone—no matter your race, religion, or skin colour—is welcome at a One Nation event. The only requirement to join One Nation is a love for this beautiful country.

Transcript

Not for the first time, the Senate yesterday heard the word ‘racist’ used improperly. The Oxford dictionary defines ‘racism’ as: ‘Having the belief that some races of people are better than others, showing this through violent or unfair treatment of people of other races.’ Racism exists as a word because of the need to protect people from violence. Throwing the world ‘racist’ around in an unedifying display of rudeness and intimidation devalues the word to the point where it no longer provides protection for those who genuinely need it. 

The word ‘racism’ to the political Left now means any opinion they disagree with—and even worse, it’s thrown at any human being whose views they disagree with. Shame on you for taking away the power the word ‘racist’ once had. Repetitive, incorrect use of the word does get in, which is why it’s the No. 1 tactic of the Greens and the political Left. It’s used as a strategy to stop people actually looking at our policies and realising they are in the best interests of the Australian community of which they’re a part. To any Australian who believes One Nation is actually a racist party, I issue you this invitation: come along to the next One Nation event in your area, and see for yourself. Did our members make you feel welcome? Did the topics we discussed make you feel uncomfortable by virtue of your race, religion or skin colour? When I end my speeches with ‘We are one community; we are One Nation’, that isn’t an election slogan; we mean it. All those who call this beautiful country home, those who were here first and the many who’ve come since must be allowed to lift themselves up through their own hard work and endeavour and, in so doing, benefit all who are here. Creating a nation which genuinely protects the natural environment, which provides religious freedom, which respects parents’ rights and primacy of the family and which limits government power to the bare necessities—these are One Nation’s core values. I can describe why I am proud to be a member of One Nation in four words: flag, faith, family, freedom. (Time expired) 

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Social Media Ban is an Attack on Parents’ Rights

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The Labor-Liberal Uniparty has been advancing this bill based on a  case where bullying on social media led to a tragic suicide. In submissions on this bill, it became apparent that banning children from social media would cause as much harm as good. The best response to these tragic cases would be to empower parents to better manage their children’s use of social media.  This can be achieved by enhancing parental lock technology, making it more powerful, easier to use, and free (the best Apps available are commercial).   The Government ignored concerns raised by experts in their submissions and testimony, and pushed ahead with a bill that introduced a blanket ban for under 16.

Let’s be clear – this is a ‘world-first’ because the rest of the world knows such a ban is counterproductive.

Tech-savvy kids will get around the ban, and that’s where the real harm begins. The ban does not cover chat rooms in video games, which lacks the supervision present on social media platforms. Peer-to-peer chat apps are making a comeback, and some children may even turn to TOR, which is not supervised at all and by it’s design, is almost impossible to supervise. This bill will have the outcome of exposing kids to even worse forms of bullying.  

One Nation and the Greens united to stop Labor’s guillotine. We forced the government to remove the bill banning under 16’s on social media and extend scrutiny until February. Then, incredibly, the Liberal Senate leader, Simon Birmingham, moved to get the bill back in the guillotine process.  Barely hours later, Simon Birmingham informed the Senate that he was leaving. It’s clear he knew he was leaving and this was his parting gift.

I want to thank Senators Alex Antic and Matt Canavan for crossing the floor to vote against the Liberal-Nationals-Labor guillotine.  

One Nation will continue to fight against the social media ban, returning power to parents and families.  

Included are comments around Digital ID, which—despite claims to the contrary—will inevitably become part of this outrageous power grab.

Transcript

My remarks are directed to the minister but also to people listening at home to the Senate and to researchers and historians that will look back at this vote today in an attempt to understand what the hell the Senate was thinking. The amendment the government circulated, no doubt with the approval of the Liberal Party, answers that question. The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 can act to force every Australian to be the subject of a digital ID in the name of keeping children safe—and that’s what my question is about.  

The government accepted widespread public concern that the bill was designed to force everyone to get a digital ID and promised to include an amendment to specifically rule that out. In this government amendment that you’ve moved, SY115, new provision 63DB(1) excludes use of government issued identification or use of digital ID. That is great, except 63DB(2) provides that, if social media platforms can come up with an alternative means of assessing age that does not involve digital ID or government documents, they can—wait for it—accept a digital ID identification. In effect, this amendment specifies that a social media platform cannot use digital ID by itself but it can use digital ID as part of a more comprehensive verification. There’s no need to guess what that could be; this bill contains the answer: age-assurance software. The company which has been awarded the tender for the age-assurance trial is a British company called Age Check Certification Scheme. whose main business is provision of digital IDs backed by age-assurance software. 

TikTok has used age-assurance software to remove one million underage accounts from TikTok in Australia. This software can tell if a person is, for instance, under 12. That’s useful. The smaller the gap between the user and target age—16 in this case—the less accurate it is. This software can’t tell age within six months, and there’s no way of knowing a person turned 16 on the day of their application. You just can’t tell that from face scan. Accessing social media on your 16th birthday and, most likely, for months afterwards will require a second identifier containing the child’s facial scan and their date of birth, which is a digital ID, which this company specialises in. You’re setting them up. 

I have criticised this bill as an opportunistic attempt to capitalise on the public desire for better regulation of social media to force all Australians to get a digital ID. I’ll say that again. I have criticised this bill repeatedly, as have others, as an opportunistic attempt to capitalise on the public desire for better regulation of social media to force all Australians to get a digital ID. This amendment requires a change in my language, which is now that this bill is an opportunistic attempt to require every child, once they turn 16, to get a digital ID if they want to access social media. What age does the government’s digital ID start from? Sixteen. What a coincidence! This wasn’t the intention all along? That’s misinformation. 

This amendment exposes the original intention of the bell. Your amendment exposes the original intention of the bill, which was hidden in what looked like a poorly drafted bill. It wasn’t poorly drafted; it was deliberately dishonest, and the short committee referral, which the government fought against, has exposed the deceit. The truth is now out there, and the decision before the Senate is a simple one. A vote for this bill is a vote to require every child to get a digital ID on their 16th birthday. 

Compulsory digital IDs aside, there are many other reasons not to pass this bill. I will now share with the Senate and with posterity the words of Australian Human Rights Commission on the bill. One Nation fully supports the commission’s position, which deserves to be included in the Hansard record of the debate: 

Social media is a vital platform for young people to share their ideas and opinions, engage in dialogue, and participate in social and cultural activities. It can be a valuable educational tool by providing access to diverse perspectives, news and learning opportunities, as well as vital information about health, well-being and safety. A blanket ban risks unjustly curtailing these freedoms. 

Social media is integral to modern communication and socialisation. Excluding young people from these platforms may isolate them from their peers and limit their ability to ability to access much-needed information and support. This is particularly important for young people from marginalised, vulnerable or remote communities. 

These are the words of the Human Rights Commission. 

The social media ban will rely on effective age assurance processes being adopted, which means that all Australians may be required to prove their identity in order to access social media. This may potentially require all Australians to provide social media companies with sensitive identity information, which poses a risk to our privacy rights in light of recent examples of data breaches and personal information being stolen. 

Technological workarounds – such as VPNs and false age declarations – may undermine the effectiveness of the ban. Additionally, a ban will not address the root causes of online risks or make the platforms safer for everyone. 

The workarounds to this measure have not received enough debate. The bill carves out gaming sites, many of which have a chat feature. Children will move over to chatrooms and gaming sites which are not supervised. Tor—or, more accurately, onion routing—will provide another avenue for communication which is designed to make supervision exponentially harder than on mainstream social media platforms. I have advice from a leading internet security company that peer-to-peer social media, which again is harder for parents to supervise than current social media platforms, is making a comeback. As a result of this legislation, children will be exposed to more harm, not less. I had a call from a constituent— 

Senator Hanson-Young: You are right. 

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: It’s not often Senator Hanson-Young tells me I’m right. A moment ago, I had a call from a constituent who had called their local Liberal member of parliament about this bill and was told, ‘Oh, it’s okay; you can just sign up for your children.’ With age-assurance software, that will not work. With Digital ID connected to age-assurance software, the social media platform will know what you’re doing. Don’t be telling people: ‘It’s nothing. You can defeat it. You can still talk to Grandad on Facebook.’ You won’t be able to. Children may be able to use VPNs, virtual private networks, and the new PPNs, personal private networks, to appear to be in another country. That really won’t work either. The keystroke logging that accompanies the age-assurance software will assume someone pretending to be in Canada but interacting with Australian accounts is probably using a VPN. 

Minister, why did you say that this won’t lead to Digital ID when your amendment says exactly that? 

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Insurance Costs SKYROCKET as Foreign Corporations Profit

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How much has your insurance increased? For some, insurance costs have increased by as much as ten times. While many insurance companies operate under Australian brands, they are actually controlled by foreign multinational investment funds like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and Goldman Sachs. These foreign entities influence our government to push climate change propaganda, which they then use as an excuse to drastically increase insurance premiums.

Only One Nation can be trusted to say no to the foreign corporate cartel, ensuring more affordable insurance for Australians.

Transcript

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Financial Services, Senator Gallagher. Minister, Australians opening insurance renewals have been falling off their chairs. Brendan O’Malley from the Courier Mail reported in September that a homeowner on Cheviot Street in Brisbane had their insurance bill increase from $3,000 to $32,000 a year—more than 10 times. Queensland’s Suncorp Bank profited $379 million last year, while Suncorp Bank’s insurance division made a whopping $1.2 billion profit, more than triple that of their banking business. Why is your government letting insurance companies rob Queenslanders? 

Senator GALLAGHER: I don’t accept the proposition that Senator Roberts has put as part of his question. But I do accept and understand that insurance affordability is a real issue for Australian households and businesses, and it is something that the government is concerned about. You see in the inflation data that one of the big drivers of inflation is the costs around insurance. There are a number of reasons insurance premiums have increased in the last 12 months—it’s due to a range of factors—but I think Senator McAllister was talking about this earlier in the week. There have been more frequent and more intense hazard events, price inflation is making it more expensive to repair damages, and there is the global distribution of risk by reinsurers, which are having to cover the costs of earthquakes in New Zealand and hurricanes in Florida—that all has an impact on costs here. The government has established an Insurance Affordability and Natural Hazards Risk Reduction Taskforce within PM C to address the impacts of climate change and inflationary pressures that are driving up the cost of insurance. We are looking at what further steps the government can take, working with industry and stakeholders through the taskforce, including some things the insurers always raise this with me: risk mitigation, land use planning and other near-term opportunities to address affordability. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary? 

That insurance bill that I talked about before went up because Brisbane City Council published new climate scaremongering flood maps. The street never had a problem with flooding yet was included in a new zone marked for a one-in-2,000-year climate change doomsday flood. Minister, why are you letting insurance companies use baseless climate change scaremongering as an excuse to gouge billions at the expense of Queenslanders? 

Senator GALLAGHER: As I said in my previous answer, there are a range of drivers impacting on the cost of insurance. Some of it is around local hazardous events that we’ve had, including floods, and including floods in Brisbane and other areas of Queensland. But there are other reasons, like price inflation and like the reinsurance market, which is being affected by those big, global natural disasters that we’ve been seeing. Some would say—and I would say—these are caused by climate change. I accept that you might not agree with that. In relation to land use planning, that has been subject to a number of inquiries and reviews post the flooding, particularly in areas like Brisbane. Land use planning zoning maps have changed to reflect some of the risk associated with that, and that would feed into premiums not just in Queensland but around the country. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary? 

Foreign insurance companies own these insurance companies in Australia. Foreign multinational, global wealth funds and corporates like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and Goldman Sachs are the largest and control shareholders. Insurance is expensive, and the money goes overseas. Minister, why aren’t you doing anything to stop these insurance companies gouging Queenslanders and sending the profits overseas to multinational, global investors? 

Senator GALLAGHER: Certainly, I’ve already alluded to the fact of global distribution of risk by reinsurers. You talk about them. The global reinsurers affect the price of insurance here, as they do in other countries around the world. But I do not accept that we are not taking any action. We have established this taskforce to look at what further steps we can take to build on existing work, including in areas like risk mitigation and land use planning, as well as other steps to deal with some of these affordability challenges. This is a challenge not just in Queensland but around the country. 

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One Nation Defending Free Speech Since 2019

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It’s often said that success has many parents and failure is an orphan. In that case, I’d like a paternity test on the vote that removed the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill from the Senate Notice Paper. Some Senators now being credited with this move only solidified their opposition last week. Meanwhile, One Nation has stood firmly against this bill since its first iteration was released under the Morrison Liberal Government in 2019.  

One Nation has been the only party consistently campaigning against this bill since 2019. A vote for One Nation is a vote for freedom of speech.   In my remarks, I’ll outline the reasons why One Nation opposed this bill.

Transcript

To the people of Australia, congratulations—you’ve won. You put so much pressure on the ‘uniparty’ that you won; they folded. Four years ago I came out against the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024, and it’s been a slog ever since. That’s when the Morrison-Joyce Liberal-National government introduced it. I’ll just make some comments there. This is a part of five components—the mis- and disinformation bill; the Digital ID Act; identity verification bill; under-16s banned from social media; Reserve Bank of Australia working on a digital currency that’ll be connected to a global digital currency—of a package towards social credit. The second point is that that package is being put by the major parties—Liberals, Nationals and Labor. The third point is that it’s connected to implementation of a similar package around the world in many other nations right now. It’s led to the arrest of 150 people in the United Kingdom, with jail for some, simply for making comments dissenting against the British government. 

This misinformation and disinformation bill had some worthy sections on regulating the tech giants, but it was primarily about censorship and censoring the Australian people. One Nation supports a referendum to enshrine freedom of speech in our Constitution. One Nation supports legislation to mandate and enable free speech and to make free speech sacrosanct so that no state can trump it. One Nation wants to appeal 18C. This has come out of 18C, which is scandalous. They’re some of the basics. I will read part of my dissenting report on the Senate’s inquiry into this bill. It began: 

1.1 I thank the witnesses for their submissions and for attending the hearings. 

There were many, many witnesses. Thank you, Australia. 

1.2 The committee report— 

as it was originally drafted— 

into the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 flies in the face of the expert evidence the committee has received across three days of hearings into the bill. 

That evidence just completely smashed it and reversed it. But, with the tidal wave of views from across Australia, the committee changed its view—wonderful. 

1.3 A committee inquiry should not perform the function of gift wrapping a decision which has already been taken. A committee inquiry should have the role of deciding if the decisions taken in the bill are correct. 

The first report did not do that fundamental thing. 

1.4 For three days, the committee heard from human rights advocates and stakeholders who all criticised this bill on human rights grounds, and added warnings the bill would backfire. 

That’s what the committee heard almost unanimously. 

1.5 It is extraordinary the committee would choose to ignore the recommendations of the very people who they invited to attend to advise them on this matter. 

Only when the public turned savagely against the government was the committee report changed at the last minute to reflect today’s motion. The action of the committee to that point would have made it harder: 

… for any Senate inquiry in the future to attract the quality of witnesses this inquiry attracted. 

Censorship was the purpose of this bill. Censorship was the purpose of the committee report. The criticism of the bill was well placed. My comments continued: 

1.7 The Australian Human Rights Commission questioned a basic foundation of the bill—the definition of ‘information’. In the Explanatory Memorandum the term ‘is intended to include opinions, claims, commentary and invective’. 

1.8 The Australian Human Rights Commission stated ‘considerable caution should be exercised before including opinions and commentary within the scope of “information” as this significantly broadens the potential reach of this legislation and increases the risk of it being used to censor legitimate debate about matters of public importance. 

That is profound. That is the bedrock of a democracy.  

1.9 One Nation agrees with this concern. The bill misconstrues human rights as relative, indeed as subordinate to the need of government to suppress opinions they don’t like. 

That’s what you tried to do. 

1.10 The Human Rights Law Centre recommended Clause 11(e) should be amended to reflect a broader commitment to human rights in the bill’s objectives. It also recommended the Australian Human Rights Commission should be consulted on the development of codes. 

‘Consultation’—that’d be nice. 

1.11 Several submissions related to the specific areas of misinformation. The Australian Medical Professional Society submitted: 

By centralising control over what constitutes medical ‘truth’ in the hands of government regulators, we risk creating an even more Orwellian twist in a system that is already subject to manipulation by powerful interests, to further suppress inconvenient facts and legitimate debate. This would be disastrous not only for free speech and democracy, but for public health as well. 

People’s lives depend on this. And you wanted to stop it. 

1.12 The report failed to address a critical failing in the debate around COVID. Namely that information presented as medical truth at the time has been proven to be wrong— 

not only wrong but completely contradicting the truth— 

and information banned as misinformation has now been proven to be true. 

Repeatedly, repeatedly and repeatedly. 

1.13 On the issue of COVID messaging, One Nation has maintained a contrary position to the Government of the day since 2020. This followed expert testimony from multiple specialists, research doctors and whistle blowers which contradicted the official narrative. 

1.14 The implication is simple—what is misinformation one day is truth the next. This is the danger in the Government deciding what is and is not misinformation. The bias will always be in favour of the government’s ‘truth’. 

I asked every witness a fundamental question on the last day of the hearing: who is the arbiter of truth? No-one could say who is specified as the arbiter of truth in the bill. They all said that it would default to ACMA. Other provisions in my additional comments included: religious freedom, inauthentic behaviour and media literacy. But the fundamental thing is this was an attempt by the Labor Party to build on the Liberal Party’s previous attempts at censorship by corralling misinformation under their definition, and then driving the social media organisations, the big tech companies, to ram it down people’s throats. That was what you were doing. I’m pleased to see that the people of Australia have put the brake on you. Now I appeal to the people of Australia to keep a foot on their throat because we must stop the banning of under-16-year-old people from social media. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator O’Sullivan): Senator McKenzie, you have 10 seconds. 

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Social Media Ban or Big Brother Control?

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The government, with support of the Liberals, is proposing a ban on children under 16 accessing social media, justifying the measure by claiming it’s “popular.”  Oh, really? It’s ironic that the same parties that accuse One Nation of populism are now pushing a measure not because it’s workable, but simply because it’s supposedly popular!   

A true conservative party, Mr Dutton, would support parents to supervise their own children in their own homes. A true conservative, Mr Dutton, would not be promoting big government replacing parents.   

The eGovernment is also trialling age-assurance technology, which uses facial scans of every social media user to confirm they are over 16. If there’s any doubt, the system will cross-check the person’s Digital ID for verification to ensure it matches. In addition to facial scans, the “Assurance AI” will monitor keystrokes, audio patterns and “other measures” to determine the user’s age.   

By now you may conclude, as I did, that enforcing a social media age limit of 16 would require verifying everyone’s age using the device camera and their Digital ID—which everyone would be forced to have. So much for Digital ID being voluntary. Even adults will need one to continue using social media.   

In the unlikely event they can actually make this work, children would move to other platforms that are less regulated, less safe and more prone to child exploitation.   

Even more alarming is the fact that conversations would be monitored for signs of age, yet what happens to the voice prints and keystroke logs this system collects?   

To make this work, cameras on devices would need to run constantly to ensure a new user hasn’t hopped on to an existing computer session. This means cameras would always be on, capturing everything – video and audio – that is happening in the room.   

This creates a perfect scenario for hackers to access the feed. 

One Nation opposes this legislation. The best people to monitor and regulate children’s internet use are parents—not a Big Brother government. 

Transcript

I move: 

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:  

The need to recognise that a blanket ban on social media for children under 16 expropriates parental power, and for the Senate to affirm that parental responsibility rests in the parents, not the Federal Government. 

The government is proposing a ban on children under 16 accessing social media and justifies the measure because it’s supposedly popular. Oh, really? It’s ironic that the same parties who accuse One Nation of populism are now promoting a measure not because it’s workable but, rather, because it’s supposedly popular. 

A true conservative, though, would support parents supervising their own children in their own home. That’s not what Mr Peter Dutton is doing. A true conservative opposition leader would not be promoting big government replacing parents. Instead, he would be making device supervision easier for parents. 

The government, repeatedly, is giving more power to social media giants under the guise, they say, of transparency. They’re not revealing anything. We still don’t see the algorithms of the social media giants—international players who have control over our space. What we’re doing is not making device supervision easier for parents. We’re not making it easier for parents to fulfil their responsibilities as parents.  

It’s time that social media companies—plus Apple, Microsoft and Android—made their parental locks easier and more powerful. So let’s start there. No country in the world has made age limits work, because bureaucrats or social media platforms in far-off countries can’t see who’s using the computer or phone. The only people who can see what the child is doing with their device are the people in their home with them—the parents. It’s a parental duty, a parental responsibility and a parental right to raise their children and to supervise their children. If this proposal from the government goes through, parents allowing their children to watch cartoons and educational shows on free-to-view social media, including YouTube, would be breaking the law. Parents supervising their children would be breaking the law. Watching the same material on Foxtel at $99 a month would be legal. Does that seem right? To me it doesn’t. 

Essential and YouGov polling showed a majority of Australians support higher age restrictions on social media. This is the same Essential poll which found 17-year-olds should be able to buy alcohol and watch pornography and also recommended the age for criminal responsibility be raised to 14. Who did they ask? Are these next in the uniparty’s embrace of populism? My speech earlier today gave information on the unintended consequences of this idea. I will post the speeches together on my website. This problem is as old as the internet, and it’s not going anywhere. Let parents parent. That’s fundamental to raising children. 

We’re seeing the opportunity in education now. States and the federal education department, which doesn’t have a single school, allow indoctrination programs through the national curriculum. Instead of being education, it’s now indoctrination. They’re grooming young children for the globalist agenda. They terrorise children: ‘The climate is changing. The globe is boiling. The world will end. You’ve only got five years to live unless we do something.’ These are the terrorists for young children today—the globalists who are pushing this agenda and this legislation around the world. 

One Nation supports this matter being referred to a Senate inquiry, where technology experts can testify on the harms and unintended consequences of replacing parental supervision with government overreach and government control. We need to let parents parent. Instead of giving more power to the globalist corporations and to the internet behemoths, we need to put the power back with parents and let parents look after their children. As I said before, it is a parental duty, a parental responsibility and a parental right. I am sick and tired, and so are so many parents and grandparents across this country, of the government trying to be a nanny state to protect their kids all while grooming their children for control, whether directly through education or indirectly through social media. What we need to do is actually look at what people need and then act accordingly. One Nation is not in favour of this. We are surprised that the Liberal Party, including their leader, seem to be lining up in support of censoring teens on the internet. 

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One Nation Calls for Inquiry into Unsustainable Immigration

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Australia is in a housing crisis. Tent cities are appearing across the country, from parks and bridges to family cars, as rents soar and home ownership becomes unattainable. I’ve seen these conditions firsthand, and it’s heartbreaking. Since 2020, rents have increased by 40%, and the average house price has jumped to nearly 10 times the average income.

A major driver of this crisis is our turbocharged immigration program. While I value the contributions of migrants—being one myself—the current intake is unsustainable. In 2023 alone, over half a million net migrants arrived in Australia. This relentless surge is straining our housing market, health services, infrastructure, and economy.

The math is simple. With 2.45 million temporary visa holders in the country, about one million homes are occupied by these individuals. Yet, we’re building far fewer homes than we need, leaving more Australians homeless and without hope. This unprecedented immigration inflates demand, driving up costs in housing, infrastructure, and everyday essentials. High inflation, soaring interest rates, and gridlocked roads are the direct results of this unsustainable growth. Meanwhile, our health system is overwhelmed, and working families are left to fend for themselves.

The government’s solution? More immigration. It’s time to prioritise Australians—our families, our communities, and our future. Let’s address the housing crisis with meaningful reforms, not empty promises.

Transcript

Australia is in a housing crisis—a housing catastrophe. Tent cities are appearing across the country in the way many people have never seen before. I have been to them. It’s disgraceful. In almost every major city in Queensland I’ve been to, the tents are there. People are sleeping under bridges, in caravans, in parks or in their family car. In August 2020, the national average rent was $437 a week. It’s now $627 a week. That’s an increase of 40 per cent over just a few years. In 1987, the average house price was 2.8 times the average income. Today the house price is 9.7 times the income. That’s nearly 10 times. What hope have our children got? 

A major driver of the housing crisis is Australia’s turbocharged immigration program. Listen to the facts that I’ll come up with soon, and remember that I’m not against migration. I was born in India; I’m half migrant. Australia has a very proud history of migrants building this country, but at the moment we have too many. Let me give you those figures. Australia’s net overseas migration used to average a bit over 80,000 a year. For the 2023 year, our net intake was an astonishing 547,000 new people. That’s more than half a million new people net. In the nine months to September 2024, 394,000 immigrants were added to the population. That puts us well on track for yet another year of more than half a million arrivals into the country. That’s net. That’s after the people who’ve left have been removed from the count. 

Soon after setting Australia’s immigration record last year, Prime Minister Albanese promised he would cut immigration rates. Instead he increased immigration rates and is on track for a second new record in a row. Before 2020 and excluding tourists and short-stay crew, there were around 1.8 million temporary visa holders in the country. Today that number is 2.45 million temporary visa holders in the country, an increase of a third. Using Australia’s average household size of about 2½ people per dwelling, that means temporary visa holders are taking up one million homes. One million homes are unavailable because of this immigration program. 

The Master Builders Association’s October housing review shows that, in the 12 months to 30 June this year, only 158,000 homes were completed. So much for your housing policy. That’s less than we needed to cover new arrivals let alone the homeless and those sharing who want their own place. Every year that this Labor government is in power is yet another year Australia’s housing crisis becomes worse. That is why it’s beyond a crisis; it’s a catastrophe. The ALP and the Greens can promise more houses all they like. Houses aren’t built out of rhetoric. When Australians are sleeping on the street we have to stop the flow of more people into the country. 

Some of these temporary visa holders have to leave. Let’s start with the 400,000 overseas students who have completed or discontinued their study and have failed the 100-point test necessary for permanent residency. These students are in a limbo which is best solved by returning home and developing their own countries with the skills learnt here. Then there are hundreds of thousands of long-stay visa holders who have failed to learn English and failed to get a job but who nonetheless avail themselves of social security. I’ll say that again: they failed to learn English, failed to get a job and are on social security that the Australian taxpayers are paying for. If someone has been in this country for five years and has failed to earn their own way then their visa must be critically reviewed to determine if Australia is the right place for them. It’s time to put the temporary back into temporary visa holder. Our country is bleeding; stop twisting the knife. 

The unprecedented level of immigration isn’t just leading to the housing crisis; 2.45 million extra people add to inflation. Inflation is caused when too much demand is chasing too few goods. It’s really simple, and 2.45 million new arrivals is a lot of new demand. It’s a hell of a lot. The government’s net zero energy policy has driven up power prices—we can all see that— and reduced the capacity of agriculture and manufacturing to meet this demand, leading to demand inflation. It’s a double whammy on inflation. The Reserve Bank has refused to lower interest rates because, as they have publicly stated, this unprecedented rate of immigration is creating so much excess demand, and they have said that reducing interest rates now would cause inflation to worsen. House prices are at highs. Now we’ve got interest rates high. This is a huge catastrophe. 

Why is the government doing this? As Senator Hanson said, we’ve been in a per capita recession now for six quarters. We should be in a recession, according to the performance of our economy. The only reason we’re not in a recession is that they’re flooding the joint with migrants to bump up the gross domestic product. You see, a recession is defined as two quarters of negative gross domestic product. So the only thing saving the recession tag from being hung around Prime Minister Albanese’s neck and Treasurer Jim Chalmers’s neck is the record immigration coming in to take us over zero so we’re just barely hanging in there. They don’t want to be tagged, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, who are in office, when the recession hits. Instead they will let hundreds of thousands of people go without what they need, facing inflation and tens of thousands of people without a home. 

Immigration is also affecting our health response. Ambulance ramping is at an all-time high in most states, including in my state of Queensland. It takes time to train paramedics, expand emergency departments and buy new ambulances. The pace of the government’s increase in new arrivals has placed demand on our health system and it simply can’t keep up. Lives are at stake, people are dying, and Labor does not care. It doesn’t care about working families. It doesn’t care about mums and dads working then coming home at night to their family car in a park to see if their kids are still there. That is what this government is doing. 

One of the largest budget costs is more infrastructure, especially on roads and transport. These projects are collectively costing hundreds of billions of dollars. The huge demand for infrastructure materials and qualified people is driving up the cost of infrastructure, adding to inflation. Many of these projects wouldn’t be necessary if we didn’t have an extra 2.45 million people in the country. The people coming to work from the Gold Coast to Brisbane, coming to work from the Sunshine Coast, even Caboolture, Burpengary, Morayfield, every day to work in the city of Brisbane are tied up in a car park or are in stationary traffic for hours—their lives just slipping away. 

We have people sleeping under bridges. As I said a minute ago, we have a mother and father returning after work to see if the children are still in the car in the park in which they live, or a showground or maybe a tent under a bridge. Australia has the world’s richest reserves of minerals, bar none, and we have people sleeping in tents because the Labor government does not care. 

It’s a vicious cycle where the government claims that we can fix the immigration problem with more immigration and that we can fix the housing catastrophe by adding bureaucrats and more immigration—fix housing, the catastrophe, with more immigration.  

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It’s Time for Accountability, Transparency and Restoring Trust

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As we head into another election season, Australia’s trust in politicians is at rock bottom. It’s no surprise people feel betrayed by endless promises from the major parties that are never carried out. 

A recent Roy Morgan survey reflects the truth — Australians believe in straightforward, principle-driven politics, and they recognize these values in One Nation. 

It’s time for politicians to be accountable, communicate openly, and restore faith in our democratic process. One Nation stands firm against the censorship bill— because free speech and public debate are vital for democracy. 

Transcript

Ask anyone in the real world what they think of politicians, and the answer is, ‘I don’t trust the bastards.’ And why should they? We’re again about to enter an election season where the Liberal, Labor and Greens parties will make endless promises about things they will never do. If you lie to the people, they won’t trust you, and Liberal, Labor and the Greens have done plenty of lying. It’s telling that in this chamber we can’t call out a lie. I can say that the Labor Party lies, that the Liberal Party lies and that the Greens party lies, yet I can’t say a particular senator has lied in a debate. That’s unparliamentary. Well, Australians are listening to this discussion live right now, and tens of thousands more will listen later on social media. Listening to the comments, Australians think the never-ending lies are what’s unparliamentary. 

Teenagers make a lot of those social media comments, and teens certainly are not fans of the government. The memes that teenagers come up with in picking apart the government are as funny as they are cutting. Has Prime Minister Anthony Albanese started reading the comments on social media? Is that why he’s trying to get teenagers banned from social media? 

Eighty-nine per cent of Australians agree most politicians will lie if they feel the truth will hurt them politically. The Australian people aren’t morons, and they aren’t just seeing things. Many politicians do lie, and they lie all the time. That’s not how it should be. It’s not what I believe in. Ministers stand up in this place and avoid answering simple, direct questions. They give themselves a pat on the back and cheer themselves, thinking they’re so clever for not giving an answer. Well, ministers, out in the real world, no-one believes the spin and the lies. They can see through the distractions and smears from ministers—for example, Ministers Watt and Ayres. People are laughing at and ridiculing you. Ninety-four per cent of surveyed respondents believe that a politician who is caught lying to the Australian people should resign their position. Liars are destroying trust in the democratic process and parliament. This place should deserve respect and trust as a gathering of representatives of the people. Every dishonest answer is a chip away from the health of our country. 

So I say to the other parties: the proof is in the data, and the solutions are obvious from the data. On 18 October, the Courier-Mail in Queensland reported the Roy Morgan survey on political trust. They surveyed the number of people who trusted and distrusted four of the largest parties and looked at the difference to get a net figure. Have a listen to these figures: net trust for the LNP, minus 12 per cent; net trust for the Greens, minus 13 per cent; net trust for the Labor Party, minus 17 per cent. Guess which is the only party with a net positive trust rating? One Nation. It turns out that, if you have principles and you say what you mean, people trust you. Many people agree with what One Nation says. Some people don’t agree, yet everyone knows where we stand. 

If politicians stuck to their guns as Pauline Hanson does and if they listened to the people and stood up and said, ‘This is what I believe in, and I can’t be changed,’ no matter what side of politics you’re on, our country would be in a better place. No matter how embarrassing they are in the short term, honest answers are better for politicians and for the country in the long term. What will it take for politicians from the major parties to understand this? The Australian people are not mugs. They can make up their own minds, and they sure know when you are lying, so it’s time to stop lying. 

The misinformation bill treats people as if they’re all idiots who can’t be trusted with the facts. There’s nothing more damaging to trust and integrity than censorship. Australia doesn’t trust them, so the question immediately becomes: what are the Liberals, Labor and the Greens hiding? The answer is everything, because you stand for nothing. That’s why One Nation will move a motion asking the Senate to throw out the misinformation and disinformation bill this Monday. I’ll say that again. This Monday, One Nation will be moving a motion asking the Senate to throw out the misinformation and disinformation bill—the mad bill, the censorship bill, the one that doesn’t trust the people. To restore trust in politics, politicians must be trustworthy. No-one who seeks to censor the opinions of Australians deserves their trust. While Labor pushes for a censorship regime under the excuse that it’s about protecting your safety, One Nation pushes for you to be allowed to see the true facts and make up your own mind. There is nothing better for getting to the truth and being the arbiter of truth than free, open, public debate. Why do you not like free, open, public debate? 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Polley): The time for this discussion has expired. 

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Hong Kong’s Struggle Shows the Cost of Communism

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Hong Kong is a lesson of what happens when communism is imposed on democracy. China assured the citizens of Hong Kong they would be respected, and then promptly broke that promise. The top 10% of income earners in Hong Kong own 40 times the wealth of the bottom 10%, with income inequality worsening every year under communism. This confirms that free enterprise lifts people out of poverty, while communism puts them in it. Communism promises joy and inclusion – while delivering misery and repression.  

China is improperly imprisoning freedom journalist and businessman Mr Jimmy Lai.  China is taking a well-worn path of totalitarian governments  seen throughout history.  We must remain alert here in Australia against the actions of a government with its own totalitarian tendencies.

One Nation firmly stands for free enterprise, small government, and the primacy of the family—unlike Communist China.

Transcript

Hong Kong is a lesson in what happens when communism is imposed on democracy. China assured Hong Kong citizens that they would be respected, and then promptly broke that promise. In Hong Kong, the top 10 per cent of income earners now own 40 times the wealth of the bottom 10 per cent. Every year under communism makes income inequality in Hong Kong worse. It confirms that free enterprise lifts people out of poverty, while communism puts them in poverty. Communism promises joy and inclusion, while delivering misery and repression. Repression leads to everyday citizens having less, leading to more repression, which leads to more inequality, and on it goes. 

China is improperly imprisoning freedom journalist and businessman Mr Jimmy Lai. China is taking a well-worn path of totalitarian governments across history. 

Australia has cause for reflection. We’re discussing this motion in the shadow of a looming Senate legislation guillotine. In a guillotine, the government gets the numbers to do whatever it wants, and it does just that, which is how communism starts—with unchallenged power. Senate guillotines have become commonplace. They should not be. Both parties have silenced democratic debate during guillotines, although it seems that Labor is wearing out its guillotine faster than Robespierre. 

Three days of hearings into the misinformation and disinformation bill heard from expert witness after expert witness, all criticising the government for introducing a ministry of truth tasked with issuing sanctions against any social media platform which resisted removal of what the ministry considered ‘misinformation’. This is how communism starts. The committee report had little in common with witness testimony. The report was nothing more than the government’s ‘truth’. The first target for the Albanese government’s ministry of truth should be the Albanese government. 

I welcome calling out Chinese communist repression, and I look forward to a wider conversation on where our actions in this chamber are leading Australia. 

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