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I called out the Prime Minister’s jet set lifestyle during parliament. Australians can see how out of touch and ineffective Anthony Albanese is as a leader.

The Prime Minister has spent too much time rubbing shoulders with pop stars, sucking up to billionaires and flying around the world in long overseas trips and too little time talking with everyday Australians.

Meanwhile Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen and his Ministry of Misery is making life harder for everyday Australians with every new net zero measure.

This is a PM who clearly cares more about globalists and celebrities than he does for the people of the country he was born into.

If ever the comparison to ‘Nero Fiddling While Rome Burned’ was appropriate for a political leader, it is Anthony Albanese.

Transcript

In a speech earlier this year, I made the point that one can judge a man by the company he keeps. I observed that one of Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese’s first orders of business was a private meeting with globalist billionaire and manipulator extraordinaire Bill Gates. And I spoke to a more recent meeting the Prime Minister had with Larry Fink, chairman of BlackRock, the merchant bank that now owns Australia and tries to control Australia.

In the break, the Prime Minister once again used taxpayers money and a taxpayers plane to hobnob at concerts, exhibition openings and attend a billionaire’s birthday soiree. In so doing, the Prime Minister has demonstrated he will show fealty to anyone he needs to, in order to keep swanning around as though the weight of responsibility of running this beautiful country of ours was somehow not on his shoulders.

It’s not the job of the Prime Minister to party at a time when everyday Australians are struggling to pay their rent, pay their mortgages, find a roof to put over their heads and pay their electricity bills. Especially because of his government’s policies. Can someone on the Government benches remind Prime Minister Anthony Albanese the word party in Labor Party doesn’t mean what he seems to think it means.

All the while, Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Climate Change and Energy, and now known as the Ministry of Misery, has been out there destroying our productive capacity, making people’s lives harder. His latest policy is a tax on commercial vehicles, including utes that tradies need to be a tradie. How can a so-called party of working Australians introduce a ute tax that will make it harder for tradies to own what is an essential tool of their trade?

Have you considered what that tax will do to housing construction? It will cut house production and raise house costs. If ever the analogy of fiddling while Rome burns is appropriate to a modern leader, it’s now: Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. What a bloody disgrace!

I asked the Treasury Department how they got immigration forecasts for the year so horribly wrong when they were already a third of the way through the year? In October 2022, the Government estimated total net overseas migration for the year July 2022 to June 2023 to be 235,000. The actual arrivals for 2022-23 ended up at 518,000. It’s hard to understand how Treasury was this wrong about those 12 months when they were already 4 months through them.

This is just more proof the government’s immigration program is totally out of control. Minister Gallagher is wrong when she claims this flood immigration is a benefit to Australia. Right now immigration is choking our country, making the housing problem, the cost of living crisis, energy shortages, the crisis in healthcare and other essential services even worse.

Only One Nation will make sure Australians get a roof over their heads first.

Soaring cost of living, massive mortgage, rent hikes and inflation meant Australian households suffering the fastest income collapse in the world last year. Labor’s tax changes will benefit some Australians, a measly $15 a week to make up for this.

Labor are out of touch.

This legislation will barely make a dent in cost of living and the government admits as much by claiming these tax cuts will make no measurable difference to the amount of money Australians have in their pocket to spend. Meanwhile, they are silent on their secret money maker – bracket creep. As wages increase, Australians move into higher tax brackets while only being able to buy the same things due to inflation, yet they’ll be paying more tax. This little trick means government has collected an extra $44 billion in taxes from Australians, thanks to inflation over the last decade. Because it hasn’t been fixed, Australians will be paying an extra $38 billion in the next four years alone.

I moved an Amendment that would change the tax rates to keep up with inflation and eliminate bracket creep. If Liberal and Labor are genuine about real tax cuts, they’ll vote for this Amendment and let Australians keep billions of dollars.

One Nation has been talking about the Liberal-Labor government’s secret tax loophole of bracket creep ever since this debate on the Stage 3 Tax Cuts started and we are doing something about it with our proposed amendment to this bill. We need proper tax reform urgently.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians are homeless with more added every day.

The Defence Force is the most unprepared to defend Australia it’s been in 50 years.

Inflation has cancelled out all of the wage growth of the last ten years.

Let’s have a look at what Liberal and Labor are doing about it.

This cannot be said often enough. People do not trust Prime Minister Albanese. Why?

Labor conjures up a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election where it’s worried about losing a government MP.

Labor knows that bracket creep, a stealth tax, will increase taxes much more than the headline grabbing cut.

Labor’s fuel excise increase will inflate prices at the pump. Inflation will offset the tax cut. Worse still, the excise increase will filter through the food chain to push up grocery prices across Australia.

Lib-Lab energy policies are driving skyrocketing electricity prices that will soon bury the cuts and drive up food and cost-of-living.

PM Albanese is deceptively grabbing news headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.

Transcript

Labor conjures up a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election, where it’s worried about losing a government MP. Yet Labor knows bracket creep will soon increase taxes much more than the headline-grabbing cut. Understandably, to many people getting $16.70 back from the government that’s a lot of money. Yet the same people will lose it, and much more very quickly, to bracket creep, a stealth tax. The Prime Minister deceptively grabs headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.

Labor conjures a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election, where it’s worried about losing a government MP. Yet Labor’s petrol and diesel excise increase will soon increase fuel prices and inflation, offsetting the tax cuts. The Prime Minister deceptively grabs headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.

Labor conjures a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election, where it’s worried about losing a government MP. The petrol and diesel excise will filter through the food chain to raise grocery prices in every food store in the country, offsetting the tax cuts. The Prime Minister deceptively grabs headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.

Labor conjures a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election, where it’s worried about losing a government MP, yet Labor and Liberal energy policies are driving skyrocketing electricity prices that will soon bury the cuts. The Prime Minister deceptively grabs headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.

Labor conjures a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election, where it’s worried about losing a government MP, yet higher electricity costs are raising grocery prices that will soon bury the cuts. The Prime Minister deceptively grabs headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I thank Senator Hume for her matter of public importance and support it.

Anthony Albanese has lied to the Australian people — it’s important to point that out.

The conversation around Stage 3 tax cuts is a smoke screen that only fiddles around the edges.

Since 2020, the rate of taxes Australians are paying has gone up by 20%. Anthony Albanese will only give Australians $20 a week back.

Here’s a thought PM – if you’re genuine about Australians paying lower taxes, why don’t you index the thresholds so Australians don’t pay more tax just because of inflation?

The housing unaffordability crisis is one of the greatest issues facing Australia. Australians want to have their hard work and savings rewarded. They want a place to call their own and a place where they can stay to raise a family.

Mortgages are skyrocketing and two thirds of young Australians believe they will never own their own home. Rents are also rising on the back of a record low national vacancy rate of 1%. Experts consider a 3% vacancy rate to be tight — a national average of 1% is an absolute crisis.

Right now, many Australians simply cannot afford a roof over their head.

Supply and demand controls the housing market. Yet decades of successive governments have mismanaged both sides of the equation.

One Nation would properly manage our economy and deliver cheaper houses and cheaper rent. How? First, by stemming the flow of overseas arrivals which is driving up unsustainable demand. Over the last year, Australia gained an additional 2.3 million visa holders. We cannot sustain this level of overseas arrivals. Powerful lobby groups reliant on high immigration have been able to label anyone talking about this problem as racist.

Secondly, many Australians can’t afford housing in Australia banning foreign ownership is the only answer. It would increase housing supply and stop pumping up the profits for the Big Banks. As the Reserve Bank raises interest rates, the big banks pass that on at up to 7%, yet the banks borrowed long term funds from the RBA at just 0.1%. They’re pocketing the huge difference leading to record-breaking profits.

On the supply side, government and its red and green tape must get out of the way and let our tradies build homes. Homes for Australians to stem the tide of tent cities and misery that decades of indifferent governments have caused.

Affordable houses, lower affordable rents and a flourishing economy is all possible under One Nation.

Transcript

I thank Senator Pocock for his matter of urgency and for validating the concept of net immigration that we’ve been pushing for quite some time. Mortgages are skyrocketing, rents keep increasing and two-thirds of young Australians believe they will never own a home, and it’s easy to understand why.

The housing unaffordability crisis is one of the greatest issues facing Australia. In Brisbane, the median house price is 10 times the median income. Experts consider a three per cent rental vacancy rate to be tight. Rents are rising on the back of a record low national rate of one per cent. As in all real markets, there are two things, and two things only, that affect house prices: supply and demand. Successive governments have destroyed both sides of the equation.

This is how One Nation would deliver cheaper houses and cheaper rent. In the short term, we would stop pouring fuel on the fire. Excluding tourists and short-stay visitors, there are 2.3 million visaholders in the country likely to need housing. In addition, there are roughly 400,000 tourists and other visaholders in the country. In the middle of our rental shortage, this high demand is motivating owners to convert housing to full-time Airbnbs. Two point seven million visaholders, more than 10 per cent of Australia’s population, are in the country right now fighting Australians for a roof over their head. The country cannot sustain this level of overseas arrivals. That number must be cut to help housing availability and affordability.

The biggest winners from high house prices are the banks. As the Reserve Bank raises interest rates, the big banks pass that on at up to seven per cent. Yet the banks borrowed long-term funds from the RBA, the Reserve Bank of Australia, at just 0.1 per cent. They’re pocketing the huge differences, leading to record-breaking profits. One Nation would never repeat the mistakes of the COVID period, where the Reserve Bank was allowed to create $500 billion out of thin air.

That led to the inflation that the Reserve Bank is now trying to fight, and the tool it uses is to send mortgage holders broke.

Finally, on the demand side, we need to ban foreign ownership of Australian assets. A single real estate agent in Sydney sold $135 million dollars in property to Chinese buyers in just six months. Australians can’t own a house in China, so why should we let foreign citizens buy property here? And on the supply side, the government needs to get out of the way with its restrictive building codes, so called green land restrictions and a spider web of employment law.

A home is a castle. Decades of indifferent governments from both sides of politics have ruined the Australian housing dream for many Australians. Only One Nation has the guts to make that dream a reality for all Australians.

Affordable houses and rents and a flourishing economy are all possible under One Nation. We just need to start looking after Australians first

I spoke in parliament about the homelessness crisis in Australia and called out those responsible.

In Labor’s urban heartland, everyday Australians are sleeping in tents. These ‘tent cities’ are forming in public parks, showgrounds and under bridges. Australian citizens are being pushed aside to make room for the 2.3 million visa holders this government has let in during its term.

What the heck is this government doing? No stunts can cover up this failure. Imagine what kind of Christmas these Australians will have? The government is sending billions of dollars in foreign aid and contributions to organisations like the WHO and the United Nations, while letting its own people become homeless.

Albanese’s government is the Grinch that is stealing the Australian way of life.

Transcript

As we go about the business of the Senate today in the Labor Party’s normal chaotic, despotic manner, out there in Labor’s heartland, everyday Australians are sleeping in tents in public parks and in tents under bridges.

Australian citizens are being pushed aside to make room for the 2.3 million visa holders this government has let in during its term. That’s 2.3 million people being brought into a country that’s only building 120,000 new homes a year. That’s 2.3 million arrivals into a housing market that was already short 100,000 homes needed to put a roof over the heads of all those who were here when Labor took office—homeless Australians this government has turned its back on.

How must these people feel, watching this one-term Prime Minister jetting around the world in style, hobnobbing with predatory billionaires at elitist events in lovely locations, dining out on the best food and sleeping in the best hotels. Perhaps the next trip this failure of a prime minister should be taking is to the riverbank at West End, New Farm, South Bank, North Quay or Musgrave Park, all in Brisbane, or to the showgrounds in Gladstone or parks in Bundaberg.

The footage of these Depression-era tent camps is running on the ABC as we speak. I suggest the government watch it and ask themselves what the heck they are doing.

Tent cities are appearing right across Labor’s urban heartland—everyday Australians unable to keep a roof over their heads because there is no roof for them.

Thanks to Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and this Labor government, there’s no place in Australia for Australians. Every tent in these tent cities has a name stamped on it—the names of Prime Minister Albanese, of Treasurer Chalmers and of Immigration Minister Giles. Your heartland is hurting, and no stunts on a bill the Senate had mostly passed already will cover up your failures.

Bring on the next election, because you lot are done.

Mortgages are skyrocketing, rents keep increasing, two thirds of young Australians believe they will never own a home and it’s hard to blame them.

The housing unaffordability crisis is the greatest issue facing Australia. Australians want to have their hard work and savings rewarded. They want a place to call their own and a place they can stay to raise a family.

The median house price in Brisbane is 10 times the median income.[1] In Brisbane it would take the average income 13 years just to save a deposit.

Rents are also rising on the back of a record low national vacancy rate of 1%.[2] Experts consider a 3% vacancy rate to be tight, a national average of 1% is an absolute crisis.

Right now, many Australians simply cannot afford a roof over their head.

Like any market there are two things and two things only that affect housing prices: supply and demand. Decades of successive governments have mismanaged both sides of the equation.

This is how One Nation would properly manage our economy and deliver cheaper houses and cheaper rent:

Cut overseas arrivals, ban foreign ownership, increase supply and stop pumping up profits for the Big Banks.

Cut the flood of overseas arrivals

In the short term, we need to stop pouring fuel on the fire. A huge amount of overseas arrivals are driving unsustainable demand.

Excluding tourists and short stay visitors, there are currently 2.3 million visa holders in the country likely to need housing.[3]

These working visa holders, students and others are putting enormous strain on the rental market, fighting Australians for a roof over their head and driving up rent prices.

The arrivals that can afford it are also buying houses, pushing up prices even higher.

The Albanese Labor government issued a record 670,000 student visas in one year when we only have 100,000 dedicated student accommodation beds.

In addition to these 2.3 million visa holders likely to need housing, there are roughly 400,000 tourist and other visa holders in the country.

While tourism is good for Australia, in the middle of our rental shortage this high demand is motivating owners to take their properties out of the rental pool and convert them to lucrative, full-time AirBnBs.

That means less rental supply for people needing a place to live and higher rents.

2.7 million visa holders, more than 10% of Australia’s population, are in the country right now fighting Australians for a roof over their head.

The country cannot sustain this level of overseas arrivals. It must be cut to take immediate pressure off housing availability and affordability.

Why haven’t we cut arrivals already?

Powerful lobby groups who rely on high immigration have been able to falsely label anyone who talks about this problem as “racist”.

Talking about reasonable levels of immigration is about securing a prosperous future for all Australians, including those who come to the country. Ruining our economy is a bad outcome for immigrants as well.

As the problem gets even worse, even mainstream media is now being forced to acknowledge the huge negative effects Australia is seeing from an unsustainable amount of arrivals.

The biggest winners from high house prices and big immigration are the big banks and multinational corporations relying on cheap labour.

Mortgages are so profitable for banks that they have become over-reliant on housing prices.

The ratio of borrowing for mortgages versus borrowing for business has skyrocketed to more than 200%, up from less than 40% in 1990.[3A]

That means the Big Banks are less diversified and will lose more money if housing becomes affordable.

As the Reserve Bank raises interest rates, the big banks pass that on at up to 7%, yet the banks borrowed long term funds from the RBA at just 0.1%.

They’re pocketing the huge difference leading to record-breaking profits.

There is billions of dollars at stake for the banks and other big businesses if housing became more affordable. The questions have to be asked whether government is putting the profits of greedy banks and multinational corporations ahead of Australians having affordable housing.

One Nation would never repeat the mistakes of the COVID period, where the Reserve Bank was allowed to create $500 billion out of thin air.[4]

That led to the inflation the Reserve Bank is now trying to fight and the tool it uses to do that is sending mortgage holders broke.

This only pumps up the big banks profits.

Ban Foreign Ownership

Finally, on the demand side solutions, we need to ban foreign ownership of Australian assets.

The government has no idea exactly how bad foreign purchases are.[5] A single real estate agent in Sydney sold $135 million in property to Chinese buyers in just six months.[6]

Australians can’t own a house in China, so why should we let foreign citizens buy property here?

Australian property is also a hotbed for suspected money laundering, with much of this happening in foreign connected purchases.[7]

We need to ban foreign ownership of Australian homes to decrease demand and give Australians a shot at owning their own home.

Let tradies build homes

On the supply side, government needs to get out of the way with their restrictive building codes, green land restrictions and a spider web of employment law.

Our tradies know how to build homes. Government just needs to get out of the way and let them build.

While increasing supply is an important part, it is important to note that supply can only be increased so much in the face of overwhelming demand, fuelled by overseas arrivals and foreign purchasers.

Australia has typically built homes at nearly the fastest rate in the world, fourth out of all OECD countries.[8]

Supply chain issues, high interest rates and rising construction insolvencies mean its very unlikely we will be able to easily build even more supply than the high amount we already do.[9]

Looking at how Australia punches above its weight in building houses and increasing supply already, it’s clear the biggest issue we have to fix is the demand side currently driven by overseas arrivals.[10]

One Nation would make home ownership a reality for Australians

A home is a castle.

The family unit and our society flourish when we have stable places to build our lives and raise families.

Decades of indifferent governments from both sides of politics have ruined this dream for many.

Only One Nation has the guts to make the decisions that will make the dream of home ownership a reality for all Australians.

Affordable houses, lower affordable rents and a flourishing economy is all possible under One Nation.


[1] Housing unaffordability hits grim new peak (afr.com)

[2] The Latest Rental Vacancy Rates around Australia (archive.is)

[3] Tarric Brooker aka Avid Commentator 🇦🇺 on X: “A new all time high for the number of temporary visa holders in Australia likely to require some form of housing.https://t.co/6NQ8HXu3i4” / X (archive.is)

[3A] (57) Tarric Brooker aka Avid Commentator 🇦🇺 on X: “Why Australia’s productivity growth is sub par when not being juiced by a resources boom or an expansion of household debt summed up in one chart. Businesses have gone from a peak of 74% of bank lending to 34% today. All that capital is flowing into housing instead. https://t.co/ZfyJMvAK7y” / X (twitter.com)

[4] RBA creates inflation by printing money out of thin air – Malcolm Roberts (malcolmrobertsqld.com.au)

[5] Housing ‘scandal’: Foreigners buy twice as many homes as recorded (archive.is)

[6] Chinese millionaires snap up Australian properties in Toorak, Armadale, Malvern, Hawkthorne and Kooyong | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site (archive.is)

[7] No questions asked: money laundering thrives in Australia because of professionals willing to facilitate it | Crime – Australia | The Guardian (archive.is)

[8] [Title] (oecd.org)

[9] ASIC data shows insolvencies in the building and construction industry have hit pre-Covid levels | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

[10] Why more supply will never fix the housing market – MacroBusiness

The PMs frequent visits to foreign countries is a way of avoiding responsibility. The PM does not understand that leaders lead from the front, not from 30,000 feet. PM Albanese needs to pick up his leadership game instead of his carry-on baggage.

Australia desperately needs leadership. We have the worst outcome for real wages of any OECD country. Housing is unaffordable and our inflation is now home-grown. Two million new migrants is driving demand-inflation, making staples harder to get and more expensive. This situation will become worse after the passage of Minister Plibersek’s new bill to nobble agriculture in the Senate today, which reduces water available to farmers and will without doubt drive up food prices.

The PM needs to stop dodging responsibility and get back here to clean up the mess he’s made.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community I started this week with my usual check to see if the Prime Minister is in the country today. He is. Hitting ‘home’ on his GPS still brings him back to Australia. What a memory that device has. Prime Minister Albanese clearly doesn’t suffer from airsickness, yet he has managed a medical first—spreading airsickness to the rest of the country. We are all thoroughly sick of his air travel. The Prime Minister doesn’t get that and with every flight he is crashing the government’s poll numbers. It’s why the internet has unkindly, though accurately, given the Prime Minister’s plane the new name—’Air Albatross’. 

Leaders lead from the front, not from 30,000 feet. Australia needs leadership. Inflation can no longer be blamed on world events beyond our control. All along our inflation has been and is homegrown—demand driven from this government’s record new arrivals. There was a time when Australia could have ramped up manufacturing and agriculture to meet demand from the 2.2 million new long-stay arrivals in just the last 12 months, but not anymore. The Hawke-Keating Labor government and the Howard Liberal government sent manufacturing to China. Now we’re at the mercy of the Chinese and world markets to source goods, including building materials, to meet the needs of new arrivals.  

Minister Plibersek is deliberately nobbling agricultural expansion, with another bill in the Senate today to take away farmers’ ability to grow food and fibre for new arrivals. Per capita income has gone backward faster than in any other developed nation in the world, as national wealth is spread across more and more people. A looming federal deficit will force interest rates up and steal even more wealth and opportunity from everyday Australians. Prime Minister, stop dodging responsibility, hang up your Biggles hat, get to work and clean up your mess.