We know that truth is the first casualty of war. Politicians of both sides hint they want to drag us into another war, but we have been lied to before. War is horrible for all involved, we must seek peace wherever possible as the people are the ones who suffer most.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to note that peace and security are my goals. Yet often these conflict—part of the irony of the human condition—at a personal level and a global level. We do know some things for sure. War is ugly. There are many inhuman actions in even the smallest war. We also know that truth is always war’s first casualty. We’re told there are two sides to this issue in Ukraine. I want to discuss a third view. So far, we’ve only heard one view. I’ll leave the other side to the Russians. They can talk for themselves; I’m not going to speak for the Russians. I want to discuss a third view. Having read widely in the last 14 years, I no longer swallow the crap we were fed at school and continue to be fed in the media.

Former Senator Ron Paul in the United States is acknowledged for trying to start a department of peace in America instead of a defence department. He had the respect, when he was in Congress, of both sides of politics, Democrats and Republicans. He is very well known for his honesty, his competence and his sincerity. Ron Paul said that every major war since 1913 can be directly attributed to the United States Federal Reserve bank, which is controlled by globalists.

Senator Steele-John just talked about Iraq. Mr President, I’d take your mind back to Iraq, and I remind people of what Mr Alexander Downer said when he retired. On his last night he said that, when John Howard came back from the 9/11 World Trade Center towers collapse in 2001, he walked into cabinet and said, ‘We’re off to Iraq.’ And the cabinet followed, and Australia followed, and in that conflict we killed Australian men and women—young men and women. We also killed a lot of Iraqis and people of other nationalities. ‘We’re off to Iraq.’ I can recall another incident, too, when Prime Minister Howard, Prime Minister Tony Blair from the United Kingdom and President George W Bush from the United States said, ‘We’re all going to go there because of weapons of mass destruction.’ And then, quietly, the world was told they never had any evidence of weapons of mass destruction, but not one parliament, not one congress, held anyone accountable. It went similarly after the Vietnam War and so many other wars around the world, and, as Senator Steele-John just said, it was led on many occasions by the United States.

I have huge admiration for the United States, having lived there for five years, been through all 50 states, worked in eight states and lived in eight states. I admire what the United States has done. I’m married to an American—a dual citizen of Australia and America. But I recognise now that I swallowed a lot of rubbish and propaganda from the Americans, because the government of America led many war efforts. The American people are fine, peace-loving people, but we have been taken into conflicts. So I’m open to alternative views on the Ukrainian issue, but we have no dog in this fight and we should stay out of it.

We repeatedly see decisions in the place—as people know, I can see—where there is data contradicting the reality, and yet, without any data, we blunder into things. We sometimes ignore the facts and data. And always, as one of the Labor senators pointed out, the people pay. So I raise questions. I question the narrative. I question the media narrative—it’s one-way. I question the political narrative—it’s one-way. I question the propaganda and the demonising. But I don’t make statements without facts, and I don’t know sufficient facts to take other than a third view here.

I question the cost of fuel. The biggest impact on our fuel prices is not the Ukraine conflict; it’s government taxes. Senator Hanson has flagged a reduction in excise duty. I question our capacity to defend ourselves, because we need manufacturing to produce weapons, armaments, tanks. We don’t have that capacity anymore. We’ve been gutted by adherence to UN agreements—the Lima declaration, the Kyoto protocol. We see, today, the government setting aside money for injecting babies—babies!—with an untested vaccine.

We heard the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Payne, talk about the Russians now having to fight German weapons that are being given to Ukraine. But the Germans are giving them billions of dollars for gas, because the United Nations has destroyed Germany’s capacity to look after its own energy needs. We have been disarmed. Germany is being disarmed. The only concrete thing I will say in this statement is that we need to get the hell out of the United Nations, not follow it, because the United Nations is pushing a war on humanity.

I’m not sufficiently informed to take a stance either way on this issue. I am, though, sufficiently informed to invite all senators to question what we’re being told. I implore senators, first of all, to understand basic needs of humans and the needs that are driving these conflicts, whether they’re domestic, national or international, and to understand that meeting universal human needs for security, basic interactions and connections is key. It is key to connection and key to relationships.

So I’d just ask people to question. I question how the Ukraine—I’m told by Senator Steele-John—is $129 billion in debt to the IMF, when it’s one of the richest countries in the world. How is that possible? So I ask questions, and I take a third view.