Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

As the immigration minister in the Queensland government, I advocated at the ministerial conference that we move to 350,000 migrants a year. That was a position on which I got full agreement from the Queensland Bjelke-Petersen cabinet, and I had a dreadful fight with Senator Robert Ray at the time.

There is one hell of a difference between the situation now and the situation then. We had an award system. Bringing in those people was not going to crush the incomes of Australians. Now we have no award system and the bringing of those people into Australia on an unlimited basis will crush the award system and the standard of living of the employee class—the workers, if you like—in this country.

It is very interesting if you shut up and listen. The member for Goldstein is a classic example of a person who I do not think has ever in his life listened to anyone except rich and powerful people. I know him well. I know him from the NFF. When he was director of the NFF it was always referred to as ‘no family farms’. I went to a meeting where the then head of the NFF actually said that. He said, ‘We’re inefficient at the present moment, but as corporate farming takes over we will become efficient.’ Crush out the owner-operator farmers in Australia! That was the culture that presided whilst he was there, whilst he did untold damage to that organisation then. He is now doing untold damage to the coalition.

People on this side: do not knock him. He is your greatest asset! He is hurling at you that you are xenophobic. On my score, two elections were won by the coalition on that issue. Two elections were run on that issue. This fellow is accusing you of it. You might be hot contenders for the next election. I do not know. All I know is that, if that culture and the philosophy that he espouses continue on the side of the coalition, exactly the same damage will be done to them as was done to the NFF whilst that man had a dominant role in that operation.

I sat on an aeroplane with a gentleman who represented a company that did maintenance work on particular machinery. I will not betray his confidence. They employed about 20 or 30 people in Australia. I asked, ‘How do you get people to go out to these isolated mining situations?’ He said, ‘It was very difficult until you blokes liberalised the immigration laws.’ He said: ‘Now, of course, it is very easy. Half of our employees’—that is, 15 people—‘are now Indonesians.’ He said jokingly to me: ‘You don’t have to worry too much about them. They do not put much pressure on you about conditions and those sorts of things.’ No. They are prepared to work for nothing! What about the Philippines rural wage?

The member for Goldstein got up and talked about regional Australia. He would not know about it. He has never set foot in it. I have never seen or heard of him going into a regional area in the country in my life. He possibly has. I do not know. I am certain that he does not speak to the people I speak to when I go into regional Australia. There is a precedent for bringing in those people. In South Africa there was Cecil Rhodes. People are proud of having had a Rhodes scholarship. I would be ashamed to have my name remotely associated with that gentleman.

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