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

No, no. I take the interjection because you people have to know that you took taxation from $110,000 million a year to $364,000 million a year. So I would wipe the smile off my face if I were you. You skimmed the Australian public for $265,000 million a year.

If you say, ‘GDP increased; so we’re entitled to more taxation because of the GDP,’ I say that GDP only increased by $514,000 million to $952,000 million. So the people of Australia had an 80 per cent or 90 per cent increase in their income but had a 350 per cent increase in their taxation. So, if I were you, I would not be smiling and I most certainly would not be opening my mouth and inviting the obvious retort that you were going to get.

I hate to say this—I hate to admit it—because Mr Keating was amongst my pantheon of really bad leaders of this country. He would probably rank amongst the three or four worst! He would be up there with Joe Lyons, as one of the great disasters that this country has produced. Whitlam was only in government for a little while, so he could not do much damage in his time, but I do not want to insult him by leaving him out of that illustrious group of dreadful prime ministers. The more I read history books and look at what happened, the greater respect I have for the Fraser government. When they left office taxation was at $42,000 million. Under Mr Keating it more than doubled, to $110,000 million. But the last mob, in a shorter time frame, had taken taxation to $365,000 million. So, when we are trying to measure people by taxation levels, if I were from the Liberal or National parties I would be hiding in the toilets at this moment, in the middle of this debate.

I return to the substantive debate, that Australia will profit by this—that there will be huge money and we will become the financial hub. That really worries me greatly. It is the same sort of thinking that referred to Japanese bladders and called thongs Japanese riding boots. It was the same sort of attitude that said that the Japanese should not be taken seriously militarily when, if you had done any sort of study, you would know that their navy was not much smaller or less formidable than the American navy. In fact, by the time the Japanese had finished with the American navy the Americans had only one battleship and one aircraft carrier left in the Pacific Ocean. They could not defend Guam because they had nothing to defend it with. All of their battleships, destroyers, cruisers and aircraft carriers had been sunk. They were at the bottom of the ocean. The great difference was that, whilst the Japanese lost a large number of their aircraft carriers at Midway, the Americans could reproduce theirs; the Japanese could not. But the idea that they were somehow inferior to us almost cost us the invasion of this country.

The same dreadful thinking is abroad here—that somehow God is an Englishman or that somehow we are cleverer than all of the Asian nations and we will be the financial hub of Asia. I do not think anyone is seriously considering that we are going to be the financial hub of Europe or America but I think the background thinking to this is that we are somehow going to be the financial hub of Asia. Well, this is a very dangerous mode of thinking. It is a very dangerous mode of thinking, indeed.

If you are making your decisions on the basis that somehow we are going to be such really important people in Asia—they will have terrific respect for us!—I strongly suggest that you go and read the little black book that was handed out to all in the Japanese southern army. It said: ‘Three hundred thousand Europeans think they can rule an empire of 400 million Asians. Well, they can think again, because we’re going to throw them out.’ Whilst the Japanese may have lost the war they most certainly succeeded in throwing the Europeans out of Asia. Before the war the Dutch ruled Indonesia. Before the war South-East Asia was ruled by the French. China was ruled by the European powers—and that is, in fact, why Japan went to war. India was ruled by the British. The Philippines was ruled by the United States. After the war the only stupid country that tried to go back in was France, and that led to 54,000 Americans losing their lives in Vietnam. That happened because the French were so stupid as to try and go back in and reimpose themselves.

So it is dangerous thinking that is abroad. This dangerous thinking is again—as with the thinking on tariffs—giving our competitors a free kick. We give them, in the field of agriculture, a 33-metre start over 100 metres. I have lost some of my speed but I think I could still take out Linford Christie over 100 metres if I were given a 30-metre start. Yet we expect all of our farmers to run off a handicap of 33 metres and still compete over a 100-metre race. The average OECD support level is 49 per cent. The support level in Australia is just about zero. So what we are saying is: ‘You blokes are good. You’re 50 per cent better than your competition.’ Well, I have news for you. The late and great Ron Camm, from Queensland, was one of the founders of the coal and aluminium industries of Australia—Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s right hand, if you like. Ron Camm said, ‘Five per cent differential in international trade is an unbeatable head start, and we’re not giving anyone five per cent.’ But this place has given them 50 per cent head start. And each day I walk into this chamber there is more legislation coming down which gives all of our competitors more and more of a head start.

In the field of ethanol the Americans are driving their cars at 81c and buying their grain for $170 a tonne. We are driving our cars at 150c and paying $250 a tonne for grain, simply because this place does not have the brains and the commitment to look after its own people. As Henry Lawson said—and I conclude on this note—‘Let us look to our own.’ (Time expired)

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