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

Having presented the Constitution Alteration (Just Terms) Bill 2010, we give notice to the House that we will present a second bill. Whilst the first bill requires Constitutional amendment; the second one is a property rights. Property rights can be removed or diminished by an action of the government only if a budget allocation has been made to compensate under just terms the entity that enjoys or has reasonable expectation of enjoying that right and all affected entities are given reasonable access to that compensation.

In presenting the bill to the House, I say that there will be fire and brimstone upon every member of this House, and, please God, the sooner the better. The government has treated with absolute contempt the principle—and the state government is probably worse, if humanly possible, than the federal government—that an Englishman’s home is his castle. For those who saw the wonderful Australian movie—maybe the best of all Australian movies—The Castle, it is implicit in that movie the principle that we all believe in. For those who like Russell Crowe, he looks into King John’s eyes and King John says, ‘What, you expect me to give every Englishman a castle?’ Russell Crowe says, ‘Every Englishman’s home is his castle.’

We people in North Queensland—and I read an article recently by a fisherman in Adelaide—have had our water rights taken away from us and our timber rights taken away from us. It is very difficult for us to think of a single right that we still enjoy—whilst, in theory, the property that is owned by you, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, or me or anyone else in this House, has these rights enshrined. Since the days of the Magna Carta it has been true that regardless of your racial background you are a member of the English speaking peoples and those peoples have enjoyed a principle that the Crown is not supreme; the individual has his rights that the Crown cannot assail. In the case of property, if he wants to take that property then let him pay just and rightful compensation for it.

Let me be very specific and quote Noel Pearson at the ‘Our land, our sea’ conference in North Queensland. He said, ‘For the last 30,000 or 40,000 years, maybe for time immemorial, my people have had access to the water, access to the timber, access to the rocks, access to all of these rights, and a thief in night’—the Premier of Queensland—‘took all of those rights off us without paying a single cent in compensation.’ As Noel said: ‘We’ll see you in the Hight Court. We have been there before and we beat you last time.’ And I will be backing him this time.

Peter Spencer had a big rally here at this place. The honourable Leader of the Opposition was there and it was rather ironic—not in any way criticising him for being at the rally—in the sense that almost everything they were complaining about was in fact implemented by the last government, not the current Labor government. Let me simply quote that case. The figures are not correct; not even remotely correct, but the relativities are right. Mr Spencer had a big property, and he had timber on that property. Let us say the value of that property was $2.7 million and the value the banks put on the timber was $1 million. The New South Wales government, under the direction of the last federal government, removed his timber rights. The banks then said, ‘You have just lost $1 million in value, so we are foreclosing on you.’ They sold him up for $½ million or whatever it was, leaving him with a debt. That is what we are assailing in this bill. (Time expired)

Bill read a first time.

See this speech in context