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

Righto. Thank you for that. What we are now referring to is a qualitative change. It is not like the sale of a chook farm or a factory; this is the sale of a regulatory mechanism that facilitates the proper functioning of the share market. People need to be able to buy and sell shares, confident in the knowledge that they are protected from manipulation. If the sale of the Australian Stock Exchange proceeds, it will be in the hands of a foreign corporation that is substantially owned by a foreign government. So we will have a foreign government owning a sovereign power of the Australian people. I will not go into the details of the takeover bid for Coles by certain people on the board of Coles, but effectively these people lent an XYZ company money from Coles. This company then bought shares in Coles so that a certain person, who was a supplier of many items to Coles, could become chairman of the board of Coles and control it. That is the sort of thing that needs to be looked at by a stock exchange. If that company were, for example, a Singapore based company, one would think that certain prejudices would run in favour of the Singapore based company at the expense of Australian shareholders.

I am well aware of the tightly held nature of companies where shares are held by very few people. They can very easily manipulate the price up by a little bit of buying on the market or manipulate the price down if it suits them so they can buy more shares and more control of the company. We have a stock exchange not only to facilitate the buying and selling of shares but also to regulate it and see that it does not become an instrument of manipulation and deceit. That is why this is different from selling a chook farm or selling a factory. This is a case of selling a very important asset of this country, a sovereign mechanism. This is more in the nature of selling the arbitration commission. It mean seem that I am reaching a long way if I say selling the High Court, but this is a regulatory mechanism that is part of the sovereign powers of the Australian people.

All right, you want to sell the railways. I am diametrically opposed to the sale of that great asset, the railways in Queensland. But if you are going to do that, that is qualitatively entirely different to selling a regulatory mechanism, what we are discussing here today. Those in this place sat on their hands and did nothing while the great mining companies of Australia were flogged off to foreigners, and now all those great profits are sailing out of this country. To me, trying to impose a tax upon the miners is well and truly attempting to shut the gate after the horse has long ago bolted. I remember the great Vince Gauci at MIM pleading with the board not to sell Mount Isa Mines. I think every single year for the first four years after the sale the company made more profit in each year than the stupid board members had sold the company for. It was similar with dairy factories, meatworks, horticultural processing, Golden Circle, IXL, the Australian Wheat Board—great institutions set up by the Australian people.

I remind the House before I conclude that Ben Chifley always claimed that it was the ALP that regulated and introduced the AWB, the single-desk seller in the wheat industry. That was technically correct. Jack McEwen always violently altercated with him and claimed it was the Country Party that had been formed for the purposes of achieving a single-desk seller in the wheat industry. That was why the Country Party was actually formed. But they always fought. They had substantial arguments.

Today we see people vying for the privilege of flogging off the assets of Australia and even our regulatory mechanisms. In this place we must tenaciously oppose the sale of regulatory mechanisms. Even if you agree to the sale of Australia’s assets—which I do not—you cannot agree to the sale of a regulatory mechanism that is being proposed—that is if it is being proposed—in this place. I hope that it most certainly is not.

In conclusion, we had a joke when I was a young person about the sort of bloke that would sell you the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The only thing that surprises Australians today is that we have not sold the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but don’t hold your breath. I take great pleasure in having moved this resolution.

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