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

The wonderful thing about my position is that when I stand up to speak on industrial matters I was a member of the only government that has ever stood up to a union seriously when they were right over the fence. It was arguably one of the more brutal confrontations in recent Australian history. I have never resiled from the fact that I was a key player. The lights were turned off in major parts of Brisbane for over two weeks. That was the confrontation and from that point forward there was a backdown on excessive behaviour. There has been a backdown to a point now where unions in a lot of cases have become supine and, I might even say, in some cases grovelling. It is more important for them to achieve site coverage than it is for them to represent their workers. In those days one had to stand one's ground against excessive demands from the trade unions, but now I find myself, holding the same moderate position that I think I held then, having to go in the other direction.

The previous speaker said we were non-competitive. Of course, we are—you want a free trade deal with China. There is only one way to be competitive and that is to go down to Chinese wages. I do not doubt for a moment that the heartland of Liberal philosophy would have us go down to Chinese wages. I heard one of the biggest disasters in Australian history, Mr Paul Keating, tell us that we were going to move in a free and open economic society—that Australia would be the freest economy on earth—and he most certainly delivered on that promise. When I heard him say that, I asked myself: 'Is this person mad? Are we going to pay Chinese wages in Australia?' If you are going to have a free trade deal with China, you can close everything down in this country. Although I must admit I have not heard it recently, people in this House sometimes say we are going to be the food bowl of Asia. Those of us who come out of agricultural areas laugh. It is probably preferable that we laugh than cry. We will be net importers of food from Asia.

Let me be very specific. I have said this before in the House: if you draw a graph of the production of prawn and fish farming in China, it is almost a vertical graph. If you extrapolate on for 40 or 50 years, all of the world's protein will come from China. I cannot mention his name without his permission, but one of the biggest food wholesalers in Australia is about to get bumblebees, and I said, 'What do you need bumblebees for?' He said, 'Because you've got to stop the tomatoes coming in from China.' I do not want to go sideways on that issue again—I spoke about it before—but tomatoes will be coming in from China. The Tasmanians have told me that there are more apples and apple products coming in from China than we produce in Australia. Just wake up to yourselves, you stupid people. Your country, in three years time, will be a net importer of food thanks to the free market policies of the government and of the Liberal Party and their running dogs, as they used to be called, the National Party—the rubber stamps that come in here called the National Party.

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