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

Well, I was not really. I was getting to the end of my run. I do not want to be acting like I am some sort of hero. I was getting to the end of my run, and I just could not stand any more of the sort of vitriolic hatred that I encountered in the electorate, which I knew was totally justified. I knew it was totally justified. When I went up to the Atherton Tableland, the tobacco industry had been closed down—2,000 people lost their jobs—by the government. The dairy industry had been closed down—1,500 people lost their jobs—by the government. The fishing industry on the coast at Innisfail had been closed down—by the government. The timber industry—we had a huge timber industry, with 2,000 employees—was closed down by the government. We had 8,000 jobs gone as a result of government action.

These are the only people speaking up against that—which has been the policy for nearly 30 years in this country. As one person said, 'The trouble is that we're in the 30th year of the Gough Whitlam era.' He cut tariffs across the board by 25 per cent. If that was going to help the working man of Australia, I am the abominable snowman from Boulia! If that was going to help the workers of Australia—a 25 per cent cut in tariffs! The unions claim that 150,000 jobs have gone in manufacturing. That is before the demise of the car industry, which takes down with it, according to all reports—government reports, I might add—72 per cent of what is left of Australian industry. We were told in this place that there would be 20 per cent attrition. Well, there has been 100 per cent attrition.

We are not lied to; this is just the policy of the majors. And it appears that the Greens and the Xenophons have joined the majors. Their interests have aligned with the majors. When I say that, this is on policy. In this particular vote, we praise the ALP for taking the stand that they have taken.

On the elimination of the smaller voices: Australia is an interesting country because it is the only country on earth to my knowledge that has a two-party system without a constituency based electorate. The Americans have a two-party system, but they have a constituency based electorate. The honourable member from Victoria behind me here, for example, got elected because she goes to the people to ask for their support. Everyone in America, every single congressman, has to ask for that support. You have what is called a primary for your congressional seat, so you are answerable not to the party machine but to the people in your electorate who are registered Democrats or registered Republicans, depending upon which party persuasion you are of. The American system is entirely different than any other system on earth.

If you take that out, this is the only country on earth that I know of that has a two-party system. New Zealand does not have a two-party system anymore; England does not have a two-party system—not that they would be good examples of a successfully operating democracy. Most certainly none of the Europeans or Japan or any of those other people have two-party systems. Every single system allows for a smaller voice to be heard.

In the same two weeks that the Liberals are taking away the voice of the people they are changing the media laws so that everything in Australia can be owned by two or three people—every single vision that you see on television, every single image that you see and every single newspaper you read. In Queensland I think 95 per cent of the readership already lies with the Murdoch empire. Whether you think that is a good thing or a bad thing, I do not think anyone would agree that 95 per cent of print media should be owned by one person. Through the arrangements with Foxtel almost everything we will watch on television will be controlled by the same overseas corporation—and that is what it is, an overseas corporation.

What sort of a country closes down its entire manufacturing base consciously knowing that it is doing it? You cannot not know that what you have done is close the manufacturing base. The last whitegoods factory closed in Orange last year. The last motor vehicle factory will close this year. With the closure of the motor vehicle industry 72 per cent of what is left of Australian manufacturing will vanish. The OECD economic statements on countries have a column called 'elaborately transformed'. That exists for OECD countries—advanced economies, if you like—where they transform product.

At a meeting recently I was quite pleased to hear a very young engineering fitter say: 'Don't say we are a mining country. We are not a mining country. Mining is when you take it out of the ground and sell a metal. We take it out of the ground and sell the ground. We do not do any processing any more. We just sell concentrate.' We are going to lose the great refineries of North Queensland: the nickel refinery, the zinc refinery and the copper refinery—three of the most magnificent processing plants in the entire world, and there are very few mineral processing plants in the world. We are going to lose them as sure as the sun rises. With the continuation of these policies we will lose them. Most mines in Australia now simply send out the ground, not the metal.

So we have got no manufacturing and no mining—we are a quarrying country, not a mining country any more. In the agricultural sector our biggest export item was wool until Mr Keating announced that he was going to deregulate it and then proceeded to deregulate the wool industry. It was a bigger export item than coal in 1990 when Mr Keating inaugurated our wonderful free market policies that have served us so well in Australia. So our greatest commodity that carried the country for nearly 200 years was wiped out in 2½ years. Seventy-five per cent of the entire sheep herd have now gone, and they will never come back.

Today what little voice the people have left is being extinguished, and I hope the people who were doing it are very proud of themselves. They can look at the economy of Australia and look out at the vast horizon of destruction and human misery and they cannot blame anyone else except themselves. The destruction is continuing today with the lights going out on democracy.

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