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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I do not know about other Australians but I personally have difficulty seeing clearly, in my rage over the sale of the Port of Darwin. And it will stay in the memory of Australians indefinitely. I think that a state of shock would not be an overemphasis. In my entire life, I can never remember a president of the United States ticking off the leader of a foreign government, and particularly a key ally. Even the most cursory glance at the history of the Second World War would indicate that you need naval bases. Many of the history books simply say the war in the South Pacific was about the reach of the fighter plane. It is now, if you look at the strategic papers which are available to all of us, the reach of a cruise missile or a drone. But you need bases.

The only safe naval base as a port the Americans had in the southern Pacific—and I am is defining the southern Pacific not as the Philippines, which I would describe more in terms of the central Pacific—was Darwin. It now belongs to a person. If you read the quarterly essays, there was an excellent lead article recently about the Chinese clearly building defence strategic aggression facilities throughout the South China Sea.

The VIP countries, being Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, have 500 million people living in them. I have not even included Japan there, which would take it up to over 650 million people. It is not as if they are small and they need to be terrified. I do not think they are going to sit idly by and let China take over all of the South China Sea.

I am not here to scare people or to worry people but I am here to say that in this place in 1938, the argument was put up that we did not need any defence. The British would come and save us was what Mr Lyons told us. And the ALP said that war was the product of capitalist warmongers. That is a quote from the soon-to-be leader of the ALP at the time—a man I had great respect for too, I might add. So that was the attitude here at the time.

If you were looking around for potential enemies and potential future trouble, you have just given your own port in the South Pacific over to them. You took it off our allies that saved us in the last war and gave it to their enemies. It is unbelievable.

For me, as a person who takes very great interest in economics and the economic welfare of our nation, we have only one outlet in the north-west quarter of Australia. In that quadrant of Australia which we call the north-west, there is only one deepwater port. In the south-east quadrant, there is no deepwater port. Unless you include a specific coal port, Abbot Point, there is nothing over here either. It is 3,000 kilometres to the nearest deepwater port that can be used like Darwin. That is one aspect to it.

The other aspect is that the only way you can get into or out of the north-west quadrant of Australia is past the gatekeeper and the gatekeeper, under the free trade agreement with China, can charge whatever the gatekeeper feels like charging. So the gatekeeper has complete control of all trade going in and out of the north-west quadrant of Australia. And the government, in its wisdom, has also given up the Ord. We have only six rivers we can develop in Australia for irrigation and the Ord happens to be one of them. A combination of environmentalists and First Australians will argue that you will not be able to touch the Fitzroy, so that will leave the Daley, the Gilbert or the Flinders. Heaven only knows, we have been trying for 30 years on the Flinders, the Burdekin and the Gilbert and we have not got anywhere. The one river that is being developed is the Ord. It is only one of six and it is no longer for the benefit of Australians. What benefit will we get out of it?

Under the free trade agreement, for new projects the Chinese can bring their own people in to man the project. We here in this place constantly speak of foreign investment. Tell me what foreign investment has developed anything in the last 15 years in this country. I say 15 years because the foreign investment into iron ore development in the Pilbara went in 15 years ago. There has been no development since. It has just been the takeover of existing assets, the Ord being a classic case in point. So what do we get out of it? If they are going to fly their people in they will be paying them Chinese wages, so there will not be a lot of PAYE tax or income tax. They will transfer price; they would be stupid not to. Every other corporation on earth transfers prices, so there will be no profits made in Australia. They fly in their own food—this happens all the time now in the mining areas—and their own accommodation. It is all built overseas and they bring it in. It does not even need to be assembled, actually, in most cases. So what do we get out of it? The port belongs to them, so they will get the benefit from this stuff going through that port or whatever port it goes through. What advantage has Australia got in the last 15 years out of foreign investment?

When I was one of the three or four people running the state of Queensland, for about a decade or so, we always insisted that there be a benefit for Australia. Even in a very controversial tourist development near Rockhampton, we insisted upon a benefit for Australia—that we could see a benefit for Australia. In almost every mining arrangement that was made, there was a massive benefit for Australia. I simply do not see the benefit now. I am very pro Adani, but does anyone have any illusions that there will be profits made in Australia? He owns the port, he owns the railway line, he owns the mine and he can bring his own people in from overseas under 457 visas to man his operations—and he has already said publicly that he would not be able to run the mine with just Australian labour.

What is taking place at one of our sugar mills is very interesting. They had an office and they built a second office. The second office is occupied by people from a foreign country—foreigners; they are not Australians—and the office that was running the sugar mill has got smaller and smaller, and the office that is run by foreigners is getting bigger and bigger. There are foreign key personnel now moving in as foremen and supervisors in the sugar mill itself, and no-one has any illusions that we will lose 100 or 200 jobs there to people coming in.

Where has been the benefit for Australia in this? We were getting all of the tax and all of the jobs, and now we will be getting none of the tax, or very little tax, and very few jobs. It has been negative, and I defy anyone in this place to tell me what has happened. I will tell you one of the things that has happened: the price of a house in Sydney has soared from $400,000 to an average now of $980,000. It has forced Australians out of their homes. That is one of the many consequences we have seen. So there are people making a squillion dollars out of this and profiting. (Time expired)

See this speech in context