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

In speaking to the bill, there is a gap to which attention has been drawn to by the leader of the Xenophon party in the Senate. There are holes that enable money to be given by the government to foreign corporations. If I went home and told my electorate that an Australian government would give assistance to foreign corporations, they would think that I had taken a few too many hits without a helmet on in rugby league. They would not believe it. The decision was taken here not to intervene in the gas sales of all of our gas reserves overseas. It was a decision taken in this parliament by both sides of the parliament that we are quite happy for foreigners to own all of our gas reserves. There are people negotiating to buy Australian gas from Japan because it is cheaper to buy Australian gas from Japan than to buy it here in Australia.

This would all be very funny except we have major industrial operations in Australia that are placed in the gravest of jeopardy. We are talking here about allowing the government to provide assistance to these foreign corporations. If you think that is outrageous and extremist, well, who would have thought that the governments of Australia would have given all of their gas reserves away? Who would think that there is a government on earth that could be so stupid—and both governments; I am not singling out the LNP, I can assure you; the ALP, as well—to be quite happy that we have no petrol in Australia? In sharp contrast—whatever you say about the Americans—according to the reports I have read, 10 or 15 per cent of America's petrol needs are being met from oil shales, 12 per cent is being met by ethanol, about seven per cent is being met by gas and about two per cent is being met by electric cars. If necessary, 30 per cent of their oil requirements can be met by uncapping the oil wells that they have capped.

Just a short history lesson for the people in this place: for the last big war that we were in, Japan was forced into the war because America cut off their oil supply. The European war was simply about Hitler trying to get to the oilfields. He tried through Stalingrad and he tried through North Africa. The world is prepared to go to massive wars over the supply of oil, yet this place decides that there is no problem in getting all of our oil from the Middle East when we are a country that is gifted in such a way that, like Brazil, we can provide 60 per cent of our oil requirements from ethanol. A cavalier attitude at best and a traitorous attitude at worst allows this to happen.

In the minute left to me, what country on earth has the national flags that it hands out made in China? What country on earth has all of its ordnance owned by the French? What country on earth get the boots for its army from China—and the soles fall off? And I cannot help but tell an anecdotal story that illustrates that point. I said, 'Did 2,000 soldiers really have the soles fall off their boots last Anzac Day?' and the head of the catafalque party, a sergeant major, lifted up his foot and he was marching along in just the uppers and his socks. This was the next year. What sort of a country continues on like this? When will we learn that we are Australians, we are not some foreign corporation? When will we act in the interests of our own people and not in the interests of foreign corporations? (Time expired)

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