Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm sorry; it's uncharacteristic of me. I'm usually very polite, so I will take that into account. There were 172 million sheep here. There are now 66 million sheep. Geez, that was a wonderful success story—free marketing in the wool industry! There aren't any sheep left in North Queensland. Well, there are 50,000 or 60,000 when we had 20 million sheep. We had 32 million cattle when we had government-to-government agreements with Great Britain and with Japan. Shame, shock, horror—fancy restricting trade like that! All I can tell you is that we had 33 million head of cattle then. We now have 22 million head of cattle under your free markets.

If we look at the sugar industry—and this is a great success of your free markets!—there's no sugar going to the biggest market in the world, which is the EU. There's no sugar going to the second-biggest market in the world, which is the USA. The third-biggest market in the world is China. There's only $60-or-something million worth of sugar—nothing—going to China. There's nothing going to India, the fourth-biggest market in the world. The seventh-biggest market in the world, Brazil—there's no sugar going there. Where are your free markets? I'm not talking about a little, small, irrelevant industry here. As you would know, Deputy Speaker Llew O'Brien, with three exceptions out of the 30 or 40 towns and cities north of Nambour, they are all sugar towns—every single one of them. Whether it's Ingham, Tully, Ayr, Home Hill, Townsville, Cairns, Mackay, Bundaberg or Maryborough, they're all sugar cities. It is one of the big-four rural industries of Australia, and it can't get into any market on earth. So much for your free trade!

We went over and did this wonderful free trade deal with the United States. I read the newspapers, and the newspapers said that we were there to get three things: dairy access, beef access and sugar access. Well, quite frankly, I think the Americans have always been good, as far as beef goes. We really have had free access, so, basically, there was no change in beef. But for the other two—nothing at all. They were wiped like a dirty rag on the other two. They wanted phytosanitary requirements, and they've got half of the quarantine decisions. Half of the panel now is the United States. And they got what they wanted in pharmaceuticals as well. They had two objectives and the senior senator overseeing those negotiations said, 'We got a marvellous deal.' He said, 'I don't want to say that Australia came out of it bad, because they didn't really.' That's a verbatim comment from the Senate debates in the United States. So there's your sheep—they're gone. There's your cattle—a third of them are gone. Now, let's get to dairy.

Before you deregulated dairy, we had over 15,000 dairy farmers and now we have a little over 6,000 dairy farmers, and we all know that a lot of them exited in the worst way possible. I unfortunately had one of the biggest dairy areas in Australia. We had about 290 dairy farmers. They were all very big farms, milking 5,000 to 6,000 cows—that's very big. It was a very prosperous area. Last time I looked we had 49 dairy farmers. In Queensland we had over 5,000 dairy farmers and now we have 360 dairy farmers. Geez, that was a wonderful success story! The price went up for the consumers. 'Don't worry about one line with Coles; think about the 12 lines that are on the shelves everywhere in Australia.' But the price went up almost 30 per cent within two or three years straight after the federal government did the inquiry. They held it down and then, as soon as the inquiry was over, it went up.

The consumers were screwed to the tune of about 30 per cent and the farmers were screwed by 30 per cent. Let me give you the exact figures. My farmers got a letter from the dairy factory saying, 'You are now on 59½c, but on Monday you'll be on 39c, in keeping with pricing in other states and as a result of the deregulation.' So you people took one-third of the income of every dairy farmer in this country—and you people over here did as well. At least the people on this side now are asking for a minimum price scheme. The National Party and the Liberals are completely isolated. They do not have a single political party in this country on their side. They do not have a single group in Australia on their side. They come in here as the representatives of Woolworths and Coles, who are making over $1,000 million over the dead bodies, quite literally, of the dairy farmers. Everyone says that, for every dairy farmer, you've got four or five who follow on in labour—that is, they are not on the farm itself—and you've got three or four contractors. For every dairy farmer, you've got 20 or 30 people whose livelihoods depended upon that production, which is now no longer there. Nothing has replaced it. We've just got some moo cows not worth two bob walking around on what were once very productive dairy farms. Dairy farms are in high-rainfall areas and they're usually in very mountainous areas. The dairy areas in Far North Queensland are 100-inch rainfall areas and they're shaped like that. We can't do anything else with that land except dairy. Now we're just fattening cattle which are not worth two bob.

We are a net importer of fruit and vegetables. You people are all in here advocating free markets. Do you realise that no-one in this country agrees with you? If you're looking around, you're not realising that there are now six seats over here. Soon it will be 10 seats, and you won't get them back. Before I came to this place, I checked it out, and no independent or small party person had ever been re-elected—not ever. Now we almost could guarantee a re-election. We're just eating away at you. All of the western third of New South Wales is now held by our troops—the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party. Almost all of North Queensland is now held by our battalions. In central Sydney you've lost the heartland of your support. Can't you understand that the Australian people are sick and tired of you closing down industry after industry after industry and then preaching to us about the success of the free market. Where the hell is it? I represent export industries. I represent coal, copper, zinc, lead and silver. I represent the cattle industry. All of my industries are export industries. I have seen no benefit flow to us in any of these areas, and I have seen untold, unprecedented destruction.

Let me say something about the 'golden nulla nulla', as I call it. You, Deputy Speaker Llew O'Brien, would be well aware of this and I think you would sympathise with my view. If you take out the golden nulla nulla, which is a little 100-kilometre-wide strip starting at Cairns and coming down the coast to Sydney, Melbourne and around to Adelaide and a little dot around Perth, you've still got a map of Australia. Ninety three per cent of the landmass is still there. There are less than a million people living there. Guess where all the coal is? Guess where all the iron ore is? Guess where all the water is?

Do you seriously think, in a fair and rational world, that the world is going to sit aside and let us sit on this treasure trove? Read the little black book that was given to everyone in the Japanese southern army. The Europeans are sitting on a treasure trove of riches and wealth which should belong to the people of Asia. Read the document. Every single soldier in the southern army had it in his pocket, and here we are—arrogant Europeans—telling China and India that they're not allowed to have any coal because we are morally righteous, we colonials, and they are simple Asians and they don't understand the bigger picture. You'll understand real quick, because when the deputy leader of the Labor Party was stupid enough to lose the election by going on the front of The Australian newspaper saying, 'Coal is to wither away,' you kissed goodbye to the election.

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