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

It was interesting to hear the previous speaker. These people are new to politics and government, and they can be excused on that basis. I thought it was a very, very good point that she made, that the tiny Netherlands has $160,000 million in agricultural production and Australia has $56,000 million in agricultural production. But I need to tell her the reasons why.

Wool was the biggest export commodity we had—it was bigger than coal—when Mr Keating decided to deregulate it and completely destroy it. Our wool production is down 72 per cent. So what should have been an industry pulling in about $50,000 million a year has vanished without trace. Let's be conservative and say $40,000 million a year. That is what its value was then, and that would have been its value today. That was wool, your greatest export commodity.

I was heavily involved with the establishment of the prawn- and fish-farming aquaculture industry of Australia. We started the first commercial farm in Australia, in North Queensland, when I was minister, and it was earning $750 million a year. The greenies in the federal Liberal-National and Labor governments cut it from $750 million a year down to about $50 million a year. So if you're saying that we don't have much agricultural production relative to other countries—California is a state maybe a twentieth of the size of Australia in area, and two-thirds of it is among the most barren and hot areas on earth. In Southern California, the average rainfall is under 7½ inches, yet California is the biggest food-producing state on earth. We have infinitely more water in north-eastern Australia than California has, and our agricultural production is negligible. In fact, if you take out the little tiny strip along the east coast, all you've got left is a fifth of the Australian cattle industry, which is pretty small beer in the bigger scheme of things.

The member for Corangamite did not mention ethanol—in fact, just the opposite. She was talking about electric cars, hydrogen cars and everything else. The member for Corangamite should do just a tiny bit of research, because she represents one of the biggest wheat-growing areas in Australia, and, of course, we're the only country on earth that has no national laws on ethanol content, so a thousand people die each year in Sydney from motor vehicle emissions. Those are not my figures. They come from Professor Ray Kearney, the deputy dean of the faculty of medical science at Sydney university, the oldest and most distinguished sandstone university in Australia. They're not my words; they're the words of the officer in charge of air quality control in Australia, and they're the words of Dr Streeton, who was the leading giver of evidence in the tobacco smoking case in Australia. He's the leading thoracic surgeon and expert in that field in the country. Those are people who say there are health reasons. Every country has done it, not because they love their farmers but for health reasons. But in Australia we don't worry how many of my blackfella cousins are dying of malnutrition. Don't worry about it! The Labor Party has closed down all of the market gardens, so we get hundreds and maybe thousands of deaths each year as a result of that decision. They don't care. I mean, we have people dying of motor vehicle emissions, but the government doesn't care.

I must find great humour in this: I didn't know that marijuana was legal in Canberra, and I can now understand why the country has gone to pot. Clearly we know what's going on now. We know why the wool industry is destroyed, why the motor vehicle industry is destroyed, why we haven't gone to ethanol and why our cattle numbers are down 25 per cent, our wool is down 72 per cent, our milk is down 20 per cent, our prawn and fish farming is down 70 per cent, our sugar is down 15 per cent. But, at long last, we've found out why. I must thank the minister, because I have many good friends in North Queensland that are experts in the field of marijuana farming. Their criminal records attest to that! I'll just say that we're not growing it because of police harassment. They're harassing my friends, because in Queensland it's illegal. We've got to stop this harassment, and you've given us a way out here, so we thank you for that.

I have to say that Minister Fitzgibbon has aspirations of higher office, and I wish him well. We like ambitious people. But if you spend too much time down here, you're going to be high all right—you'll be a lot higher than you are now, I can assure you! We have a little town in North Queensland where you don't have to buy the marijuana there; you just walk down the street and take a deep breath and you're high as a kite. Minister Fitzgibbon can rise without even having to worry too much about it.

On a more serious note, we are sending this stuff up to the northern regions. Maybe they will imbibe when we export it to them and maybe they'll be as stupid as we are and close down all their industries and export the industries overseas, like we've exported the petrol industry overseas, exported the motor vehicle industry overseas, exported a massive amount of our agricultural production overseas. We've even figured out a way—and the last speaker, Ms Coker, made mention of it—to export our electricity industry. That's a pretty good achievement!

Twenty per cent of our electricity now comes from solar panels, and they're produced in China. So we closed down the coal fired power stations in Australia producing at $28 a megawatt-hour—and I know, because I was the minister in the negotiations with Comalco over the sale of then one of the 10 biggest power stations in the world, Gladstone. I know what we were producing, which was $28 a megawatt-hour. Quite frankly, since the power station has been paid off and because the price of coal, relatively speaking, hasn't risen a great deal and since there are virtually no labour costs—they're all automated, these power stations—we can still sell at $28 a megawatt-hour. There's no doubt about that.

Finkel, in his report—which I don't agree with and I don't think is correct, but I'll take his figures—said that you could sell the power for $84 a megawatt-hour. Big deal! We could've got $84 a megawatt-hour when we're producing it for $28 a megawatt-hour. If you have expensive electricity, you close down the aluminium industry, which is the fourth-biggest export item that this country has. You're not content with wrecking the milk industry. You're not content with closing down the petrol industry. You're not content with completely closing down the motor vehicle industry and all the whitegoods industries, but now you want to start up on the aluminium industry—and the steel industry also. Although it's not 'congealed electricity', like aluminium, it is still a very big user.

Don't say that our country is a mining country, because it's not a mining country. Mining is when you take ore out of the ground and you sell a metal. I know—I've been a mining man all of my life, and I still am; I'm not a cattle producer as everyone seems to think. I've had cattle all my life, but I'm a mining man. And I can tell you: we're not a mining country. Mining is when you dig ore out of the ground and you sell a metal. When you dig it out of the ground and sell the ground, that is quarrying—a very primitive, simplistic production. We have been reduced to that because we can't afford anymore to process, and one of the major problems is the cost of electricity.

So we've got everything closing down. All mineral processing in this country has closed down or is closing down. This hits home in North Queensland. They're the biggest mining province in the world. Mount Isa, that little town, produces $4½ thousand million a year of export earnings for this country. But how much longer it can do that I don't know.

Let me turn to the live cattle. Ministers in the government—and one of them, as everyone knows, is a relative of mine—have said that this will unnecessarily restrain government power. That is exactly what it is supposed to do. I don't know what's happened to our education system, but God bless the Christian Brothers—the much maligned Christian Brothers. One of the greatest advantages I had in life was an education by the Christian Brothers. They taught me about Magna Carta. I don't want to skite but I did get an A—the highest mark you can get—for history. Magna Carta said: 'Mr King, you no longer can do what you like. You do not have unlimited discretionary powers. There's none of this absolute monarchy anymore.' Two of the greatest men in history drew up that document and forced John to sign it. One of them was Archbishop Langton, who was going to send John to hell—though he was going to go there anyway, so I don't think he should have worried too much about that! The other one was William Marshal, the greatest soldier, jouster and sword-fighter of the Middle Ages—sort of like Wally Lewis or Benny Elias! There was no way the king was going to win against William Marshal. He was ordered to sign the document. From then on, the king was subject to the law, the same as any other person.

We have completely overridden that, and it is to the shame of this government, and to friends and relatives of mine, who've been publicly saying, 'This will restrain our ability to do things.' That is exactly what Magna Carta was about. You can't just go in there and destroy the licence value of every taxi owner in Australia. You can't do that. You can't destroy the livelihood of every cattleman in Australia anymore. You can't just decide, on a whim, to destroy the income of every dairy farmer in Australia anymore. No. You are subject to the law. Well, Australia has moved so far away from that concept that we have leaders in the government—very good people; I know them and I like and respect them—saying something that is against the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson. It is against the Magna Carta, written by Archbishop Langton and William Marshal. It is against every concept of British justice. The government, the cabinet, the executive—whatever word you want to use, it is the Crown. That is the word we use as the generic term to refer to the people who have the executive power. Once upon a time it was a bloke called a king. We English-speaking people—many of my forebears amongst them—died, but we cut the heads off monarch after monarch after monarch that defied that principle. I hope the Australian people cut your head off, Mr Government, if you do not accept, as to your irresponsible behaviour, that you had no power or right to act. You are subject to the law, the same as anyone else. You are not going to use the power of government to bash and smash the cattlemen of Australia till they have no money left to fight you so you can approve a principle which overrides Magna Carta: 'I can do anything I like, because I am the government.'

In Queensland, we have easily the worst government in the state's history—maybe with one exception. That government doesn't remotely understand that you denied power. Every state did a deal with the taxi owners except Queensland, and Queensland spat on them, thinking they were above the law. Well, in the state courts that's probably true. In the federal courts you will find out it's not. (Time expired)

See this speech in context