Craig Kelly (Hughes, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, it is important to understand what is happening in our country in order to understand the reasons why these bills should be rejected. It is because of the concentration of power that is going on in our nation. We even see in this parliament the trashing of the principles of the Bill of Rights 1688. For four centuries, this parliament has had a tradition, as have all Westminster parliaments around the world, that the proceedings and debates of this parliament should not be questioned or impeached by anyone. Yet last week the member for Dawson gave a speech, which he posted to his Facebook page, through the official links on the Australian parliamentary website, and he had to actually censor the words that were said on the floor of this parliament in order to comply with the regulations of a tech giant. When what is said on the floor of this parliament is censored, we have a serious problem. That is why it is so wrong to reduce the number of and make it difficult for independent voices in this country. We also now have a net Commonwealth debt of over one trillion dollars. That is a million millions. Both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party have run up a debt of a trillion dollars. When I first came to this place, we were concerned that the debt had been over $100 billion. A $100 billion debt had been run up, and we expressed our concern that that was leaving a debt for future generations of Australians. Both parties have run that up to a trillion dollars while I've been in this place. And we bring a bill before parliament to limit independent voices and give more concentration of power to the major parties. How does this make any sense?

I've also seen in this parliament the freedoms that were once the birthright of every single Australian and the freedoms that were the contract we made with those migrants that decided to become Australian citizens and took an oath of citizenship. They were freedoms that were underwritten by being Australian. But we are seeing those freedoms suspended, not by the parliament but by unelected health bureaucrats, with the vague promise that those freedoms that have been stolen will only be returned to us, at some time in the future, if we submit to some mandatory vaccination program.

This is not the time to narrow the power in this place by concentrating the power in the major parties. That's what this does. We need more independent voices. I strongly disagree with the member for Indi on many things. I strongly disagree with the member for Warringah on many things. But we sit here and we argue it out with each other, and that, I believe, makes our democracy a stronger place. Anything that weakens the opportunity for independent and alternative voices makes our democracy weaker, and that's what the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Bill 2021, the second of these three bills, does, and I cannot support it. I foreshadow that, during the consideration in detail stage, I will be moving an amendment to reduce the threshold back to 1,000 members—rather than it being increased from 500 to 1,500.

We need independent voices. We need alternative opinions. We do not need more power in the hands of both major parties. I therefore oppose, and I will vote against, the second bill in this cognate debate. But I will support the other two bills and, as I said, I will be moving an amendment to that second bill.

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