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

Most certainly, Mr Speaker. I respect your view in this matter. With all due respect, a philosophical point of view is being funded by massive amounts of money. Our point of view is being funded by nothing. The coalmining union in New South Wales is run by a bunch of wokes. Double degree, done nothing in their lives—that's how I describe them. They slither out of a university with two degrees—and I'm not saying all the executive fall into that category and most certainly not our coalmining executive in Queensland. It's just the opposite. All of them worked in the mines. They have dirt under their fingernails. But these people slither out of university, and they slither into positions of power. They only have one compass direction in life, and that is their own personal ambitions. Unfortunately and sadly, this place is comprised mostly of those people.

We're talking about money for funding campaigns. I doubt whether my little party—to my knowledge—has a single significant funder or a significant amount of money. To meet the very onerous requirements of the act, our four members of parliament have had to put our hands into our own pockets. The requirements are drawn up for a major party spending $50 million per year. Our little party, to be fair, would spend $200,000 a year, yet we've got to meet the same onerous requirements. We have to pay a lawyer and an accountant to come in. We can't possibly meet these requirements, and they're not created for us. There is a machine created that really excludes people like us. I don't want to deny that a lot of people who have come in under the teals banner have made a very excellent contribution, and they are not part of an ugly system of corporate CEOs who run society and run it for themselves. I would hope that, as they mature as a political philosophy, they will come more and more into line with me, the Greens and you most of all, Mr Deputy Speaker Wilkie, in not bowing the knee and carrying out the will of the powerful and super-rich people in society.

Everyone in this place should read Piketty's book. I know a lot of people on the planet have. It is not the 'haves' class anymore; it is the CEO class. These people are paying themselves $10 million a year. If you're the head of a big corporation in Australia, you'll get $10 million a year. The great Christine Holgate was flabbergasted when she found out she had to pay herself $8 million a year and she cut that amount of money by 70 or 80 per cent. Money is controlling this place. In that I would agree very strongly with the Teals and the other crossbenchers, such as yourself, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would agree very strongly that money is controlling this place.

You have to look no further than the current decision on pharmacies. There is no doubt that a quarter of the pharmacies in Australia will vanish. They're going to halve the amount of money going to a pharmacist. They will halve the amount of money that we, the people who use pharmacies, have to pay, so they're saying, 'We're doing it for you.' I'm sorry. I've been in these places for 50 years. Follow the money trail. What happens here is about the 15 per cent—and these are the people financing the political campaigns, Mr Deputy Speaker. Twenty per cent of the pharmacies are going to vanish, and that 20 per cent will now be occupied by TerryWhite and Chemist Warehouse. The minister was stupid enough to say in the estimates hearings, 'We have spoken to Chemist Warehouse but we haven't spoken to the guild.' They haven't spoken to the pharmacists but they have spoken to the corporation! Therein tells you, Mr Deputy Speaker, why over a third of the people in Australia voted for people like you, people like me and people like my colleagues on my right-hand side here. They will again, and they will continue to do so until those opposite stop carrying out the will of the people who run society—the powerful CEOs. They slither out of universities and slither into positions of power.

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