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

Greg Sheridan, in an excellent article this week or last week, outlined the real defence dangers to Australia. We have an alignment now of Russia, China and North Korea—a mad dog country; it can only be described that way—and Iran, which a very dangerous country indeed. There are nearly a hundred million people living there. If you put Russia, China, Iran and North Korea together and have a look at what is on the other side, the Ukraine has proved that the Europeans really have no force now whatsoever. They are irrelevant in a power equation. That leaves the United States by itself, and the insult to the Americans by the refusal of the current ALP government to provide a ship will be a day of shame that will live in the memory of this country for a very long time. Those of us who read our history books know that this country was two weeks away from being invaded, and they'd given the whole of Australia, except for a narrow coastal belt—it was never the Brisbane line; it was all of Australia outside of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne—to the enemy. As a generational resident of that area, it means a lot.

The current administration of the military in this country spent $40,000 million of taxpayers' money to buy 15 machine guns. That would be in keeping with a fellow, who every time there is a complaint made against a soldier who was at war—heaven only knows what pressures are upon them that they have committed some atrocity—immediately sells them to the wolves. He is a disgrace, an absolute disgrace. He does not have the confidence of any soldier in this country. I don't mean the upper brass, because half of them would be grovelling for promotions. Forty thousand million dollars was spent to buy 15 pieces of ordinance—15 machine-guns. It was spent on patrol boats with no ordinance capacity whatsoever outside of a machine gun, and it was spent on drones that carry no ordinance not only to not protect themselves but also to deliver no payload against an enemy. That's $40,000 million dollars gone. I have made the point in the parliament that my platoon of 32 men that I had responsibility for had 15 machine guns, and I can assure you it did not cost the taxpayers any more than about $20,000. We spent $40,000 million to get 15 machine-guns, and the bloke is still there. Peter Dutton can't scream about this. He extended the bloke's contract for two years. After criticising him, he then extended the contract for two years.

If you're going to defend the country you have a first line, and that is missiles. In our day and age, that is missiles, and we've got no missiles. Effectively, we have no missiles. If they break through that, you have an army. We haven't even got a division. In warfare, it's all about divisions. History books will only talk about divisions. We haven't got a division. We haven't got one division. So much for the Army. The artillery capacity—which it turns out Ukraine is all about artillery not missiles. Missiles are too expensive, so they have been throwing artillery shells at each other. And, of course, Russia has China, Iran and North Korea backing them, and Ukrainians have the Europeans. Well, what a joke that is; Europeans—not worth two bob!

If you had the line of missiles that we need, if you had millions of artillery shells and if you had every boy in this country given a rifle and trained how to use it—and that rifle will be in the school armoury and later on in the town armoury—there would be five million or six million rivals in this country. If you picked a fight with us, you would be looking at fighting five million or six million guerillas. If you read your history books, there is no doubt that you require 23 troops for every guerilla fighter. And whether it was Napoleon in Spain or the Americans in Vietnam or the Russians in Afghanistan, that's a pretty accurate figure, 23 to one. So, if you've got five million or six million potential guerillas, not even China is going to win that one. Not even China!

I come from a family that goes way back, and, of course, I'm dark and come from Cloncurry—as we say, a 'Murray from the Curry'. I identify very much with the First Australians, and I desperately wanted Tubba Tre on our coin instead of some little twerp from England. That's utterly irrelevant and demonstrates again that we are not grown-up as a country. If we've got a foreign person on our coin, and he's a monarch—either you believe all people are born free and equal or you don't. But you can't believe all people are free and equal when you've got a monarch on your coin. And you can't believe we're a grown-up country if we have a foreigner on our coin.

Now, I am saying: do you want Ralph Honner, the leader of the 39th Battalion, who, more than anyone else, saved this nation from invasion on Kokoda? The 39th Battalion: 750 men when they were relieved, but only 130 were able to stand up on a parade, which was better than my battalion. We only had 28 walk out unassisted; that's all that was left of the battalion I was in, in later years—the 49th Battalion.

I've got a family that lost one of our sons in the First World War, lost another son in the Second World War II. We had cousins fighting in Crete, Libya, Singapore, Milne Bay, the islands, Aitapeand Kokoda—everywhere.

I know people, particularly people like the Sikhs, come in, and after 10 minutes they are flag-waving Australians. They are proud to be Australians and they will stand up and fight for this country, let there be no doubt about it. We need more of those people in this country.

But we need missiles; we need armed drones. That's our first line of defence, and they will break through that but they'll take immense pain. If it is a proper defence perimeter, they will take a hell of a lot of pain breaking through it. And then there's the five million or six million guerrilla fighters waiting for them. They're not going to do it unless they're completely stupid and insane.

But at the present moment Greg Sheridan is right. If you look at Russia, China, those mad countries Iran and North Korea, who have absolutely no sense of responsibility, and if you have a look at Europe, which is just a pathetic joke, and the situation, as the saying goes, if you want peace, your security depends on being prepared. Being an ex-boy scout, I know you have to be prepared.

This country is anything but prepared, and it is a disgrace to the Liberal Party. I would be ashamed to have my name associated with that political party, and I'd even more ashamed to have my name associated with the Labor Party. And remember that people write history books. People write history books, and when they write those history books people will spit upon your memory—that you left this country in the state that it's in.

Quite apart from that, we have no exports. You have destroyed every single export that this country had. All we've got left is iron ore, coal and gas. You gave the gas away, so it's gone. We get 600 million, but the quote target is 29,000 million for the same amount of gas. So forget about the gas. It's gone. You gave it away. And you're going to close down coal, and that leaves you iron ore—one single source of income from overseas. What have you done to my country?

See this speech in context