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

Madam Speaker Vamvakinou, with all due respect, the bill is about bringing people from the Middle East to this country. It's an area of the world that is fraught with murderous, internecine warfare, continuously. And at this very moment, Madam Speaker, for your information, there is a war going on in Yemen with massive losses of life. There is a war going on in Nigeria with unannounced but massive losses of life. There is war going on in Saudi Arabia, still, with massive losses of life. That is what this bill is about. You're bringing those people who, for whatever reasons, seem to have a particular propensity to kill each other when there's no-one else around for them to kill. You're bringing those people as a group into this country.

Let us be positive and say, 'Surely, if you're going to bring people to this country, they should be people that we can integrate into our community in this country.' So it would be quite reasonable that you would seek people that come from a democracy—India's a democracy—and people that have rule of law—India has rule of law. Christianity—you may not believe in God or anything like that, or any Christian rituals, but as a person belonging to a Western democracy, you have this basic belief that you have to look after your fellow man and you have to make the world a better place. That is the Christian message. It's very simple; it's very clear cut, and a hell of a lot of people ascribe to it even though they don't believe in God or a deity. I would say the minimum criteria would be you'd have democracy, rule of law, industrial awards, Christianity and egalitarian traditions. The Philippines meets all of those criteria and Poland meets all of those criteria.

But they're not the people you're bringing in! You're bringing in people that have no democracy, no rule of law, no industrial awards, no Christianity and no egalitarian traditions! And you've just made the person who is at the mercy of this migrant group—25 per cent of his electorate is Muslim—the immigration minister. The poor beggar, I'd hate to be him coming through to the next election. I tell you what, I wouldn't like to be running for the ALP in the next election when the Australian people get a full understanding of what has happened here. There needs to be some explanation as to why the person put in charge of immigration has got an electorate which is 25 per cent Muslim.

Let me just go back to the Muslim thing again. There are two families in North Queensland who are close friends of mine. One of them was elected a very popular representative on the Cairns Regional Council. He's a lovely bloke, a fabulous bloke, and is loved by everyone. You'd say, 'That bloke's a real Christian,' not in the religious sense of the word but in the sense that he's a real good bloke. He'd look after you if you were in trouble. A lot of people come to this country and they integrate into this country. My own home town had many Afghan people who were camel drivers and became part of the diaspora that we had in rural Australia.

I'll conclude on these notes. Gaza was an area that was set aside after the 1967 Six-Day War. As a result of that war, a lot of Muslim people ended up in that area, which Israel occupied. It was part of Egypt, and Israel occupied it. Egypt invaded Israel. Egypt caused the war—Egypt were totally responsible for the war and they lost the war. The Israelis found themselves in occupation of Gaza, which they didn't want. In 2005 the Israelis walked out of Gaza, and Hamas took control.

Why did Hamas send people across the border to murder people in a peace-loving little country next door? They haven't invaded any other countries. Why would you go in and murder 1,200 people? That's what they do! They murdered 2,000 in the Twin Towers in America. How many times do we have to have mass murders before we start deciding there's a bit of a problem here? They picked the fight. It's like if people in Berlin had complained about their treatment by the Russians—you picked the fight, you did the damage and you terrified and destroyed and tortured these people. In this case, unlike the Germans, they publicised it! They publicised their atrocities! There are few instances in human history where people run around publicising their atrocities. In this case they did.

This nation is on the cusp of a change. There are over a million of those people in this country now. If you want to bring people in from other places, I'm your man. Nothing against the religion—because the people I've dealt with mostly in my life from Indonesia and those areas have been wonderful people. I couldn't speak more highly of them. I come from a town that had a very significant old Afghan population who integrated and became part of our community.

But the people that are here now are living in definable areas, and it appears to me they have no interest in moving out. You have the Sikh people who come to Australia, and they immediately move out and they will turn a block of open rubbish country into a prolific farm that contributes to the Australian economy. They don't get any other people to do the work; they do the work themselves. They make this a richer country.

Please, if you've got a choice—and we have a choice! We're a self-governing country; we've got a choice—surely you choose the people that will integrate harmoniously and contribute to the wealth of this nation. (Time expired)

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