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

One hundred and seventy billion dollars a year goes into superannuation in Australia. More than half of that money goes into shares. So what we have is a giant Ponzi scheme. The young people who are investing this money have absolutely no idea what they're doing. I'm from a mining background. I started my own mining company. I went into parliament. These people know absolutely nothing, yet that money is going into mining companies they know absolutely nothing about.

One hundred and seventy billion dollars is going into speculation—a roulette wheel, John Maynard Keynes called it. I'll hold up this map of Australia, with the narrow coastal belt and Victoria taken out—no-one would miss Victoria, I suppose. In 95 per cent of Australia there are 1.2 million people. It's empty! Worse still, it's continuing to empty. If a very small amount, like one per cent, of that money that's been wasted on a roulette wheel, a Ponzi scheme, was put in national development as it was up to 1995, we could produce—North Queensland could give you $100 billion a year of extra income for this nation.