Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

If you are suggesting that, you should be suggesting a way to protect the independents. Rather than talking about the affliction, you should be thinking about the cure. It is an interesting approach to take. We will have a whole raft of these obscurum per obscurius suggestions of how we can possibly get around something that is quite simple and painted in black and white.

If the major oil companies or the major retailers operate the site that has been noted as a lease, then it is not written in stone. At some stage in the future, they can change it, amend it or do what they like to it. They are not the independent sector of the market. This amendment is the only suggestion that we have here at the moment. We looked at the Democrats amendment. Family First have put up some good suggestions, and there are possibly others to come forward. However, I have not seen the Labor Party suggestions; they are not there. But we do get a lot of suggestions about what is wrong with protecting independents.

That is what you are talking about today: what is wrong with protecting independents. It is because you do not want a socialist type economy; you want one that is controlled by about two organisations. Instead of big government controlling the world, you are quite happy for a couple of organisations to control the world. You do not believe in the freedom of people to go into business, and you are not going to protect them. It is quite obvious that you do not; otherwise, you would have put forward an amendment. I have answered your question, but I am waiting for the next obscurum per obscurius type suggestion—and here it comes.