Fraser Anning (Queensland, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

However, this is only the first step. I also want to see a permanent end to the scourge of usury in rural lending. The banks' criminal treatment of so many farmers, which has led to the loss of family farms—owned for generations—and waves of rural suicides, must be ended once and for all.

I believe that the solution is the re-establishment of rural redevelopment state banks, along the lines of the former Queensland Industry Development Corporation established by Sir Leo Hielscher, the internationally respected former Queensland Treasury undersecretary and the architect of Queensland's Joh-era prosperity. Like the QIDC, a rural development and reconstruction state bank would not be subject to APRA lending guidelines and would be able to make lending judgments based on long-term rural property viability and not just short-term variations of commodity prices or rainfall, just like old country bank managers used to do. The RDRSB would also be empowered to buy up existing so-called 'distressed' loans from banks, saving tens of thousands of farmers from hardship and ruin. In this way, the scourge of usury in rural lending can be ended for all time.

In terms of rebuilding rural incomes, the abolition of statutory marketing boards 20 years ago has generally not seen any meaningful reduction in prices for consumers, just a net wealth transfer from farmers to middlemen and giant supermarket chains. This has driven many farmers to ruin and even suicide. I would like to see the re-establishment of orderly marketing of agricultural products via grower co-ops to allow collective bargaining by farmers for the sale of their produce. This would return to the farmers greater control of their own industries and a greater share of the retail value of their products. Collectively, these measures would go a long way to rebuild our crucial rural industries.

My next biggest concern is rural infrastructure development. First and foremost, my priority is water. Thanks to grossly inadequate water capture and storage, less than one per cent of the rainwater that falls on this continent is captured and used. Nowhere is this infrastructure failure more acute than in the bush. I want to remedy this. My first solution is to build the Bradfield scheme. In 1938, JJC Bradfield, the same civil engineer who designed both the Sydney Harbour and Story bridges, proposed a massive irrigation plan to turn the far northern rivers inland to irrigate vast areas west of the dividing range. The scheme involved diverting water from the upper reaches of the Johnson, Tully, Herbert and Burdekin rivers, which, fed by the annual monsoon, currently flow out into the ocean. Envisaged was the construction of a series of massive dams in north and western Queensland. It would also include raising the wall of the existing Burdekin Falls Dam by 14.6 metres, as intended in the original Joh-era plan, which would increase its capacity by nearly five times and droughtproof Townsville for the next century. Water accumulating was then proposed to be diverted through a tunnel under the Great Dividing Range.

When completed, the Bradfield scheme would be the greatest nation-building project this country has ever seen, totally dwarfing the Snowy scheme, and would, at a stroke, ensure the prosperity of Australia for many generations to come. This would provide employment for many tens of thousands of people and would not only ensure our own food requirements are met but also provide food for many hundreds of thousands in other countries as well. To imagine the benefits of the Bradfield proposal, we only need to see what has been achieved in places like Israel and California, both places in which virtual deserts have been transformed into enormous food bowls which help drive their respective economies.

My second infrastructure priority is ports. A key issue in determining the profitability of exports of mining and primary products is the distance they have to be carried to reach a port. In the UK, there is a port every 65 kilometres. In the most productive parts of India, its 57 kilometres. But in Queensland, it's 1,000 kilometres. Rather than taking the product to the port, the solution is to take the port to the product. Microports constructed along the Queensland coast every 60 to 80 kilometres would greatly increase the viability of exports.

And it goes without saying that I'm an enthusiastic supporter of mining, including coalmine development in the Galilee Basin. I strongly support government building the required railway to allow mining in this area to proceed. It would be the salvation of Townsville. Of course, to more effectively manage our resources with regard to proposals like the Bradfield Scheme, multiple microport construction, Galilee Basin coalmines et cetera, we have to have the political will to remove the obstacles put in the way of progress by extreme left-wing Luddites. Only by following the example of true nation-building leaders like Ben Chifley, Bob Menzies, John Curtin and Joh can we hope to provide for the security and prosperity of generations to come.

The next critical problem that we need to address is immigration. Australia currently has the highest per capita immigration rate in the world. Last Tuesday, Australia's population hit 25 million—22 years ahead of previous government predictions. That means that since 1971 the population of Australia has doubled, with immigrants now around one-third of our population. The huge numbers of people allowed to flood into Australia in recent years are unsustainable, with immigration quotas apparently set by successive governments on a whim and without any regard for the necessary infrastructure that these people would require or the ability of those that came here to assimilate.

Ethnocultural diversity, which is known to undermine social cohesion, has been allowed to rise to dangerous levels in many suburbs. In direct response, self-segregation, including white flight from poorer inner-urban areas, has become the norm. I believe that immigration to our country should be a privilege, not an obligation-free right provided to anyone from the Third World who demands it.

First, 457 visas, which simply steal jobs from Australians, should be abolished unless expressly approved by the immigration minister. This will create more jobs for Australians and end the massive rorting of these for backdoor permanent immigration. Second, 'family reunion' must be restricted to the husband or wife and/or dependent children within a family. Third, student visas should be drastically reduced in number. This will create more university places for Australians, whose parents have actually paid for the universities with their taxes in the first place. Those studying here who decide to apply to immigrate should be required to return to their country of origin after their qualification and to apply as part of the general migration program. Fourth, net immigration must be reduced to a level which can be supported and, therefore, must be set following detailed modelling and planning for the associated necessary accommodation, facilities and infrastructure. Fifth, but most important of all, diversity should be managed to remain compatible with social cohesion and national identity. We as a nation are entitled to insist that those who are allowed to come here predominantly reflect the historic European Christian composition of Australian society and embrace our language, culture and values as a people.

In order for us to remain the nation that we are now, those who come here need to assimilate and integrate. Those who are most similar to the mainstream majority in terms of ethnicity, culture, language and values most readily do so. Historically, however, the one immigrant group here and in other Western nations that has consistently shown itself to be the least able to assimilate and integrate is Muslims. The first terrorist act on Australian soil was in 1915, when two Muslim immigrants opened fire on a picnic train of innocent women and children in Broken Hill—and Muslim immigrants have been a problem ever since. To paraphrase the words of Sir Winston Churchill:

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property—either as a child, a wife, or a concubine—must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power …

…   …   …

The influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those that follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.

I believe that the reasons for ending all further Muslim immigration are both compelling and self-evident. The record of Muslims who have already come to this country in rates of crime, welfare dependency and terrorism is the worst of any migrants and vastly exceeds any other immigrant groups. A majority of Muslims in Australia of working age do not work and live on welfare. Muslims in New South Wales and Victoria are three times more likely than other groups to be convicted of crimes. We have black African Muslim gangs terrorising Melbourne. We have ISIS-sympathising Muslims trying to go overseas to fight for ISIS and, while all Muslims are not terrorists, certainly all terrorists these days are Muslims. So why would anyone want to bring more of them here?

Finally, it should go without saying that, as a nation, we are entitled to require that those who come here not only have useful work skills and qualifications but also the commitment to work and pay taxes. In truth, it appears that many of those who claim to be asylum seekers are actually just welfare seekers who only come to Australia to live on welfare in public housing at the expense of working Australians. In the days of Menzies, immigrants arriving here were not allowed to apply for welfare and that attracted exactly the right sort of hard-working people this country needed. We should go back to that and ban all immigrants receiving welfare for the first five years after they arrive.

The final solution to the immigration problem is, of course, a popular vote. We don't need a plebiscite to cut immigration numbers; we just need a government that is willing to institute a sustainable population policy, end Australian-job-stealing 457 visas and make student visas conditional on foreign students returning to the country they came from. What we do need a plebiscite for is to decide who comes here. Whitlam didn't ask the Australian people whether they wanted wholesale non-European migration when he introduced it and neither has any subsequent government. Who we allow to come here will determine what sort of nation we will have in the future, so therefore this isn't the right of any one government to decide. It's too important for that. Instead, we need a plebiscite to allow the Australian people to decide whether they want wholesale non-English speaking immigrants from the Third World and, in particular, whether they want any Muslims or whether they want to return to the predominantly European immigration policy of the pre-Whitlam consensus. I for one will be very happy to abide by their decision.

My next political objective is affordable home ownership. Home ownership is a vital social good. It not only steadily improves the net wealth of Australians but provides for a comfortable and secure retirement. It also provides an asset for us all to pass onto our children. However, thanks to foreign property speculators and spiraling demand from excessive immigration, housing prices have been absurdly inflated and, as a result, Australian home ownership levels are starting to fall. Today, first homebuyers see the dream of home ownership receding like a mirage. This disastrous state of affairs must be reversed. I would like to see a return to the policy of earlier decades in which those who were not permanent residents or Australian citizens were barred from buying residential property. In addition to a drastic immigration cut, I want to see a statutory cap on state government fees and charges, which currently make up 50 per cent of land cost, reducing them to no more than 25 per cent.

In industry, I would like to see the re-establishment of Australian manufacturing via a collaborative relationship between pro-business unions and business leaders, as occurred in Germany in the aftermath of World War II. Konrad Adenauer's postwar German economic miracle, which ultimately led to both high wages and high profits for companies, is a model for the re-industrialisation of Australia and a means to return to widespread employment in secondary industry. While Australian wages mean that we cannot compete on price with Third World slave labour manufacturers, we should not need to. First, products of high quality and value can already be produced and sold successfully despite paying reasonable wages. A classic example of this is RM Williams. Second, to help re-establish Australian manufacturing, import restrictions on certain classes of goods should also be considered, following the example of Taiwan, which successfully transitioned from a rural tea-growing province to a manufacturing dynamo with high wage levels. As Australian icon Dick Smith has asked: are Australians prepared to pay a bit more for manufactured goods if it means that their kids will have a job? I think so. That is what I'm asking the Australian people to do so that we can rebuild our manufacturing industries and create hundreds of thousands of jobs in manufacturing.

I also have fiscal objectives. I'd like to see a drastic cut in government spending and borrowing, but, with around 50 per cent of the budget now consumed by welfare, no spending reform is possible without welfare reform. The age pension should be quarantined from any cuts, however. Instead, reform needs to begin with working-class income replacement welfare. We constantly hear that Australia has less than six per cent unemployment when, in fact, this is simply false. If we count the legions of professional freeloaders who are of working age and have settled into a life without work, on pensions, we actually have around 20 per cent paid unemployment in this country. Welfare needs to be a safety net for those of us who are temporarily in need of income support. If people of working age receive a pension from the state, then they have opted out of the workforce permanently and expect everyone else to carry them for life. I believe this is unsustainable and totally un-Australian. Unless we are going to follow the path of Greece, we need to stop finding new ways to give handouts and start increasing workforce participation. The best form of welfare is a job, and massive investment in nation-building infrastructure is the first step to helping to create jobs.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly of all, I want to see a cultural counter-revolution to restore a central role for traditional values, to redefine our national identity and to create a new social contract between the governing and the governed. So many of the anti-democratic controls on our liberty, on the restriction of free speech, on our ability to decide who comes to this country and on the outpouring of foreign aid have been driven by the gross abuse of the external affairs powers in section 51 of the Constitution. Since Whitlam—and clearly contrary to the intent of our founding fathers—the external affairs powers given to the Commonwealth to sign treaties with other nations has been abused to overrule other provisions of the Constitution and override other laws made by our own democratically elected representatives. I do not only want to withdraw from these UN treaties but want to counter the dictatorial intent of the successors of Whitlam with an amendment to section 51 of the Constitution. This needs to specifically prohibit the signing of any treaty contrary to any other provision of the Constitution or existing Australian laws.

More broadly, however, what we need is a cultural reconquest of our own country to take back Australia from Gramsci-inspired left-wing elites that have subverted the very basis of our society, for in the end what is Australia? What makes Australia a nation is not the happenstance of shared geography but what unites us: our common history, values, language and ethnicity, our common culture and our shared vision of our future as a people. Ethnicity is not just skin-deep. More than anything else, it is our ethnoreligious identity that defines us and shapes our national identity.

Few nations are fortunate enough to have so condensed their national character in so short a space of time that, 60 years after Federation, all who lived here, from children to old men, from paupers to Prime Ministers, could have a shared understanding of who we were that crossed the political divide. But today all that is rapidly unraveling, and we stand now at the turn of the tide. The great cohesive vision of our nation's founding fathers, all that those who came before us struggled to build, all that our fathers and grandfathers fought wars to defend, stands at hazard as the stranglehold of the Gramsci-ite elites on our institutions, political organisations and the media continues to tighten.

Now, on the brink of irreversible change, it is time for us to decide whether we as a people will rise up against this, hold fast to the crimson threads of kinship that define and unite us and strive once more for the light on the hill or concede the field to enemies of Western civilization and see all that we were and all that we might yet have become fall away to ruin.