Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I know that Australians value a fair go and being fair dinkum. Free trade sounds nice, yet we need fair trade in Australia. I want to make three points, and I will discuss the government's trap. Firstly, the Indonesia, Peru and Hong Kong free trade agreements are bundled together as one job lot. My first comment is to criticise the government for bundling three free trade agreements into one piece of legislation. It is no wonder that we are being forced to vote for or against these agreements as some bizarre job lot, because the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement is rotten. It is bad for our country. The dishonesty from the government extends beyond bundling the agreements. It extends to the lies that the government is telling about the agreements.

Let me talk about the ISDS provisions, the investor-state dispute settlement provisions, in all three of these agreements before us today. These clauses allow private companies to sue the Australian government if our actions cost them money. I'll say it again: the clauses that the government has written into this legislation and which the Labor Party supports allow overseas private companies to sue the Australian government—sue us—if our actions cost them money. Let me give you some examples. When President Putin—who's no shrinking violet—came to power, he took on the corrupt oligarchs that exploited the end of communism to steal everything worth stealing and then paid no taxes on the wealth. Putin cleaned up the oligarchs. Many fled overseas. From there they used ISDS, investor-state dispute settlement, provisions to sue Putin for acting in Russia's best interests and for making them pay their fair share of tax. He wanted these foreign companies to pay their fair share of tax, and those foreign companies won. They beat Vladimir Putin. I know why Prime Minister Morrison loves ISDS, investor-state dispute settlement, provisions so much. Large companies not paying their fair share of tax in Australia is part of the Liberal-Labor duopoly's game.