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

I will rephrase that. Now I know why Prime Minister Morrison's government loves ISDS provisions so much. Large corporates not paying their fair share of tax won't happen on this government's watch! Who controls Australia? Who governs Australia? It's not the elected Australian government.

We can also get sued for not doing something. Little old El Salvador decided to leave some of their gold in the ground, as is their right, so a Canadian-Australian company called Pac Rim sued El Salvador for not letting them mine. Pac Rim did not have approvals. They did not produce an environmental impact study. They just registered their mining claim and sued El Salvador—and Pac Rim won. El Salvador now has to pay $300 million or let Pac Rim mine. Who controls El Salvador? It's not the El Salvadorian government.

Will the same apply to our coal seam gas? Will all our farmers, who are already struggling with the worst drought in a hundred years and are mocked by a government that promises assistance they never actually get, have no choice but to let Indonesian mining companies unlock the gates, turn productive farms into gas fields and let bulldozers run riot over productive farmland? The environment gets it in the neck with these ISDS provisions as well—not the sky god of warming environmentalism, but real environmentalism. Renco Group Inc is a company owned by one of the richest men in America. In Peru they invested in a metal smelter which is one of the 10 most polluted sites in the world. Peru took Renco to their local court to force Renco to install sulphur filters to make the air in neighbouring villages breathable. The local court found in the villages' favour, but then Renco moved the case to an ISDS panel and won. Who controls Peru? It's not the Peruvian government.

New Zealand doesn't fall for the nonsense of these ISDS provisions. They don't include them. They look after their sovereignty. Why can't the Australian government, under both Liberal and Labor parties, do that? ISDS is just one of One Nation's objections to these provisions. It takes justice away from everyday Australians and moves it into international courts where even a small case costs in the tens of millions of dollars. In these courts there is no national interest, no thought of common-law protections of our inalienable human rights and no consideration of the basic principles of justice. There is no justice, and the government wants to deliberately undermine sovereignty. National interest is being subverted to corporate profits, and to hell with the consequences for everyday Australians! Could this heartless Liberal-National government be summed up any better than that? Who controls Australia? Who governs Australia? It's not the elected Australian government.

Let me turn to another objection: the labour market provisions. This agreement that the government pushes, with Labor's full support, allows Indonesia to supply 4,100 new temporary visa holders into the Australian market, rising to 5,000 annually by 2024. In addition, this agreement requires Australia to send trainers to Indonesia to upskill their labour force to Australian standards so even more can come over. Why is government not asking if they are going to take jobs from everyday Australians? Why is government not asking what effect this will have on the lives, businesses and wages of tradies and construction workers in particular?

There are currently 1.4 million of these temporary work visa holders in Australia. Every new trade agreement brings more. Coincidentally, there are also 1.4 million Australians who are unemployed or underemployed. Yet all we hear from the government—and, oddly, today from the Labor Party—is that immigration leads to more jobs. If having more of these workers leads to more jobs, when is that going to happen? When are our 1.4 million unemployed and underemployed going to benefit from all these corporate trade agreements? The answer is that none will benefit. These agreements exist to bring in large numbers of foreign workers to drive down wages in Australia and maximise corporate profits. Australia is used to that from the Liberal and National parties and, increasingly in recently years, from the Labor Party. My question is: why is the Australian Labor Party voting for this killer? Aren't the Labor Party supposed to be the party of labour? Aren't the Labor Party supposed to protect Australian workers? Well, apparently not.

There is one aspect of these agreements that One Nation does support, and that is the expansion of Australia's farm exports—half a million tonnes of grain to Indonesia, along with a 1,300 per cent increase in cattle exports by the year 2050. Dairy gets another $6 million dollars in exports. Carrot and potato tariffs are eliminated. The Peruvian agreement will eliminate a 17 per cent tariff on beer and a nine per cent tariff on wine and will allow market access for Australian sugar, dairy, beef, lamb, cereals and nuts. In times of drought, these targets may at best be theoretical, but this drought will not last forever. It will rain again—we know that in Australia's cycles—and, when it does, these additional markets will be critical to getting our farmers back on their feet. Our struggling manufacturing sector will benefit from another 250,000 tonnes of steel to Indonesia and from market access to Peru for pharmaceutical and minerals markets.

Ultimately, the absolute necessity of keeping our economy out of recession today by developing these new markets has decided our vote on this matter. But look at how the government have roped us into voting for their globalist, elitist mates—putting a gun to our farmers' heads. Tellingly, when Senator Pauline Hanson spoke in this chamber just an hour or so ago, Liberal and Labor heads were bowed in shame, and rightly so, because Australians value a fair go and Australians value being fair dinkum.