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

by leave—My Country by Dorothea Mackellar talks about 'a sunburnt country'. That really does explain what Australia is all about, from drought to flood and fires. We can expect it and have done since the country was first founded. I was sitting here listening to Senator Di Natale's comments blaming it on pollution and coal and fire. That is far from the truth. The fact is that we do live in a very dry nation, and it is because of government interference, and locking up our national parks, not burning off the waste and not protecting our lands—that is why we find ourselves in this predicament—and, with an ever-increasing population, not supplying the water resources we need to fight the fires. Our national parks have grown; no-one can go in there, no-one can clean them up—even farmers are not allowed to allow animals in to graze on the lands. Debris is not allowed to be cleared or taken by Australians who may use it for some other purpose. It is drastic and devastating to all of us here in this place, because we all have electorates and people in our electorates that we are supposed to be representing and taking note of and caring about.

These fires have been absolutely devastating in Queensland. Up near Yeppoon, in Causeway Lake and Adelaide Park, around 20 structures were burned and countless families and bush businesses were evacuated. It wasn't because of climate change; it was because of the 16-year-old boy who lit the fire. We have another nine-year-old in New South Wales who lit a fire. We have many people out there—as young as nine—who want to cause havoc and trouble and do not care about the people around them. That causes the fires, not pollution. I feel for these people who have lost their structures, their homes, their belongings and their pets, and for the deaths that have been caused because of these fires. I do congratulate and honour the men and women, the firefighters and volunteers, who have risked their own lives to save properties.

But the Australian people and I are sometimes gobsmacked. We're going through devastation now with the bushfires, on top of the drought, and we see that the New South Wales government has earmarked $48 million for bushfire recovery. The community recovery package is a joint federal and state government initiative and includes grants of up to $15,000 to help the recovery of small businesses and farmers—and I'm sure they are very appreciative of that—and $18 million of the $48 million package has been earmarked for community projects—again, very good. But put it in comparison to what Australia has just announced: a $300 million loan for Papua New Guinea to help pay for economic reforms and government financing—to a country that we know is corrupt, and their members of parliament are corrupt. Or what about the fact that it follows the $500 million given to the Pacific Islands this year to deal with so-called climate change impacts? If Di Natale is saying that it's because of climate change, why are we not putting in as much money into this country? If it is so-called climate change, why do we give away half a billion dollars to other countries? This is what the people of Australia are fed up with. Australia is also paying $607 million in aid to Papua New Guinea in 2019-20. The whole fact is that we need to look after our own, first and foremost, and make sure the Australian people are given the aid and the assistance that they need, whether it's in drought, floods or fire. In our natural disasters here, let's look after our own first.