Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

The Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Benefit to Australia) Bill 2020 is a simple bill that does a lot. I have to say, 'Well done,' to One Nation. I sort of wish I'd thought of it myself. All the bill does is say that the benefits that come from Australia's natural resources should go to Australians, not overseas and not to big multinational companies. Those resources belong to us, every Australian, and they should benefit us. That money should be going back into our public hospitals. We shouldn't have people waiting on level 1 for months and months to get operations. We have educational problems out there. We should be throwing money and everything we've got at that and aged care, NDIS, mental health services and the list goes on and on.

I don't understand how in God knows how many years Australia has come to this much of a mess when it comes to our resources that are sitting in our ground and how we've missed out on so much of the share of that. The major parties in here have undersold us, and both of them should be absolutely ashamed of themselves today. That's what we are talking about. That is all this bill does. It says our resources should benefit Australians. It says the benefits should come back to us. From here on out in the future, if you are going to make deals and sell our resources then make sure 51 per cent stays in Australian hands. Can't we at least do that from here on in?

This bill does that by saying that the regulators that approve offshore mining projects have to make sure those projects benefit Australians before they can go ahead. It is simple, it's effective and it's common sense. Who could be against making regulators make decisions about what's in the national interest? I'll tell you who. The Liberal and Labor parties—that's who. They have been underselling us for years and have ripped us off and ripped off the Australian people. It completely blows my mind. It blows my mind that the major parties think that expecting our regulators to do the right thing by the country is controversial. What could possibly be controversial about expecting our regulators to put Australians first? How can that be something you would worry about?

This is the sad reality of where we are today. The Liberal and Labor parties think it is fine to sell out Australians. That's what they've been doing for years. I'm surprised we own anything these days. They talk big on doing what's right by the country, but, when it comes down to it, they will sell us out every time and as cheap as chips. That's where things are at. This sort of attitude is why Australian industry is in the state it's in. And don't even go into manufacturing; it goes well beyond offshore mining.

You're selling the country out from under our feet and you've been doing it for a very long time. The Tasmanian farmers know that's true. I say this to the major parties: go and talk to them for five minute and in five minutes you'll see how much of a problem we have here. We're selling all our farmland to China. We're letting foreign investors buy up our country. What has happened to our food security? You have sold us out on everything else. What about food security for our future, our children and our grandchildren? We're letting all our iconic Aussie brands go overseas. We're letting all our profits and benefits—the fruit of Australian workers' labour—get carved off overseas. We're letting overseas investors come in and just buy up the Australian companies that keep regional communities working—the companies that hold up and support entire regional towns. They just buy them up, and it's all going on under the mantra of free trade. Free trade? Well, someone's getting something for free and it ain't the people of Australia! They're not getting anything for free. The cult of free trade has made Liberal and Labor blind to what's going on under their own noses. You don't want to see the truth. You don't want to see what your decisions in the past have done to this country. Quite frankly, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

I just don't get it. I don't know the reason why. I don't know if it's their political donors—that is more than likely so, and, by the way, they can be bought as cheap as chips, and that's even more embarrassing—or if it's just plain arrogance, but they don't want to admit that we have a problem here. This is why I've been saying that we need to get our country making things again. Make Australia make again! Don't just sit out there and talk the talk; I want to see you walking the walk—and so do the people of Australia. We want to see manufacturing. We want to be self-sufficient. That's what we want. Stop selling us out, because, I'll tell you what, there's not a lot left. If there's anything that the past year has shown us it's that we have to start backing ourselves, backing our industry and backing the people here in our own country. Stop undermining us. Stop undermining our resources. Stop undermining the people of this country. If you don't think we're smart enough to carry it out then have the courage to stand up and tell us so.

We need Australian-made free trade. That's the lesson of the coronavirus, yet you've learnt nothing out of this. That was your warning, and there'll be more to come, no doubt. God works in mysterious ways. It's called karma. If you haven't learnt from this and you haven't got manufacturing up and going and you're out there just talking the talk and not walking the walk, then watch it come back to bite you fair on the backside, because it will. We've got to be self-sufficient again. We've got to start owning our own resources and our own industries, because what we make we control. Nobody else controls us. That's what the major parties don't seem to understand. They just don't get it, or maybe they don't want to get it. Maybe it's more to the point that it's so far gone they have no idea how to fix.

This is what I say to them: we have to start backing our manufacturing sector, we have to strengthen the rules around foreign purchases of our key assets, and we have to diversify what we're making and who we're selling it to so no other country can control the fate of our country. There's so much work that needs to be done, but every time the crossbench tries to get started the major parties drag their feet. They put their fingers in their ears and their hands over their eyes. They just don't want to hear it and that's terribly sad.

This bill won't fix everything. As I said, it's a simple little bill. There's a lot that needs to be done, but what we're talking about today deals with one small part of a bigger problem. It's a start. It's pointing us in the right direction. It's clever and it's common sense. Once again, I thank One Nation for bringing it up in the chamber and, once again, I hear very little out of the major parties. Let's face it, we're in the situation we're in today because of the both of you, and that is shameful in itself. And you can't even admit that these days, because, apparently, everything is rosy out there! I don't know where you guys sit. You might want to get out of your bubble and see what's really happening out there on the ground because, I can tell you, where this country is right now would bring tears to your eyes. That's why I support this legislation. Everyone else in this place should do so as well. Shame on those who do not. For once in your life you can make a difference in here today, which you will not do because you can't see through your own faults. You cannot see that.

This country is a mess, if you haven't noticed! It's a mess. You've been selling it out for way too long. You've sold the Australian people out year after year and there's bugger all left out there. Well, I'd like some of that back—like the millions of others out there. We want that money going back into our health system and our aged-care system. Don't worry about cutting the NDIS, like you're already doing over there, Liberals—that's exactly what you're doing. If you'd invested in it in the first place and done the right thing then you wouldn't have to worry about money. All those resources out there were given as cheap as chips to everyone else, and that could have been coming back into the country. That money could have been serving in our schools and making our kids smarter by investing more in them. This is where we are today. Quite frankly, it's shameful.