Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise here today to speak on the dangers of the 15-minute city. The Victorian government has begun pitching the brand new but old idea, taken from the playbook of our best mates at the World Economic Forum, of the 15-minute city. It's also sometimes called the 20-minute city. You know what, it doesn't matter, because it's all the same garbage. Imagine the 15-minute city where you won't need a car, where you won't need to travel much at all and where everything you'll ever need will be provided for you and it's all within easy reach. So convenient. Sounds great. That's the charm of the new era of soft totalitarianism. It's always for your benefit, and so people willingly, even eagerly, agree to be caged. Sorry, I didn't mean to use the word 'caged'. It was a slip of the tongue, kind of like Klaus Schwab didn't mean to say that the elites are going to push us to a point where we will own nothing, zip, nada, and we will be happy because they will own everything, and they'll be even happier. That's not a conspiracy theory. It's called 'servitisation'—look it up. I'll give an example of servitisation. Once upon a time, we owned DVDs. We don't anymore. Now you have a streaming service; you don't own it. Once upon a time, people would easily buy homes. Not anymore, not today—now you're more likely to rent. You don't own it. What about a car? One day you won't own a car; it's all going to be rideshare. You won't own it; someone else will own it. You'll be happy, though.

The 15-minute city is not an original thought from the Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, as if such a thing as an original though ever existed in the Premier's head. It's a plan parroted straight from the World Economic Forum, the United Nations and other globalist organisations that have been busy sowing this idea around the world, and now it is with governments. For example, in the UK they have already announced plans to divide cities into separately administered districts, which they claim will help meet the country's sustainability goals by reducing the need for citizens to travel. The government will ensure you and your family are well catered for—and, of course, well contained, which I suspect is rather more the point—in a tiny precinct that you'll probably never need to leave.

If the climate emergency, crisis, disaster, catastrophe or whatever it is they're calling it these days is as bad as the United Nations would have us believe, then perhaps we'll never be allowed to leave our 15-minute zone. I jest, of course. I'm only joking. People will be allowed to travel outside their allotted 15-minute zones. They'll just have to pay a modest toll or levy in order to be able to leave their district. But other than that—and, of course, the surveillance—they'll be completely free.

Some will go ahead and say that this is a conspiracy theory. But it's not. It's not even a theory. It's happening in plain sight for all to see. Just ask the residents of Oxford in the UK if they think it's a conspiracy theory. They're living it right now. I remember 2020, when the media accused everyone who said the government would use COVID as an excuse to abuse civil liberties of being a conspiracy theorist. We all know how that turned out, especially in my home state of Victoria. Overlay the 15-minute city with the coming social-credit system and the digital ID, just like in Communist China with the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, and you begin to get an understanding of what the future might hold if we continue to allow things to move ahead unabated and unchecked.

We Victorians know all too well what it's like to be constricted and locked down in a zone. The government's design to corral us all into zones—no matter how the supposed benefits are sold—is cynical and sinister, and it must be resisted. It must be discussed. It must be considered. To the people at home I say: Do not leave your fate in the hands of government, because power corrupts. Take an interest in what is happening in your community, in your state. Take an interest in who governs you. Don't just go to the ballot box, tick a box and forget about it. That's not the right way to do it.