Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I apologise for my tapping. I get very passionate about the hardworking people of this country. I must admit I tend to go off because I love this country and I love the people in this country who put their nose to the grindstone. When I stood up, I did initially refer to small business. All of these measures that I'm talking about help small business because, when we have more people in productive sectors, when we have higher velocity money and when we are more productive, we can have a lower, flatter tax rate for everyone and we can have greater government revenue to help those people who need help in the economy as well. I guess what I'm trying to do in this speech is look at measures that are going to improve productivity and lift the standard of living for every person in this country. Quite frankly, that should be the centre of everyone's mind no matter what bill they are talking on, so I thank you for your indulgence, President.

Of course, we are used to seeing this from the other side of the chamber, constantly trying to shut down solutions. This side of chamber, the coalition, believes in productivity and believes in building this country up so that we give our children the same opportunities that our forefathers gave to us. I say this every day. I wake up every day and I get out of bed I am so grateful for the sacrifices not only of our forefathers, but of the people out there today. If you're listening out there on ABC Radio, I just want you to know that we are incredibly grateful for all the hard work you do. As the words of our national anthem say, it is 'wealth for toil'. I will never forget that.

As someone with 25 years experience analysing balance sheets et cetera, you'd always look at the wages, you'd always look at those people who go out there—it never ceases to amaze me the ideas in some of the small businesses out there, the ideas they come up with and the innovation. That's what we want to do because when you're bogged down with what the other side loves to push all the time—this self-loathing, this guilt, this fear, this fearmongering—you get weighed down with it. You start wondering, 'Do I really want to try to start a business in this country if I'm going to have this constant fearmongering and so on?'

I had an interesting article sent to me this morning about how the birth rate has dropped in last 18 months. They were blaming it on climate change. I just thought to myself, 'You people are delusional.'

An opposition s enator interjecting—

Yes, it's a Sydney Morning Herald article. I'll send it to you later. I thought, 'You people are delusional.' I have to do my preselection speech in a couple of weeks and it's on my mind—

Honourable senators interjecting—

Hang on! People often say about the coalition that we don't believe in young people, but do you know what? I do believe in young people. The reason why I ran for parliament—

No, listen to this, Senator McKim—