James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I have many things to apologise for, but not in this particular instance. But I withdraw, and I look forward to Senator O'Neill's contribution defending the right of Israel to exist.

I want to speak about Israel and the West Bank. As someone who went to Israel last year, I saw there was a notable difference between how Israelis, whether they were Jewish or Arabic, operate. They live in a liberal democracy. Everyone is equal. But then you cross over the border into the West Bank, and that liberal democracy, that beautiful rainbow that we all live under, becomes this black cloud, because there is no democracy or freedom in the West Bank. Along with other members of the delegation, I spoke with locals in the West Bank, and I said: 'What would you like me to say to your leaders?' By the way, these are leaders who haven't had an election now for about 20 years, and even that would be offending the Trade Practices Act in terms of what an election is, in the West Bank, because it wasn't a real, free election. And they wouldn't tell me anything, because they were too scared to utter any words of praise or criticism towards the leaders in the West Bank.

So I will strongly defend the right of Israel to exist—strongly defend the right of the only liberal democracy in the Middle East to exist—because we've got to go back to history. I'm currently about to finish, thank goodness, a brilliant book by Antony Beevor; it is called Russia:Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921. I would encourage anyone who happens to be still listening through the wireless or on the TV to read this book, because it is a fascinating history of what happens when a government collapses and what those who do not have the interests of their people at heart—and I'm talking about the Bolsheviks—do to the human spirit. You can compare that to what happens in the West Bank, and in Gaza, where you've got leaders who do not have the interests of their people at heart because it is all about politics; it is all about power. You can compare that to Israel, which is such a boisterous democracy.

I welcome the fact that the Labor Party are coming to Queensland. I would counsel them to perhaps be careful where they park their cars, because 55 cars a day are stolen in Queensland because we've got this crime wave happening under the state Labor government. I would counsel them in terms of their usage of electricity because power prices are going through the roof. And I would say to them that they're possibly paying extra money for short-term rentals because rents are going through the roof. So welcome to modern Queensland, where we've got a state Labor government who are disinterested in the victims of crime and those who are suffering because of Labor's mismanagement of the Queensland economy and the national economy.

What also concerns me is that in the coming months we're going to have a referendum. We don't know the date, because that's apparently a state secret, although Noel Pearson likes to go around the place and say it's on 14 October. It's a state secret when this referendum is going to be held. Also, it's a state secret as to the details of the Voice. Labor just don't want us to know. They want Queenslanders to vote on something, but they don't want them to know the details. You know why? Because they know that the Voice is something that is going to hurt Australia. They know that if Australians found out the truth about the Voice, if they knew the truth about the Voice, they would not vote for it. That's why they're not telling us the information. The Labor Party are treating Queenslanders and Australians like mushrooms. They're keeping us in the dark, and they're loading us up with things that come out of the rear ends of cows, and it needs to stop.