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

As a servant of the people of Queensland as Australia, if your mortgage payment has increased, if you have struggled to find a rental, if your power bill is higher than two years ago, if you nearly fainted at the checkout on your last grocery shop, listen in. All of these problems started right here in Parliament House, not overseas like the Albanese Labor government claims. Neither Labor nor Liberal can fix them. Both parties either created or turbocharged the problems facing Australians now. We see the Prime Minister is struggling in the polls and might need a plan to make it easier for Australian households and businesses.

This is how One Nation, a party with the guts to say what people are thinking and needing, would fix it. Firstly, cut the insanely high overseas arrival program. In a country of just 26 million people, there are currently 2.3 million additional visa holders in Australia. All are fighting Australians for rentals. Australia's rental vacancy record is at a record low of 1.06 per cent. Experts consider three per cent to be tight. Additionally, the cashed up migrants who can afford to buy are pushing up house prices leaving Australia's first homebuyers in the dust. That is something that can be done today. Cut the overseas arrivals; that will get Australians out of tents and cars, back under roofs where they should be. Everything else is a Band-Aid until we cut the amount of people flooding into the country to get Australians back under affordable roofs.

Secondly, ditch the United Nations World Economic Forum's net zero pipe dream. The Australian people have been lied to repeatedly, told that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of electricity. That lie is easily exposed with many facts, especially one simple fact: with more wind, solar, batteries and pumped hydro in the grid than ever before in Australia's history, electricity bills have never been higher. Even with the Labor government tipping in billions in more subsidies, there is no end in sight for Australians hoping they will get cheaper power bills. Remember only a year ago when now Prime Minister Albanese promised $275 off your power bill? Don't hold your breath. Don't look to the Liberals to help you there either. The Liberals and Nationals are equally committed to the net zero wind and solar pipe dream. That has only pushed power prices up over 20 years. That is all it has done. Only One Nation will ditch the net zero pipe dream that is wrecking households and businesses. We will restore cheap energy for all Australians.

Thirdly, inflation. The former Liberal government oversaw the creation of over $500 billion in new money out of thin air. Or, as a Reserve Bank deputy governor told me at the time: electronic journal entries out of thin air. That is a major cause of the inflation we're dealing with today. One Nation would cut unneeded government spending and return the budget to surplus so we don't have to borrow or print a single extra dollar because that would drive up inflation again.

Finally, cheap groceries. Australia has the richest farmland in the world yet it is tied up in red tape bureaucracy, green tape environmental excessive regulations that do nothing to protect the environment and blue United Nations policies controlling and restricting people's lives. Only this week the government will be passing legislation to steal water from farmers, water that could have grown veggies and beef for grocery shelves. Get rid of all the red, green and blue tape that does nothing to protect the environment. Let farmers do the job that farmers love doing—feeding and clothing Australia and the world. These are all obvious solutions: cut overseas arrivals to get Australia into houses with affordable rentals and mortgages; ditch net zero to get cheaper electricity; stop printing money to cut inflation; and let farmers farm to bring down grocery prices. That is how One Nation would get Australia back on track. Unlike the others, we have the guts to do it. We say it and we push it.