Senate debates

Thursday, 29 February 2024

Motions

Taxation

5:12 pm

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

This Labor government is maintaining the tradition of Labor governments: taxing and spending, taxing and spending. In the last few weeks, the government has revealed plans to tax clothing in the name of saving the environment and to tax food in the name of funding Australia's world-leading biosecurity. I would have thought protecting Australia's biosecurity, which underpins $100 billion in export earnings, was the responsibility of the whole country, considering the wealth it bestows on all Australians. I would consider funding biosecurity to be important to protecting the supply of food we all eat, but, no, this government wants to tax farmers off the land to make way for its billionaire mates' Frankenstein foods. It doesn't matter that Australians don't want to eat bugs or fake meat cultured and then grown in bioreactors. This attack on Australia's health and nutrition is happening because this government's owners demand for themselves the wealth currently in the hands of our farming communities. They want to transfer the land and the wealth from our farmers to their billionaire parasitic friends.

When the billionaires that try to run the world say, 'You'll own nothing and be happy,' amongst the things the public will no longer own is a car. Chris Bowen MP and his ministry of misery have announced fuel emission standards are being applied to new cars from 2030. 'Increased fuel emission standards', 'tougher fuel emission standards'—it sounds innocuous until you read the fine print, and I thank the opposition for crunching the numbers. Utes will go up by between $2,000 and $6,000 each. At a time when the government need as many tradies as they can find to build as many homes as they can, the government think it's a smart move to add a new tax on tradies, raising the cost of houses and decreasing the supply of houses. What a bloody stupid idea!

More troubling is the increasing cost of passenger cars to Australian families. The Outlander from Mitsubishi—that's a family SUV—will go up by $4,000. LandCruisers, owned by every second family in the bush, will go up by $13,000 each. That's yet another attack on the bush from a government happy to harm the bush in order to win votes back from the teals in the city. This will not be the only price increase in cars. The materials needed for our suicidal net zero measures have much in common with materials used in making cars. The increase in demand from net zero means that these materials are getting scarcer and scarcer and much more expensive. A family car is likely to rise in price by $10,000 within five years in today's dollars because of this materials inflation. Then add Minister Bowen's car tax, and you can see where this is all going.

For those who still haven't worked it out, the New South Wales government has just announced Australia's first 30-minute city, surrounding the new Badgerys Creek airport. It's called Bradfield City. It will be 'cybersmart and digitally led'. That means digital surveillance on everyone. It's happening in London already, and in other countries, with commercial and community facilities including retail, cultural facilities and work all in the one suburb. So you don't have choice of where you work; you work nearby. Plans for Bradfield City include car-free streets. No matter the weather, you will walk everywhere.

On the way to net zero the cost of driving will be artificially increased to raise costs, thanks to this government. That would dramatically increase the cost of living for everyone in this country, increase food prices for everyone in this country and ultimately lead to, in 2030, the very act of driving being an act of civil disobedience. It's all about wealth transfer to their parasitic billionaire friends and about control.

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