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

Why? That's one question that I want to ask repeatedly in this speech. I see the government's changes as a welcome step, but it's a tiny, tiny step and we need many, many more. It could be one of my footprints, Senator Ayres! We see the government's previous tax changes. They weren't cuts; they were changes. As a result of those changes, we will see the government increase revenue by about $38 billion over the next four years—so much for tax cuts. They're tax changes that will lead to an increase in tax for mums and dads.

Why are politicians scared of tax reform, and why do they place the burden on families and individuals to pay tax and let multinationals off the hook? Why are politicians scared of tax reform, but they continue tinkering with the system to affect mums and dads, who end up by paying, by far, the lion's share of tax in this country? Why did Senator Sharma, in a very good speech, say that he wants to end bracket creep and the Liberals want end to bracket creep, yet, three weeks earlier, they voted against ending bracket creep with my amendment? They want enduring bracket creep. Why do the Labor Party say they want to end bracket creep—I remember Senator Gallagher said at the time, 'We want to end bracket creep'—but vote against it? My amendment to abolish bracket creep once and for all was defeated.

Why is taxation not transparent? I'll tell you why. It's so that governments can continue to steal money from families to pay for their uncosted bribes. The Senate and the House of Representatives have turned into auction blocks using taxpayers' money to buy votes. That's what they've turned into. That's how the governments of this country work, the uniparty of Labor and the Liberals. Why is the uniparty looking for new ways to tax people? Cars and utes—the foundations for tradies—are now going to be taxed. Clothing is going to be taxed under the Labor Party. Food will be taxed with a new biosecurity levy. Inflation was caused by the Labor and Liberal uniparty during the COVID response—the COVID mismanagement. State premiers were largely Labor, and the federal Prime Minister was Liberal-National. Inflation is a tax, especially on the poor and those with low incomes. Inflation is a huge tax burden. Greenwashing requires corporations to buy carbon dioxide credits. How do they pass the costs on? They pass them on in the form of higher prices.

Why do they require diversity, equity and inclusion and ESG reporting, which are ridiculous and unfounded? No-one has provided the evidence for that policy. It's a compliance tax. Where will the cost of that compliance tax go? Onto the things that mums and dads and families pay for. Whole departments have been created in corporations, and that adds to the prices families have to pay. Why more tinkering? Why more complexity and less productivity? Think about the behaviours this drives with regard to allocation of resources and the behaviour of executives and decision-makers. Why is it that every problem in this country comes out of this building, like housing and excessive immigration, which is putting inhuman catastrophic pressures on people now? People are living in tents, cars, caravans, out in the street and under bridges in Brisbane in one of the richest states in the world. This is happening in our regional cities right up and down the east coast of Queensland. It's a long coast. The Murray-Darling Basin is a disaster. It's climate fraud, a lie and a scam. It's a hoax. Stealing farmers' property rights—the Liberal-National government did that from 1997 to 2007.

We're still living with COVID mismanagement. I had a gentleman in my office today who is vaccine injured. It's been stated by doctors We had to turn the lights off because of the glare. He couldn't look straight at the windows. He had to look down. This was a vibrant healthy person now with COVID vaccine damage. He's almost incapacitated. This was a lively human being now pulled up.

We're still living with the COVID mismanagement. There's inflation from the money supply, as I mentioned. There's inflation from crippling the supply chains during the COVID restrictions. Crippling our supply chains led to higher prices.