Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to order, we now move to first speeches. I remind senators to extend the normal courtesies that we do to first speeches to those giving those speeches.

Skye Kakoschke-Moore (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with a huge amount of respect and gratitude that I rise tonight and say that this is my first speech. Many of my colleagues in this place knew me as Nick Xenophon's adviser before I joined them on the other side of that brass rail. I have been asked often why I chose to become a candidate for the Nick Xenophon Team, and I can now tell you it was a phone call.

The call itself was not unusual. I and the other staff at Nick's office had taken hundreds of them. The caller's husband was addicted to online sports bettering. She had just discovered they had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and in the coming weeks they would also lose their home. She was desperate and she did not know where else to go for help. I stayed on the phone with her while she cried. I would meet her and her husband in person soon after, and with Nick we worked to do what we could to help them try to rebuild their lives. But, when I hung up the phone that day, I could not stop thinking about that call, about the hundreds of other people in similar circumstances I had spoken to and met and tried to help in my five years in the electorate office, about how many times we at the office had asked each other when the government and the opposition would do something, anything to fix such an easily solved problem—and how it was my turn to step up and do what I could to make a difference not for a party but for the people who put their faith in it. I am not someone driven by politics, but through politics I have the opportunity to drive change.

I would like to point out that I do not come from any kind of political pedigree. In fact, when I was growing up there was an unwritten rule in my home that one should never discuss religion, politics or money in front of company and especially in front of children. But, as with all young minds, when information is not handed to you, you use what resources you can to piece things together. And so it was that my political education began with the ABC comedy series The Late Show. Because of The Late Show I knew in 1993 our Prime Minister was Paul Keating. Because of The Late Show I also knew that politicians described riding around in a car with the flags on the bonnet as the best part of the job. And because of The Late Show I was quite disturbed to find out that, when politicians fought, they said it was like they were being flogged with wet newspaper. Needless to say, I was suspicious of politicians from a very early age!

And so, with my dubious understanding of Australian politics, my family packed up our little cottage in Burra, South Australia, to move halfway around the world. On 31 December 1994, my dad, mum, younger sister and I landed in Muscat, the capital city of the Sultanate of Oman. I had just celebrated my ninth birthday. At that time there was no internet. There was no Google. And so the only thing I thought I knew about the Middle East was that something called the Gulf War had happened there. I imagined we would be moving to a desert where no-one would be able to speak English, that all of our shopping would have to be done in sandy, windswept markets and that we would be living in huts with no air conditioning.

You can imagine my relief, then, when I found that Muscat was a beautiful and modern city. What is more, the local Omanis were so incredibly friendly and welcoming to the expats who were coming to their country in ever-increasing numbers.

I went to an international school where from reception to year 12 there were only 600 students. But these 600 students represented more than 40 nationalities. There was a running joke that, if you took a picture of any four of the students at my school, we looked like an advert for United Colors of Benetton!

From a very early age the benefits of multiculturalism were instilled in me and the other students. We learned that we were richer for our diversity. We learned that multiculturalism gives you pause to reflect on your values and how many of our values are shared by other cultures and religions. Above all, we learned that respect for one another was the key to living peacefully. And all of this was learned while living in a Muslim country where I had many Muslim friends.

That is why the hatred and the wilful ignorance of some Australians towards Islam and multiculturalism cuts me so deep. It does not and it should not matter what god you worship—or if you do not worship a god, for that matter. What matters is your respect for others, your desire to live a peaceful life and your willingness to contribute positively to society. To see one group of people branded as incapable of having those attributes is not just immature and ignorant; it is plain wrong.

I imagine what it would have been like for me and my family if the people in Oman shunned, rejected and vilified us not because of anything we had done but because of where we came from and our beliefs—how it would have felt to be in a minority in a country that we called home and yet we were constantly being asked to defend ourselves because of the actions of a few. I ask each of you in this place to think for a moment what that would be like. Imagine it was you.

When I came back to Australia in 2004, one of the things that struck me was our right to have a free and frank debate about our country's leadership. I had spent 10 years living in a country whose ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, was revered by his people. The sultan overthrew his father in a palace coup in 1970. He embarked on a bold mission to modernise the country, which at the time had a single paved road and gates to the capital city which were literally closed each night. The sultan built roads, schools and hospitals. He opened the country up to international trade and his people loved him for it. However, things could have been very different for Oman and its people if a less-progressive ruler taken over all those years ago, and Oman's people would have been powerless to do anything about it.

Democracy is easy to take for granted in a country like Australia. The concept that we as citizens determine who leads our nation is a given with us. While we do get a choice about who represents us, if our general population were reflected by who gets elected, one would be forgiven for thinking that Australia was made up of mostly middle-aged white men. And, as I say this, perhaps it is fitting to note that today is International Day of the Girl. A survey by Plan International Australia and Our Watch found that 69 per cent of girls they surveyed believed gender inequality was a problem in Australia. Only one in six girls said they were given the same opportunities to succeed as boys.

There are many talented young women who are more than capable of being elected into parliament. The drive, the passion and the talent is there. What is missing is the will to preselect women into winnable seats. Decision-making bodies with gender diversity make better decisions. It is that simple. And I say to any young women considering a career in politics: speak up and do something about it; do not be left silent and wondering 'what if'. If serving the people and bringing about change through parliament is your dream, then you should pursue it fearlessly.

When I realised I could be more than an observer of politics—that I could one day, maybe, be a politician myself—my life changed. It all began when I responded to a job ad for Nick's office, which was six years ago exactly this Saturday just past. I only recently told Nick this, but I can remember clearly the first time I heard of him. It was the winter of 2005. I was sitting in my second-ever law exam. I told myself I was only shaking because it was freezing cold in that hall at Flinders University and not because I was so nervous. One of the questions in the exam mentioned Nick Xenophon, the 'No Pokies MP'. 'Xenophon,' I thought. 'Hmm. Strange name. Good platform.' And so that politician with the strange name stayed in the back of my mind over the course of my degree. The more I learnt about him, the more he did not seem to be the type of politician who enjoyed riding around in cars with flags on their bonnets or flogging other politicians with wet newspapers, for that matter, unless the wet newspaper was involved in some sort of stunt! In any case, it was the 'No Pokies MP' who made me rethink my early political education and put politicians in a positive light for me for the first time. Fortunately for me, I got the job he advertised and I was brought into his team to manage constituent issues. Later, I would help with Senate committee work, before eventually assisting with legislation and policy.

Finally, I took the step to apply to be a candidate for the Nick Xenophon Team. That was more than 18 months ago, and now I am honoured to be a senator for South Australia in a true centrist party. We are a team that is driven not by left or right but by what is right and wrong. We will be fearless watchdogs, especially on issues that major parties shy away from—issues like predatory gambling.

The slow progress of reform is a sad reflection of the lack of political will by major parties to tackle an industry that has caused immense harm to thousands of Australian families. In 2010, the Productivity Commission reported that some 40 per cent of gambling losses on poker machines came from problem gamblers. Across Australia, over $13 billion was lost on poker machines in 2014-15. That is over $5 billion lost by problem gamblers on poker machines which are designed to addict. The documentary Ka-Ching revealed the cunning manipulation that goes into designing these machines, from the lights and the music to the near misses that make players think: 'I was so close. I'll get that jackpot next time.'

The billions of dollars lost on pokies could have been spent in local businesses. And, before the Australian Hotels Association and other defenders of pokies try to argue the job benefits of these machines, let's reflect on research conducted by the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies. This research showed that for every million dollars lost on pokies a mere three jobs are created, but a million dollars spent in retail creates six jobs, and a million dollars spent in a small hospitality business can create 18 jobs. Pokies are a job killer, not a job creator. The harm caused by pokies is clear. So too is the solution.

The time is now to implement the Productivity Commission's recommendations of $1-maximum bets and $120-maximum hourly losses. But pokies are only half the battle. Our laws have failed to keep pace with the emergence of online gambling and, in particular, online sports betting. The most recent Australian Gambling Statistics report shows that Australians lost $815 million through legal sports betting between 2014 and 2015. This figure does not include potentially hundreds of millions more lost on illegal online wagering and online casinos.

I have sat down and spoken with individuals who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in online sports betting through legal sites in Australia. These are not wealthy individuals. They are everyday people who were able to lose nearly everything they had just by tapping their phone screen. Back in 2000, Tim Costello warned that with online gambling it is possible for a person to lose their home without even having to leave it. Sadly, this statement is not just as true today as it was 16 years ago but it is happening in ever-increasing numbers.

Why then have successive governments failed to act? If the major parties would take the time to meet with gambling addicts and their families instead of courting donors from the gambling industry, perhaps then there may be a change of heart, because I cannot understand how someone can look a person in the eye when that person has lost a house, a relationship, their children or, even worse, a loved one, all because of a gambling addiction and not be moved into action.

I am an eternal optimist and, together with Nick, Stirling and Rebekha in this parliament and John Darley in the South Australian parliament, we will never give up the fight for sensible and desperately needed gambling reform. Similarly, I will never give up the fight for our veterans and ex-service personnel, particularly those who suffered abuse—in many instances horrific physical and sexual abuse—while they served our nation. We must have a permanent Defence abuse response task force. A permanent task force will mean victims of abuse in Defence can receive acknowledgement of suffering, ongoing counselling, reparation payments and also a mechanism for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. It is unacceptable that abuse victims have been separated into two groups by our government: those who could submit claims to the task force and those who could not, all because arbitrary deadlines for submitting claims were imposed. There are many reasons why a victim might not have submitted a claim. Maybe they were not even aware the task force existed because it was so poorly advertised, especially in regional and remote areas. There is no cut-off date for the pain and the suffering that abuse victims continue to bear. I would like to thank Barry Heffernan for his tireless work advocating for abuse victims and acknowledge the forensic and considered professionalism of Dr Gary Rumble, who led the DLA Piper review into Defence abuse.

Another person I would like to pay tribute to today is Sonya Ryan, whose daughter Carly Ryan was murdered by an online predator in 2007, when she was just 15 years old—the first murder of its type in Australia. The predator had groomed Carly, pretending he was an 18-year-old drummer. In reality, he was a 50-year-old paedophile. When police arrested this monster, they found him masquerading as the 18-year-old drummer online again, this time talking to a 14-year-old girl in Perth.

A lot of people are surprised to discover that it is not an offence for an adult to lie about their age online to a child and then attempt to meet that child. If 'Carly's law' were passed it would be an offence, and I will do all I can to make sure it becomes law. This place will be given the opportunity to debate Carly's law next month, and I urge all of you here to support the bill.

Another bill I will introduce into this place would require government boards to have a 40-40 gender split, with the remaining 20 per cent to be of either gender. Any boards who did not reach this target would be required to table a statement of reasons as to why. By doing so, these boards will be able to reflect on any barriers to greater participation by women at a senior level and then take steps to address those barriers. As I said earlier, gender diversity results in better decisions. It is that simple.

As a senator for South Australia, it is my duty to ensure that I make the best decisions possible for SA, which I believe are also in the national interest. We were, and still are, a proud manufacturing state. Millions of us have driven in cars that rolled out of the Chrysler, Mitsubishi and Holden factories in South Australia. Sadly, we are witnessing the end of car making in our country. The associated loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs is a crisis we did not need to have with Australia-wide shock waves. These job losses were not inevitable. Our manufacturing industry is being driven out of existence by reckless policies and an approach to government procurement that, with its focus on so-called value for money, fails to recognise the economic and social multiplier effects that come from local procurement. To borrow a quote from Oscar Wilde, it seems current, narrowly focused procurement policies know the price of everything and the value of nothing. My colleagues and I will fight to ensure that government does not take a sledgehammer to manufacturing and jobs across the country, and in particular in South Australia.

To close, I would like to acknowledge the people who have fought for and supported me. I would not be here today without the support of my incredible husband, Simon. Your love, patience and unwavering belief in me have given me the strength to achieve more than I ever thought possible. I made the best decision of my life when I married you nearly 10 years ago.

To my mum, Sharon: you never gave up on me, even when I was being a very difficult teenager who thought she could live life without you. Thank you for always being here for me and showing what it means to be a brave and resilient woman.

To my dad, Bart, who has travelled from Muscat, Oman, to be here today: it must not have been easy raising two teenage girls on your own in a foreign country with no family to support you. I appreciate everything you have done for me. Thank you for giving me two great gifts: never being scared to try something new and the ability to keep a sense of humour—or at least try to—in even the hardest of situations. Thank you for having the trust in me to allow me to grow into an independent woman even when you probably thought I was trying to grow up too fast.

To my brothers and sisters, Brad, Hayley, Jen, Amani and Malaika: while we may not get to see each other as much or as often as we would like, you are never far from my thoughts. I am proud of each and every one of you and love you with all my heart.

To my dearest friends: you know who you are. Some of these friends are even here today. Your encouraging words and your humour have seen me through the good, the bad and the ugly. Thank you.

And to our wonderful teams in the NXT's electorate offices, in particular my own electorate office: thank you. I have been in your shoes and I know the ups and downs that come with being a staffer. Please know that I appreciate everything you do to help not only me but the people of South Australia who we represent.

And thank you to the people of South Australia for putting your trust in the Nick Xenophon Team and electing three senators and one MP to this parliament. Thank you to our tireless volunteers who helped during the campaign, including handing out how-to-vote cards in the cold and the rain. We could not have done this without you.

Thank you to the Nick Xenophon Team. Nick, Stirling, Rebekha and John: we are a team in every sense of the word. I thoroughly enjoy working with you and I hope we will be joined by others after the next election.

And a special thank you to Nick. I promised you I would not cry and I hope I am not letting you down now! You have shown an incredible amount of trust in me, and for that I will be forever grateful. I have heard you use this Ralph Nader quote many times before and I think it is a fitting message on this occasion: 'The function of genuine leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.'

When I think about the reason I stand here today, it is not the many hours of policy work, legislative negotiations or political machinations that come to mind. Instead, I see my high school friends in Oman, sharing their culture and beliefs without fear of judgement or reprisal and accepting my differences as I accepted theirs. I see the people who asked for help for themselves or others in the face of gambling addiction. I see the brave individuals who only wanted to serve their country and were rewarded with humiliation, abuse and pain. And I see the fearless colleagues and advocates who speak for those with no voice and fight for those with no courage left for battle. If we do not consider the impact of our actions on the people we are elected to represent, we risk losing our humanity. As I said earlier, I am not driven by politics. I am not. I am driven by people. And I will not risk losing my humanity by forgetting that.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Before I call Senator Burston, I remind honourable senators that this is his first speech; therefore, I ask that the usual courtesies be extended to him. Senator Burston.

Brian Burston (NSW, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge Australia's historic nation, forged by Christian explorers and pioneers from Britain and other European lands who created the federal Commonwealth under the Crown, and I acknowledge Australia's first peoples, the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, who have become valued members of our nation.

I was born and raised in Cessnock, in the fertile hinterland of the Hunter Valley, occupied since time immemorial by the Wonnarua people, first sighted by British explorers in 1797 and settled in the 1820s by British pioneers coming up from the new colony at Sydney.

My parents were battlers, who at that time lived with three sons in a converted garage measuring six metres by three metres with no electricity, lit by a kerosene lamp, with an outhouse for a toilet. Circumstances put us there but hard work allowed us to take the opportunities offered by Australia and we moved forward, as did other Australians.

My brothers and I attended Bellbird Primary School and Cessnock High School.

At age 15, I began a five-year apprenticeship with BHP to become a boilermaker, then trained with Australia Post to became a draftsman. In my time, I have taught engineering drawing at TAFE and lectured in teacher education at Newcastle University. It has been my privilege to have designed some of the wineries that distinguish the Hunter region.

I say to those who have aspirations: whatever your background, you can reach your full potential with hard work. In the past, Australia made that possible with minimal social barriers, equal access to quality public schooling and the political culture inherited and adopted from our British founders. We all have a stake in holding onto that Australia.

My life has been a journey from poverty to politics. My family was poor, but free public schooling was open to all—perhaps the most essential of the public goods in a democracy.

That was in the 1950s, when identity politics was almost unknown except for the schools promoting national pride and an unspoken assumption that Australia is special, worth defending. There was no doubt about who we are as a nation or about the rightness of the nation's possession of the continent. Schools flew only one flag—Australia's. Even the ABC was then gently supportive of one national identity.

In 1987, I was elected to Cessnock City Council, serving a term as deputy mayor. In 1997, I joined Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party and have remained a member to this day. How better to fight for Australia's way of life? How better to preserve our freedoms national and civic?

How things have changed since the 1950s and 1960s. Back then we were poor but we knew implicitly that Australia belonged to us—though the 'us' was not at the forefront of our minds most of the time. We, the people, were casually united. Despite that Australian casualness, we were truly a nation state, with all the social benefits that flow from that rare condition.

Most states are too diverse to be gently united. Now, in Australia, ethnic and religious identities are at the forefront of politics, part of an aggressive multiculturalism. It seems that every group pride is promoted in the media and schools except ours, the nation's. The ABC long ago abandoned any semblance of patriotism, or even balance. Other taxpayer-funded media—SBS and NITV—serve immigrants and Indigenous Australians. The national flag is often ignored or dishonoured in schools, while multiculturalism and Indigenous issues are now part of the curriculum. The majority of students are not supported in their Anglo-Australian identity but are made to feel guilty for supposed historical injustices committed by their ancestors. The acknowledgment of country ceremony, recited in school assemblies across Australia, finds no place of honour for the British and other European explorers and pioneers or the nation they created. That first nation founded the Commonwealth and served the country in two world wars. Our nation is still at the heart of Australia's economy, culture and identity but is routinely dishonoured in schools and the media. Soon that injustice could be thrust into our Constitution, if the referendum on constitutional recognition succeeds.

The political establishment has abandoned the nation in favour of any minority it can find. As a result, both major parties are in long-term decline. One point nine million voters deserted the major parties in the 2016 election. Of those, 32 per cent voted for Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party—or more particularly Pauline Hanson. They are disconnected with the lack of political choices and the worsening conditions evident in their neighbourhoods and reported in the evening news. The majority have rights too. Australians have a legitimate interest in retaining their nation's identity and the cohesion it brings.

Our political class—and that includes the educational and media establishments—is too often hostile to ordinary Australians, to the people whose ancestors forged this nation. Why that is so, I do not know. A case in point, one that shook my confidence in our democracy, occurred when establishment figures who were losing votes to Pauline Hanson moved to destroy her as a person. They established a fighting fund to pay for legal challenges. At the time I was working as a research officer in Parliament House in Sydney for a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. Several times in 2001 I observed him provide lengthy interviews to a detective, who subsequently laid charges against Pauline, resulting in her imprisonment. In addition, the Queensland state government refused to repay $500,000 in electoral funding for the 1997 state elections, despite her conviction being quashed. This could have bankrupted her. I call for a Senate inquiry into the jailing of Pauline Hanson to identity the individuals responsible for the assault upon her. We need an independent and authoritative assessment of the propriety of the decision to withhold the electoral funding.

Another example of disconnect between rulers and ruled in Australia is the Defence bureaucracy's treatment of communities adversely affected by Defence Force contamination of their groundwater by toxic fire-fighting foam. Groundwater has been poisoned at bases in Williamtown in New South Wales and Oakey in Queensland, as well as another 16 sites around Australia. Residents are desperate. They cannot sell their properties as they are now worthless. They are exposed to potential severe medical complaints. And the Defence authorities? They do not listen. Reports show that the ADF knew of the problem as early as 2003 and failed to act. Its statements on the matter express more concern about bad press than about the health of local residents, who are unable to eat locally grown produce or use bore water. Why this indifference? One Nation will act to secure just compensation for those adversely affected.

A further example of elite contempt for ordinary Australians is public broadcasting. The cultural Marxist takeover of the ABC began in the late 1960s when Allan Ashbolt stacked the current affairs department. Ashbolt introduced the radical critique of mainstream Australia that had become fashionable in university departments of humanities and social science. Almost 50 years later, there is not one conservative program or anchor on the ABC—not one, in a billion-dollar enterprise. The ABC's oppositional stance to traditional Australia has grown to include the two other taxpayer-funded public broadcasters, the Special Broadcasting Service, SBS, whose explicitly ethnic mission is to cater to the identity and interests of the multicultural community, and most recently the National Indigenous Television network, NITV, created to represent the identity and interests of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. For budgetary reasons, NITV is now within the SBS stable. All three broadcasters are biased against mainstream Australia. They distort Australian political culture and support aggressive political multiculturalism. The systemic bias of public broadcasting is one of the clearest manifestations of a hostile cultural establishment. This bias has been known for decades but the conservative side of mainstream politics has failed to correct the situation. The time for complaint and diagnosis is over. It is time for the nation to break the bias of public broadcasting before that bias breaks the nation.

How might this be done? The main proposals have been to defund and privatise the ABC. But the country needs public broadcasters. Despite or perhaps because of their biases, the ABC, SBS and NITV have constituents who benefit from their services. It would be sad to throw the babies out with the bathwater. Might not balance be achieved between channels? A fair balance might be struck by leaving the minority ethnic channels intact while transferring funding from the ABC to establish a new channel that might be called the Patriotic Broadcasting Corporation, whose explicit mission would be to represent the identity and interests of mainstream Australia. It would present news and current affairs from the perspective of the historic Australian nation. Stripped of its mainstream content, the remaining ABC structure would receive funding commensurate with the size of its inner city, Greens-voting constituency. Australia needs more diverse public broadcasting in keeping with the growing diversity of the population.

The saddest, most consequential failure of the establishment parties to serve the national interest involves education. In recent months the public learnt of the cultural Marxist assault on the sexual identity of schoolchildren by the so-called Safe Schools program. Equally poisonous indoctrination of students has been a growing problem since the cultural revolution of the 1960s. The patriotic curriculum of my childhood has been replaced by the full gamut of political correctness.

The black armband version of history is firmly in the curriculum, playing on the sensitivities of children and young adults unable to defend themselves. An understandable concern for Indigenous children has been allowed to crowd out the needs of others. Children are subjected to wrenching images of the stolen generation. At school assemblies the acknowledgment of country ritual tells them, again and again, that their land belongs to Aborigines, whose flag is often flown with equal or superior prominence to the national flag. Likewise, multicultural civics training does little to support Anglo-Australian identity. There is little or no balancing celebration of the remarkable achievement of the First Fleet or our pioneers or the rise of a self-consciously British nation that went on to unite the six colonies into a federal Commonwealth.

It is understandable that children from all backgrounds should have their identities, their ancestors, affirmed. But Australia's majority has the same need. And everyone has a stake in national identity and cohesion. If school assemblies are to acknowledge the first peoples and the role of recent immigrants, they should also acknowledge Australia's first nation and its origins in Britain and Europe.

The political class's coldness towards the nation is also evident in the connected issues of immigration and multiculturalism. One Nation's policy is zero net immigration, meaning that our annual intake should be regulated to roughly match the number of Australians who choose to leave. We believe that our country needs to stabilise its population.

The mainstream parties approve of massive and permanent immigration. What is their logic? Assessing the costs and benefits of mass immigration is complex, as it involves economic and social factors. But Liberal and Labor sell it to the public using relatively simple propositions—firstly, that large-scale immigration boosts our economy qualitatively by providing needed expertise and entrepreneurial zeal and capital, which benefits most Australians; and, secondly, that it grows our economy quantitatively, building a larger domestic market and in time of war providing the population base from which to raise armies to defend against aggressive regional neighbours. This is the old 'populate or perish' adage.

Those arguments are not proclaimed during elections as the major parties do not contest core immigration policies. Permanent mass immigration is bipartisan policy because it is treated as sacred by the multicultural establishment. Both sides of mainstream politics are too entangled to see through multicultural dogma, or too intimidated to question it. In fact, both the qualitative and quantitative arguments are largely false. Recent data from the Productivity Commission shows that over the last 45 years immigration has added just seven per cent to GDP, an average of 0.15 per cent per annum. It is a gain, but only just.

The failure of the quantitative argument is largely due to the international scope of Australia's markets. The market for Australian produce and manufactures has for decades included Japan, Indonesia, China and other countries in our region, not to mention the US and places further afield. Likewise, we form part of their markets. Australia's economy is largely integrated into these regional and global markets.

Australia could double or triple its population overnight and our export market would not grow at all. Nor would our resources. The rise in population would be good for some areas of the national economy, such as the building trade, real estate and retail, but that would not improve most Australians' incomes. Profits from resource exports would be spread thinner.

What about the emotional argument for a 'Big Australia'—that bigger means safer? Well, Australia's population is now one-eleventh of Indonesia's, one fifty-fifth of India's, and one fifty-sixth that of China's. If we continue to grow our population at breakneck speed—among the highest rates of OECD countries—cramming ever more people into already congested cities, we might reach 48 million by 2061. Our population would still be mere fractions of those of potential aggressors—perhaps one-fifth of Indonesia's and one twenty-eighth of both India's and China's.

This is not some academic exercise. China is flexing its muscles, militarily, financially, and ethnically, as it translates economic power into regional influence. Falling under Chinese dominance would cost us our sovereignty but also our democracy. We would be another Hong Kong. Australia must understand the geopolitical realities of our region if we are to navigate them safely, avoiding shoals and occasional storms.

A population race with regional neighbours does not, it cannot, determine our national security. Our armed forces can be equipped to deal with moderate threats, including border security. To avoid these and larger conflicts we should rely, firstly, on diplomacy, including international law. Australia has built up a fine diplomatic corps. But should full-scale warfare eventuate, involving the region's major powers, we shall be forced to rely on strong allies, primarily the United States. Having a few million extra in population will not increase our security. It could reduce it.

Now let us consider the costs of pump-priming our population through immigration. Australians can see with their own eyes the congestion on our roads, the urban creep, the pressure on our environment and the sky-high housing market that has priced homes beyond the hopes of young families. The opening of the new real estate market to foreigners does not help—an outrageous exposure of citizens to global demand. Australians can see the rise of high-density housing degrading the architectural identity and amenity of their neighbourhoods. They can see the failure of infrastructure of all kinds to keep up. It is no wonder, when basic infrastructure costs about $100,000 per extra person. They are less equipped to detect the impact on public debt.

Infrastructure costs are only part of the story. The Productivity Commission estimates that each parent visa holder costs taxpayers $335,000 to $410,000 in government services over their remaining lifetime. Imagine the infrastructure that could be built or maintained with the money spent on 18,500 refugees who are to be forced on the nation every year by our establishment parties. Experience tells us that many of these refugees will be unemployed for extended periods, as will their children, and impact negatively on our society. How can this be portrayed as a humanitarian gesture when it takes funding away from needy Australians and undermines social harmony? A genuine humanitarian program would take into account the welfare of the most vulnerable Australians and the welfare of the next generation, and focus instead on helping refugees overseas.

Australia's refugee intake is so large that it surpasses many countries' immigration programs. Nevertheless, we do not select the intake for employability or cultural compatibility. The result is too often havoc in Australian society: carjackings, home invasions, flash riots and drive-by shootings. And, of course, when citizens object, there are endless complaints under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, administered by the ethnocentric Human Rights Commission. The refugee intake should be subject to the same basic criteria applied to immigrants, otherwise we continue to wound our own society. The precedent for selecting refugees responsibly was the very large intake following the Second World War, which had positive results. But refugees were selected according to the same criteria applied to immigrants.

Australians also see the transformation of their neighbourhoods due to rising ethno-cultural diversity. The official view, from both sides of politics, is that rising diversity is a boon. We hear again and again that Australia is among the most successful multicultural societies in the world, whose boring white-bread culture has been enlivened by immigrants and refugees from around the world. Well, let me cite some figures from the Scanlon surveys of social cohesion, conducted by Monash University since 2006. The Scanlon Foundation is strongly supportive of multiculturalism and diverse immigration, but their data tells a different story. It shows steep declines in social cohesion affecting long-term Australians, those whose grandparents were born in Australia before the recent waves of immigration.

There has been a general decline in the overall Scanlon index of social cohesion since it began in 2007, corresponding to the rise in ethno-cultural diversity. The index fell 10 points between 2007 and 2014. In the same period, Australians' sense of belonging declined from 77 per cent to 66 per cent. Trust in the federal government has also declined. Although Australia still rates well in overall cohesion compared to other Western societies, the decline in social cohesion is concerning, because we all rely on social cohesion and trust to keep us a united peaceful nation.

The situation is much worse in suburbs of heavy migrant settlement, where many more people are afraid to walk alone at night. Many are worried about becoming victims of crime and have lost confidence that ethnic and religious groups can get along. Many have lost faith in neighbours' willingness to help each other. Support for immigration and refugee intakes is down. Other findings show that Australians are fleeing the rising diversity, taking their children from schools whose identity has been transformed. Sydney and Melbourne are patch quilts of ethnic and religious groups as people choose to live among their own kind. These findings confirm research conducted overseas indicating that rising ethno-cultural diversity depresses social cohesion and leads to self-segregation. The Scanlon survey of 2012 acknowledged that its findings also showed that diversity depresses cohesion.

Muslim settlement is having a much greater impact. The 2014 Scanlon survey asked respondents to express personal attitudes towards two non-Christian religious groups, Muslims and Buddhists. Respondents were five times more likely to express negative views towards Muslims than towards Buddhists. Among supporters of multiculturalism, who are generally positive towards minorities, the difference was much stronger. The 2007 Scanlon survey found that the strongest opposition to immigration was directed at intakes from the Middle East and Muslim countries. Other research confirms these findings. A recent Essential poll found that 49 per cent of respondents opposed further Muslim immigration, with only 40 per cent in favour. Sixty per cent of those opposed were not primarily concerned about terrorism but about Islamic cultural and religious values they saw as incompatible with Australia.

There is more evidence that converges on these findings—organised crime, patterns of antisocial behaviour, especially among young men, welfare dependency, imprisonment rates almost three times the national average, the long-term threat of terrorism, and questionable loyalty. More Muslim-Australians have joined, or attempted to join, terrorist Islamist forces in the Middle East than have joined the Australian Armed Forces. All these lines of evidence indicate that Australia's bold experiment with mass Islamic immigration has failed. But the Prime Minister and the Immigration Minister tell us that Australia is a successful multicultural society. If this is success, what does failure look like?

There are standards of social impact assessment that help us discern what a successful society should look like. The Planning Institute of Australia explains that good social impacts improve a community's 'way of life, life chances, health, culture and capacity to sustain these.' The International Association of Impact Assessment lays down guidelines that identify loss of identity and cohesion as negative social impacts. These guidelines help judge the impact of diversity and Islam on Australian neighbourhoods. The guidelines state that the following changes can cause negative social impacts: firstly, changes to people's way of life—how they live, work, play and interact with one another; secondly, changes to their culture—their shared beliefs, customs, values and language or dialect; thirdly, changes to their community—its cohesion, stability, character, services and facilities; fourthly, changes to their level of hazard or risk—their physical safety; and, finally, changes to their fears and aspirations—their perceptions about their safety, their fears about the future of their community. Notice that the impacts include objective changes as well as changes to psychological wellbeing. Government should protect people from living in fear.

How can both major parties tell us that Australia is a successful multicultural society? Based on international standards of social impact assessment, the survey data I summarised earlier indicates that indiscriminate immigration is destroying social cohesion suburb by suburb, town by town. We are being swamped. Even supporters of open-ended immigration are noticing the transformation. Senior journalist Greg Sheridan likens it to the 'benign cultural genocide' of Anglo Australia. Around the country, residents are fighting back as best they can, opposing the construction of mosques in neighbourhoods with few Muslims, pleading with councils and state governments to spare their communities. But their real enemy is the federal government, Liberal and Labor, which keeps the immigration door wide open. This crisis is not caused by white racism. It is not caused by Christian intolerance. It is caused by Liberal and Labor governments colonising Australia, aided and abetted by political correctness.

The ugly reality of Australia's oppressive multiculturalism is beginning to shock even the Left. An example is the Hon. Peter Baldwin, one time member of this parliament, who commented recently:

The de facto alliance that has developed between the Left and militant Islam, the most reactionary force in the world today, is the strangest and most disconcerting political development in my lifetime.

He adds that political correctness is a system of thought control that serves this alliance. He is correct. But as the political scientist David Brown explains, this was true from the earliest days of multiculturalism, when the Left began using its cultural dominance to license minority tribalism, while denying that licence to the majority. Minorities are allowed to openly pursue group interests, for example in demanding generous immigration, while the majority is discouraged from talking about its interests, let alone openly pursuing them.

Combining the two insights, it seems that multiculturalism is an ethnic hierarchy, based on a coalition between minority activists and the Left, despite the latter presenting itself as anti-racist. This unholy alliance is united by shared opposition to traditional Australia, the core identity of the Australian nation. An example is the defeat of the Abbott government's policy of reforming Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, a form of political censorship.

Of course progressives do not directly support the reactionary components of Islam. But they abet Islam's demographic advance by opposing restrictive immigration and using political correctness to suppress critics. This oppressive system needs to be dismantled or reformed to make multiculturalism democratic, by ensuring that Anglo-Australians are allowed to join in as respected participants.

One Nation is the only party promising to democratise multiculturalism and restore the traditional policies that forged this nation. This was the original Australian settlement incubated during the 19th century and born in the first decade of Federation under the stewardship of Alfred Deakin. Those policies included: restrictive immigration and industry protection.

Immigration restriction is a principle wider than the White Australia Policy. The motivation for the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 was threefold: to maintain high wages, preserve social cohesion and protect national identity. British and European immigration was thought to meet all criteria, not without reason. Immigrants from Anglophone countries continue to assimilate most quickly.

One Nation does not advocate racially selective immigration but does seek to minimise cultural incompatibility, evident in the case of Islamic immigration. A predictable objection from Liberals and Labor is that they are opposed to selecting immigrants on the basis of identity. What immoral nonsense.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Burston, I am reluctant to interrupt you but we have been fairly generous with you. You have extended the normal 20 minutes. So I will just give you an indication that maybe you need to wind up shortly. Thank you, Senator.

Brian Burston (NSW, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is the government's duty to discriminate at the borders to ensure that newcomers are compatible. External discrimination reduces the need for citizens to discriminate internally—for example, in choosing where to live and which schools to send their children to. That preserves domestic peace.

That is why One Nation promises to discriminate by cultural and religious identity in selecting migrants and refugees, because any country that does not restrict immigration, to preserve its identity and thus social cohesion, will lose it sooner or later, sooner if it is a country as attractive as Australia.

Unfortunately and finally I must pay tribute to my leader, Pauline Hanson. Her courage and tenacity are legend. The political establishment have sought to destroy her and bring her down. Many have tried, but all have failed because of her resilience and continued belief in Australia and our way of life. I thank my colleagues and friends in the gallery for their love and support, particularly my beautiful wife, Rosalyn.

I look forward to working with all of you in the Senate for the benefit of New South Wales and Australia.