Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a senator for Queensland, it would be remiss of me not to alert people listening to this broadcast and to remind people in Queensland that we have a state election coming up on 25 November, Saturday week. I think it's very important for Queenslanders to understand the significance of what is at stake in that forthcoming election.

It's interesting to note that today we learnt that Queensland is leading Australia when it comes to business confidence. In the NAB survey for the month of October, Queensland was once again the highest-rating state in Australia in terms of business confidence. For 32 of the last 34 months Queensland has been either at the top or second highest for business confidence. It's no wonder this is the case, because the Queensland government has been involved in creating 122,500 jobs since its election in January 2015, and that's of course a reflection of the stability of the Queensland government. When Labor were written off after the 2012 election, nobody gave us much of a chance of getting re-elected in 2015, but, against the odds, Annastacia Palaszczuk led the Labor team to a quite amazing victory. A lot has been achieved in that period of time, and there is therefore a lot at stake.

It is concerning to note that there is an arrangement between the LNP and One Nation in Queensland in relation to preference deals. This was finally admitted on 10 November by Mr Nicholls, the leader of the LNP in Queensland, who many Queenslanders don't know very much about, which is a bit of an unfortunate situation. The LNP finally admitted that they would be giving preferences to One Nation in more than 50 of the state's 93 electorates. This is a very concerning development. This has only happened because Mr Nicholls knows that he can become Premier of Queensland only if he has the support of the One Nation party.

We know that a return of an LNP government would see a return of the savage cuts that were made to jobs and other worthwhile programs under the previous LNP government of Mr Newman and Mr Nicholls. We also know that One Nation has four former LNP MPs standing for election this time. All of those former LNP MPs gave Tim Nicholls glowing on-the-record endorsements when he made those savage cuts across Queensland and also proposed to sell public assets.

We are very concerned about the fact that this alliance that seems to exist now between One Nation and the LNP is going to lead to some changes in the LNP policy. Does this mean that they're going to look at accommodating some of the One Nation approaches when it comes to anti-vaxxers? Does it mean a watering down of domestic violence laws, or perhaps looking at the GST review that Senator Hanson promised when she was in Western Australia? These are all things which would be detrimental to our state. We know that Senator Hanson's voting record in this place is that virtually 85 per cent of the time she supports the LNP, and this has led to the abolition of $2 billion in family payments and the handing of jobs to foreign workers on 457 visas.

With pre-polling having opened yesterday in Queensland, we know that cooperation has continued between the LNP and One Nation, and we know that, in the state seat of Lytton, One Nation volunteers are actually handing out LNP how-to-vote material. This just shows the extent of the alliance that now exists between the LNP and One Nation and the extent of the desperation on the part of the LNP to once again attain office in Queensland. This is something which I am very concerned about, and it puts at risk many of the achievements of the Labor government.

From my own perspective, some of the highlights of the Queensland government's record include, very early on, restoring the rights of injured workers to pursue common-law actions against their employer. This was something which was cruelly removed in Newman-Nicholls era of government. There was legislation for a new public holiday for Easter Sunday. We have recently seen the introduction of industrial manslaughter legislation. There was the introduction of licensing arrangements in respect of labour hire companies to try to address some of the concerns we have in that area. That is only a very small part of the record of the Labor government. Some of the more significant achievements that impact across the whole of the state are in the area of jobs.

One of the areas of the economy which was amazingly neglected by former Premier Newman was the manufacturing sector. It did not rate when it came to the pillars of the economy that former Premier Newman envisaged. He completely neglected the manufacturing industry. I'm glad to say that our government has fixed that issue, and I am so proud of the fact that the government has acted to diversify our economy, to reach out to manufacturing and to strengthen the state's economy in that regard. One thing that was greeted very warmly was the decision that all future rail rolling stock and associated infrastructure—for which we have the manufacturing capacity in Queensland—will be manufactured and maintained by Queenslanders to support jobs in Maryborough and other regional centres. Under the previous, LNP government, the construction of trains was outsourced to India and jobs were lost as a result, and we're still dealing with the ongoing ramifications of that.

There's an eye-wateringly long list of Labor's commitments to manufacturing, which I won't go through, but it's extremely impressive. Some of the things being looked at include up to $30 million to establish manufacturing hubs to drive regional economies, initially in Cairns, Townsville and Rockhampton, and continuing the 'buy Queensland' procurement policy. I wish I could spend half an hour talking about that. That is a very significant development to ensure that local manufacturers have the best opportunity to win government procurement contracts worth $14 billion. This may well cut across some of our free trade agreements, but the government has made clear its commitment to give priority to Queensland businesses. The Labor government is also looking at Defence jobs and setting up a dedicated agency to build on Queensland's strengths there. Time eludes me in relation to all of those issues, but there is so much at stake in this election that I think people need to be aware of that.

I would like to acknowledge some of the very hardworking Labor candidates who are out there at the moment with whom I have worked: Bart Mellish in Aspley, Chris Whiting in Bancroft, David Kerrigan in Gregory, Shane King in Kurwongbah, Ali King in Maiwar, Corrine McMillan in Mansfield, Steven Miles in Murrumba, Michael Hoogwaerts, who is doing a fantastic job in Pumicestone, Stirling Hinchliffe in Sandgate and Dr Anthony Lynham in Stafford. I am going to be getting around to some of our other candidates, such as Linus Power in Logan and Yvette D'Ath in Redcliffe, over the remaining days of the campaign.

There is a great deal at stake in this forthcoming state election in Queensland. I think a lot of Queenslanders are in danger of not knowing about the track record of Tim Nicholls, a former Treasurer under the Campbell Newman government. They don't understand that Mr Nicholls was there under the Newman approach, standing silently by while all of that was happening, so it is incumbent on me to let people know that. I look forward to working with a re-elected Palaszczuk Labor government. (Time expired)

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note for the record again that this is not my first speech. I would like to also speak about the imminent state election happening in my home state of Queensland, a state election that offers the greatest chance Queenslanders have had in decades to fundamentally change politics for the better. Pre-poll voting is already open around the state for people in Queensland to be able to vote any day between now and the final official polling day on Saturday week, 25 October. There are Greens candidates standing in every single seat around the state. Every Queenslander has the opportunity to put the number 1 beside a Greens candidate and voice support for the vision and the policies that the Greens are putting forward.

I would like to particularly focus on three seats that I have been campaigning in where, amongst a number of others, the Greens are poised to break through and be directly elected for the first time into Queensland parliament. Queensland is sometimes mistakenly perceived and portrayed as being a conservative state, even sometimes a reactionary state. Certainly it has had that strand of politics as part of its history. But it also has a proud history of being a radical state, a state that has been at the forefront of defending social justice, of putting forward a radical new vision that has delivered positive change for the people of Queensland on many occasions over the years. Many, many Queenslanders recognise that our current political system is badly broken. It needs a complete reworking and this is one of those times when it needs a strong new vision to really fix our broken political system.

There are three seats I want to particularly focus on. Our candidates in those areas, all of whom I know very well and would personally vouch for, would be excellent representatives in the Queensland parliament to really shift the political direction of that state in a progressive direction. There is Michael Berkman for the seat of Maiwar, which is a new seat. The incumbent of that is an LNP former minister, Scott Emerson, who, as Senator Ketter has just mentioned, is on board, as his party is on board, with giving a massive leg up to the One Nation party to get back into Queensland parliament and create once again, no doubt, the shambles that my state experienced the last time they were in that parliament. The Liberal incumbent in the seat of Maiwar is on board with trying to get his party a hold on power by giving a leg up to One Nation. The only way that the Liberal National Party in Queensland can possibly hope to get anywhere near governing that state is by being beholden to One Nation and its agenda and values. By contrast, Michael Berkman has been a defender for the environment and for the interests of the community. He's been a public interest lawyer working pro bono in community legal centres to ensure that the community have a say in defending their environment, their values and their future. Maiwar is a new seat. Part of it was in the old Mount Coot-tha electorate where the current Labor environment minister was the incumbent. By contrast, he was so committed to his local community that, as soon as the new boundaries were announced, he departed for electorates far away which he thought would be a safer bet!

The Greens are committed to winning that seat off the LNP and really ensuring a strong antidote to any One Nation presence in the state parliament.

I would also like to mention Kirsten Lovejoy, the candidate for the seat of McConnel, a local community activist of long standing who has been fighting against overdevelopment in that area, fighting against the massive increased pressure on local schools and transport because of the lack of investment in infrastructure in that area and the massive influence that developer donations have bought in that area, and fighting against the impact of the lockout laws in our CBD and our entertainment precincts that are having a really negative impact on the small venues, the small businesses and the artistic communities in Fortitude Valley and other areas. It is also an electorate where the state government has given over 10 per cent of public land to the massive development of Queen's Wharf casino—again, not coincidentally at all, to casino developers that have been major donors to both of the establishment political parties.

I would also like to mention the seat of South Brisbane, where Amy McMahon is challenging and, as people would have seen in the media this week, running neck and neck with the Deputy Premier. It is a seat that is also notorious for appalling overdevelopment and development that has ignored the needs of community. There has not been adequate investment in local schools and in infrastructure to ensure that the community amenity is properly protected and community say in the future of their own communities is taken into account. We all know it's not taken into account, because of the pressure of developers. Developer donations are a key part of it, but it is not only developers; it is the resource lobby and the gambling lobby.

The corporate dollars flowing into the coffers of the two parties of the establishment are a key part of why our political system is so broken. That is the key message that I've heard from doorknocking and calling people on the phone in all of those seats and, indeed, other parts of the state where I've also been supporting some of the other fabulous Greens candidates. I was in Ipswich last weekend and Toowoomba the weekend before that. In places such as Rockhampton, the Sunshine Coast and Cairns, the message is the same. The local issues may have a different twist to them sometimes, but the core message is that our political system is broken. We are at a crossroads, a time when we need to make that choice about how we fix that broken system. We can either pick the approach of the politics of division and fear that, as we've seen, people pick in other parts of the world or follow the approach that people like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn have put forward, of changing our politics so that it puts people first and makes politics work for everybody rather than just for the corporations.

When people say our political system is broken, what does that broken system actually look like? A broken system is where overdevelopment ignores the community, puts massive pressure on schools and on our infrastructure, and public investment is not provided, because the corporations and the mining companies are not paying their fair share. A broken system looks like big, wealthy for-profit property developers whose pursuit of profit has created a situation which has laid waste to the fundamental rights of Queenslanders to have a safe, secure and dignified home. It has property developers and investors who allow apartments and homes to sit idle, vacant and uninhabited, while right now 20,000 Queenslanders are homeless and 29,000 people are on the waiting list for housing. There are more vacant houses just in the city of Brisbane at this moment than there are homeless people across the whole state of Queensland looking for a home—somewhere to live, somewhere safe and affordable.

A broken political system looks like our government lining the back pockets of mining companies, who enjoy ridiculous royalty holidays, tax breaks and free access to water that should be made available to our farming communities, with zero accountability when they pack up, ship out and leave families and communities behind with the clean-up. A broken political system looks like electricity companies, who would rather pocket $7.2 billion in profits—that is up to 40 per cent of our current electricity bills in the last year—while 21,000 families across Queensland had their lights shut off because they couldn't afford to pay their power bill, the second highest rate of disconnections in Australia. Why is this? Why do we see people suffering at the hands of corporate greed? Because those corporations are buying influence from the two parties of the establishment and from the far Right parties, who all find it easier to ignore those they're elected to represent so that they can enjoy their positions of power and influence—the self-interest of the few, of the absolute elite and the political establishment, at the expense of the many.

The Greens say politics does not have to be this way. Indeed, the Greens say it is urgent that we put an end to politics as usual, and Queenslanders have an opportunity to put an end to politics as usual and really, seriously change politics for the better at this coming state election. The Greens say politics does not have to be held captive by the wealth of the few. Instead of reacting to this crisis by succumbing to false, doomed non-solutions of fear and division, which will only make things worse, it is clear there is a better way. Fear and greed do not stop corporations and politicians from being in bed together at the expense of the people they are meant to represent. The way to fix a broken system is to bring people together and put people back at the centre of politics.

The Greens have created a bold new vision for the people of Queensland with a range of policy initiatives that will effectively address the problems that are facing everyday Queenslanders today. They are fully costed and will be funded by simply taxing those who are currently not paying their fair share. The Greens say that, by fairly taxing the big end of town, all people can have a right to affordable, secure housing; to food; to affordable, reliable electricity; to upgraded schools and hospitals; and to better public transport and other social infrastructure. It is time to put people at the heart of politics and political decision-making and to put people before profits.