Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You know that feeling you get when the big parties aren't working for you anymore? I think I found the reason why. It's pretty simple, actually: it's because normal people just can't afford them. Last week we found out that Liberal and Labor raked in tens of millions of dollars of hidden money in the 12 months to July 2021. That's a lot of very full brown paper bags. They're so full, there's more filling than a Tontine pillow. The worst of it is that we'll never know where the money came from or what it bought, but we know it's buying something—absolutely. No-one in their right mind is handing over millions of dollars because they want Australian democracy to run better. That's not happening. They are not there for the country. It's all about self-interest; I can assure you that much. Donors are dishing it out to look after their own skins. Money buys access. It buys influence and it buys outcomes. It shouldn't be that way, but that's the way it is. That's where we are in 2022, in parliament, in Australia.

I'm fighting to stamp out the Canberra corruption, and our candidates at the next election are too. We have the chance to get democracy back into voters' hands, where it belongs. It's the right thing to do, but it's an uphill battle. We don't have secret money coming from big business or big unions. We don't have megabucks up our sleeves. We do what the Australian people expect us to do: to go and earn our seats. We do not buy them. Buying seats in the Jacqui Lambie Network is just not spoken of, because it will never happen—not while I'm here and not while it wears my family name. We earn them, because that is the Australian way: with our boots on.

I've had a lot of people from across the country coming to me and saying they want big money out of politics. And do they want it out of politics? Absolutely. It's time for big money—political donations—to get out of politics; it doesn't belong here. (Time expired)