Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

():  When I returned to Canberra earlier in the week, I thought I was coming back to the Australian parliament, but, after reviewing a lot of the contributions this week, particularly from my friends over in the Greens, it would appear that we are now the 51st state of America. All that they can talk about is Donald Trump. I'm a bit sick of that, because I want to be an Australian parliamentarian.

Whatever your views about the results of the US election, we are here to serve the people of Australia, and we have nothing to be worried about as Australians. We are people of the lucky country. We have the most abundant natural resources in the world, almost, especially per person. Yes, the world is a volatile place right now—there's a lot of uncertainty—but we do not have to, nor should we, panic about what is going on. We have all the potential to make Australia a prosperous country, a wealthy country and a harmonious country if we concentrate on doing things right ourselves.

Maybe, if we took this opportunity, the best outcome of the US election would be for countries like Australia to look after themselves once again. We could stop trying to outsource all of our policy settings to bankrupt and, often, corrupt global organisations and instead concentrate on putting Australians first. We could develop our own natural resources for our own benefit, support our manufacturing industries, support cheaper energy for Australians and deal with the relevant issues, such as competition in supermarkets and high prices for everybody, as Senator Steele-John just raised.

We have no need to worry. We are very, very lucky in this country, but it's about time we had a government and political leaders who put the interests of Australians first and stopped trying to worry about every little problem in the world.