Blow the Truth

Hon Bob Katter MP Mr BOB KATTER MP   ( Member for Kennedy ): I agree with my colleague on the necessity to restrain the exponential growth in CO2 . I do not agree with my colleague on abolishing coal . If my honourable colleague seriously thinks this country can do without coal, well, let me point out that we have only three exports: iron ore , coal and gas . We gave the gas away, so we get nothing at all out of it. All these things are worth over a hundred billion dollars. The next things down the list are maybe gold , cattle and aluminium , worth about $15 billion—they were the last time I looked, anyway. So we've got the big three and nothing else. This House gave away one of them for nothing. It gave all the gas away for 6c a unit. We're now buying our own gas back for $49 a unit. I speak with authority because I was the Minister for Mines and Energy in what was then the biggest mining state in Australia— Queensland . Mr Speaker, if you...

That the House:(1) notes that: (a) on 6 May 2020 the Minister for Agriculture put out a media release titled "Time to stop milking dairy, fair go for farmers"; (b) nearly 500 dairy farmers have left the industry in the past year; (c) the ACCC in 2018 identified that there is a market imbalance between processors and farmers; (d) in the state of Queensland alone the number of dairy farmers has dropped from 1,305 in 2000-2001 to 356 in 2019; (e) Australia had 12,896 dairy farms in the year 2000; (f) in 2018 there were just 5,699 dairy farms, a reduction of 57 per cent which is likely to have increased in the last 12 months; (g) in the North Queensland dairy area before deregulation farmers got 60.4 cents per litre, but after deregulation they got 41.1 cents; (h) Dairy Australia's Situation and Outlook March 2020 report says dairy farmers have been impacted by the summer bushfires adding additional price pressures to their operations, including in: (i) NSW, 32 dairy farms on...

Mr Bob Katter (Member for Kennedy): I rise to speak on this matter of public importance. I do not share the views of my crossbench colleagues. I greatly respect them and I greatly respect their honourable beliefs but I do not agree with them. We are talking about Julian Assange. He, in fact, comes very much from my homeland, and I would have natural prejudices for him. But we have a country that is a dictatorship called China. It has made no secret of ambitions that go well beyond its own borders. Its power is enormous.  I share my crossbench colleagues' view that this country is no longer being run by this country; this country is being run by the corporates. I think all of us on the crossbenches would share that view, which is not held by either side of this parliament. The corporates are running this country. Most of the corporates happen to be Chinese, and if you think they're running those corporations in the interests of Australia then you would be very much misguided. Th...