This week, we heard Labor raise the issue that “Mr Morrison is considered to be “the Prime Minister for Morrison and no one else.” While that is increasingly heard in the media, among members of the government, among members of the Liberal and National parties and among the people, I reflect on an additional, more significant and rapidly growing conclusion among the people.

That is, the people are saying the Parliament of Australia is for the parliament – meaning, the parliament is working for both the tired old parties. That is, the Liberal-Nationals and Labor. And the people of Australia are paying the price because the people are serving the parliament, when it should be our parliaments serving the people.

Transcript:

This matter of public importance states:

The reported views of members of the NSW Liberal Government, including that they consider Mr Morrison to be “the Prime Minister for Morrison and no one else”.

While that is increasingly heard in the media, among members of the government, among members of the Liberal and National parties and among the people, I reflect on an additional, more significant and rapidly growing conclusion among the people, and it’s allied to the one this MPI debates.

That conclusion is that the parliament of Australia is for the parliament. By that they mean the parliament is working for both the tired old parties—that is, the Liberal-Nationals and the Labor Party—and the people of Australia are the ones paying the price, because the people are serving the parliament, when we need to get back to the parliament serving the people.

I’m very positive about Australians—our resources, our opportunities, our potential—yet I’m very worried about Australia, because of shoddy governance for many decades, and so are the people—for example, the truckies. The truckies recently blockaded a highway south of Brisbane.

Truckies are the salt of the earth—regular people, real people. There’s nothing that hasn’t been on a truck, whether during processing or after it has been made and sent to market. Truckies interact with everyone—all ways of life, all callings and all needs. Now they’re calling out the politicians—and not just those from the government; truckies are calling out politicians generally.

Why? Because they’re feeling doubtful, confused, afraid, overwhelmed and hopeless, and they’re getting angry and feeling very frustrated. Why? Because of their need for a livelihood, which is being threatened; their need for survival; their need for truth and honesty—a basic need; their need for consistency and ease, predictability; their need to be heard by the members who are supposed to represent them in parliament; their need for leadership, trust, integrity, credibility.

Let’s have a look at some of the data. We’ve now had hundreds of days of lockdown in Victoria, months in some of the other states. It’s capricious: smacked on and taken off suddenly. People’s lives have been ruined. There has been stress, isolation, poverty, suicide, domestic violence.

There have been cruel restrictions. One of a pair of twins was lost because their parent was denied access to a Brisbane hospital because she came from northern New South Wales. Fancy losing a twin because of some capricious government or bureaucrat!

Parents are dying without the comfort of their kids. Kids in cancer treatment are alone because their parents have to go into lockdown. Then we have curfews. We have local government authorities in areas of Sydney calling on people to show their papers before they can move from one LGA to another.

There is child suicide, domestic violence, alcohol abuse. There are kids at boarding school unable to go home for the holidays and see their families. There are now threats and bribes to get people to vaccinate, and those threats are undermining vaccination itself.

The World Health Organization says that lockdowns are to be used only initially, to get control of the virus. Well, 18 months is not ‘initially’. Every time a government slaps on a lockdown in this country it is admitting, for the whole world to see, that it does not have control of the virus.

Clearly, there is no plan—people can see and feel that—but politicians lack the strength of character to admit their error. They’re locked in, gutlessly, to save face in front of the people. The Liberal-National and Labor governments, state and federal, are pushing this rubbish on the people of Australia.

The people, though, are starting to get the Liberals to backpedal. What is happening is that the data is starting to come out: people are feeling the pain, and they’re saying, ‘To hell with you lot.’ They want to sort out parliament. But the politicians still won’t back down, because of the fear they have drummed up, the fear that they have ingrained in our society and that is killing people.

What we see now, for the first time ever, are the Liberal, Nats and Labor pushing an untested and unproven vaccine. For the first time in history we see governments injecting healthy people with something that can kill them, and is killing many. At the same time, we see Ivermectin, a now proven, safe, effective and affordable treatment—and a preventative; a prophylactic—and the Liberal, Nats and Labor are stopping this treatment.

There’s a complete lack of a plan, a bias away from the data and a contradiction of the data. All the truckies want are simple, basic needs met—end damaging lockdowns and curfews; vaccine only by choice; and children back to school—so they can get on with their lives and their livelihoods and protect their family.

The industry the ALP and Greens want to phase out – mining – is driving a record $10 billion a month balance of trade surplus. This money is going into the local economy, creating jobs and increasing Government revenue. Without the contribution from mining each month Australia would be in a depression.

One Nation supports the mining industry and the ability of Australians to get ahead through their own hard work and endeavour.

Transcript:

The national accounts figures published yesterday carried great news for our community and very bad news for those in the Senate for whom ‘mining’ is a dirty word. Australia’s balance of trade surplus is now at a 10-year high, just over $10 billion in June, up from $9 billion in May.

Every dollar of surplus is $1 of growth for the Australian economy, generating jobs and economic security and making Australia more resilient. Every $10 increase in the iron ore or coal price adds $1 billion to government revenue. Overall, metal ore exports reached a record high in April of $16½ billion.

That’s $16.5 billion in mining exports in one month. Consider all the employment this is creating—the breadwinner jobs, the families supported by individual labour rather than by government handouts. Investment in mining is an investment in our future security—it’s that simple. Iron ore is now at $154 a tonne and coal is at $171 a tonne—both against budget projections of $40 a tonne.

The government has a windfall here. Copper is up 23 per cent, steel is up 24 per cent, nickel is up 15 per cent and cobalt is up 57 per cent. Our mining recovery is broadly based and sustained. This revenue must go, in part, to building Australian infrastructure, which is our future, and, in part, to paying back our profligate deficit, caused by temporary COVID measures that now somehow appear permanent. Yet Labor and the Greens are telling miners, ‘Bad luck,’ because both want to ban any new mines and extensions of existing mines.

Their policy will devastate the economy and the government revenue base. Entire communities will be reliant on government welfare and any rules imposed on them in order to keep the benefits. No wonder the Greens and Labor hate mining. There will be none of this supporting of ourselves under a government Anthony Albanese and Adam Bandt lead.

We are one community, we are one nation, and mining will keep us free.