While rate rises may have been foreseeable, they are only happening because of the Government’s incompetence causing inflation in the first place.
The government printed hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air, leading to massive inflation which the RBA is trying to bring under control with a sledgehammer.
Australians who bought a house under the RBAs promise that rates wouldn’t rise until 2024 are struggling with more pain to come.
In a recent economic essay released for weekend newspapers, Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers has cobbled together some cliches about how best to run the world’s 13th largest economy. To summarise, it is a blueprint on how to destroy a $1.3 trillion dollar economy. Of course, Doctor Chalmers has learnt from a master at economic shrinkage, his PhD dissertation was on the economic and social legacy of Paul Keating.
Unfortunately for the Treasurer, his blueprint was released on a weekend when news hit that his tax on beer is set to rise sending the price of beer towards $12 a schooner. Just for the record though, and I’ll get to details soon, Chalmer’s blue print will surely classify your beer as a ‘bad’ investment, because it is full of carbon. Prices will get even higher.
We have to take our hats off to the spin doctor in the Treasurer’s office who released the essay to coincide with the increase in beer prices.
Schooners of beer are exactly what the Treasurer’s blueprint boils down to. Prices of goods are inflating exponentially, and it is the main topic for discussion at kitchen tables right across Australia. Families are now having to choose between new school shoes or eating; getting the roof fixed or having a holiday at the beach.
A basket of goods that only cost $100 in 1990 set you back $217 in 2022. With sky high inflation, that $100 basket now costs us an eye-watering $234 in 2023, a nearly 8% increase in just one year. Unfortunately, prices will continue to go up. Much of Australia’s price rises in groceries and the bills we can’t avoid are even worse than the headline inflation rate.
Meanwhile in Canberra, the Treasurer is writing new short stories about how to add more pressure to our inflation cooked economy and what he can do to make life even harder for Australians.
Chalmers references the polycrisis of converging pressures. What we really have though in Australia is a pollie-crisis, due to politicians in Canberra making terrible decisions .
Australia’s inflation hasn’t been this high since the Keating days. Families should be terrified, because for those of us who can remember, Paul Keating sent mortgages to 19% and much of the country went broke.
The Treasurer’s neo-Marxist catch-phrase ‘sustainable finance architecture, including a new taxonomy’ to label the climate impact of different investments, has been a topic of much discussion in recent years. Soviet extremists on the left argue that this system is necessary for their fight in the climate change scam and promoting ‘sustainability’. Others, including One Nation, argue that it is misguided and ultimately harmful to economic growth and people’s prosperity.
First and foremost, using a ‘new’ taxonomy to label the climate impact of different investments is the worst and most damaging form imaginable of government intervention in the market. In short, Chalmers says he wants to classify all investments made, including in your superannuation, into ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Ergo, beer full of carbon will be a ‘bad’ investment and need a higher price, while a tree (which is actually made of carbon like much of everything else) will be ‘good’.
This market intervention is the most serious and concerning idea that a government has offered since Ben Chiefly dabbled with communism in the late 1940’s.
The federal government classifying an Aussie family’s assets into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is a terrifying intervention. Firstly, it creates a level of uncertainty for investors, including you, as they may be unsure of how investments will be classified under the new system. Labor has a track record of changing the goal posts at any minute to suit any Greens, union or factional deal on the table. The classification system is purely subjective and cannot be based on evidence or data.
Secondly, it will lead to market distortions, as certain investments are favoured over others simply because of their classification as good or bad, rather than any economic, financial or productive merit. This will lead to a misallocation of resources, as investments that may not be the most economically efficient or profitable are chosen simply because they are classified as more ‘environmentally’ friendly. For example “this model of car (an Electric Vehicle) is ‘good’, while that diesel 4WD is ‘bad’”, even though Australia is not a country suitable nor ready for the forced uptake of 100% electric vehicles in any way.
The good or bad decisions are made based on the Treasurer’s mood as he gets out of bed in the morning. It is simply a chaotic system that is being proposed. The Soviet-level bureaucracy necessary to write, disseminate and enforce this controlled economy will result in significantly higher taxes and lower economic growth – an inevitable result of bigger government. Higher taxes and debt will continue to be the Labor way.
These plans will trash our economy. When the Government tries to pick winners, the country loses.
All realistic thinkers will reject and debunk the idea that we can accurately classify and label the ‘climate impact’ of different investments . Any policy setting Australia makes with the aim to ‘adjust’ the world temperature will barely be a drop in the ocean, even if you believe we need to do anything, which the science clearly says is neither necessary nor possible.
The emphasis on ‘sustainable finance’ and labelling the climate impact of different investments as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ misses the point that the issue confronting Australians is inflation and a lack of economic advancement. Controlling and directing the economy to favour only climate-friendly projects from ALP donors will not deal with inflation. Instead, concentrating economic power in the hands of a woke few, it will increase inflation.
One Nation proposes, and has always advocated for, systemic economic reform with the primary objective of reducing government waste to reduce the tax burden on families and eliminate government debt.
If Australians think it’s a rough deal that the Treasurer must raise tax on beer this weekend because beer is ‘bad’, they are best reminded that the cost of beer will be small fry compared to other cost of living pressures Chalmers will soon unleashed
The Treasurer can take away one important lesson from this battle, One Nation will fight the Labor party every step of the way. We will fight for lower prices, better working conditions and a safer economy. The Liberals may have abandoned the field to socialism, but we haven’t. When I ran on as a rugby and league halfback as a teenager and young adult, the job was clear; get that ball and drive it up the middle.
So Labor had better realise it won’t get away with trashing the economy just because of a fractious, demoralised Liberal party destined to become totally irrelevant. The Australian political landscape is now far more pluralistic as One Nation’s continuing growth demonstrates.
The Orwellian use of catch phrases like ‘sustainable finance architecture’ and a ‘new taxonomy’ to label the ‘climate impact of different investments’ is designed to hoodwink the public while winning back Labor’s Green voters, who already exist in this world of doublespeak and concocted reality.
Chalmers is proposing an unnecessary and frightening intervention in our economy that has already been screwed over thanks to years of government COVID restrictions. These measures have had questionable impact on our health, and have certainly decimated our economic well-being. Investors can no longer invest with certainty. Banks have introduced their own version of the Treasurer’s “worthiness” index that is forcing the closure of critical industries in mining, agriculture and manufacturing.
Chalmers is promising more of the same. More wealth reduction, more employment loss, more unemployment and more misery for everyday Australians.
One Nation is having none of this Soviet-style economic management. Let businesses get on with what they do best – creating jobs, creating wealth, and creating a future for workers and for all everyday Australians.
In our beautiful country the best method of providing a future for everyone has always been personal enterprise.
The figures don’t lie, Australian farmers have saved the economy from a recession. While the government will always try to take credit for a good news story, I made this speech back in September celebrating the true heroes of Australia, the farmers on the ground.
I recently spoke on mining exports keeping the Australian economy out of depression. Today I’m addressing the other good news story: agriculture. In the last 12 months, wheat prices are up 33 per cent, corn up 57 per cent, canola up 72 per cent, sugar up 65 per cent and—the one the Greens hate the most—cotton up 45 per cent. It’s not politicians keeping Australia out of a depression; it’s farmers’ hard work and resilience. Drought and cold from the current solar minimum are reducing crop yields worldwide.
At the same time, the drought in many places in Australia has ended. Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer Frydenberg are taking credit for a strong economy that’s none of their doing. For years this parliament has been making life as hard as possible for farmers and irrigators. In 2019, One Nation asked this parliament to provide a measly 200 gigalitres of water from the Hume Dam to keep our farmers going through the drought. Labor, the Greens and the Liberals and their sell-out sidekicks the Nationals, teamed up to vote down our motion. As a result, the basin winter crop in 2019 failed.
Here we are in 2021 and the Murray-Darling Basin from Queensland to South Australia is at a high 80 per cent of water storage capacity. Hume and Dartmouth hold 5,700 gigalitres. The water the politicians said wouldn’t be there because of climate change is there. This parliament fails again. For weeks now up to 20 gigalitres a day of water that should have gone to farmers has been sent out to sea at the Murray mouth. With Lake Victoria’s storage full and Menindee filling quickly, flooding in the lower basin is a real possibility—and still farmers along the Murray and Murrumbidgee are receiving only 30 per cent water allocation.
At these crop prices, is this parliament mad? Give farmers their water and let them grow food and fibre to feed and clothe the world. We have one flag. We are one community. We are one nation. It’s time now to allow every Australian to lift themselves up through our own initiative
Senator Roberts.
Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. I thank Senator Polly for this opportunity to discuss job creation. In Australia, we accept that the government should provide the infrastructure and then get out of the way and let the employers create jobs. The less red tape, green tape and blue tape, nobbling free enterprise, the more real breadwinner jobs will be created. The labor Party, has brought us Queensland’s notorious reef regulations, which are in the progress, or the process of strangling the life out of agriculture across thousands of kilometres of Queensland coastline. The loss of jobs in agriculture and agricultural communities along our coastline is a disaster, that Labor’s green tape has caused. Australia’s Water Act though was the product of an unholy alliance between the Nationals, liberals and labor. It has driven family farmers off their land and decimated rural communities. Green tape is killing agriculture and killing jobs. United Nations blue tape, is having the same effect on industry. This insane idea that power generation should not produce carbon dioxide, a harmless trace gas that does not cause climate change, has destroyed heavy industry and manufacturing in Australia. China is now producing what Australia would not. labor, the Greens and the Liberal-National parties, have all championed this transfer of jobs from Australia to China. China and India are now building, 500 new coal-fired power stations to keep up with the demand for Chinese and Indian steel and manufactured goods. Renewable energy or as I call them, unreliable energy, does not create jobs. For every one new job, in so called renewables, 2.2 jobs are lost in the productive economy. Yet labor, the Greens, the Liberals and Nationals are out there everyday touting a renewable led economic boom. The only boom here is in the cost of taxpayers. Every new wind turbine costs Australian taxpayers, $536,000 in subsidies every year. That’s $13 billion dollars a year in subsidies, and that costs every household $1300 a year. Blue tape, is not about environmentalism, it’s about wealth redistribution. Large foreign companies win and small Australian businesses lose. One nation will withdraw from international agreements that harm Australia’s interests, and we will bring these jobs home. Senator Polly blames the Morrison government for poor job creation, I blame the labor, Nationals, Liberals and the Greens.
Senator Roberts your time has expired, we will now—
Roberts.
Thank you Mr. Acting, deputy president. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I speak to the JobMaker Hiring Credit Amendment bill. JobMaker was announced in the budget with much fanfare. The treasurer announced his headline. JobMaker will support 450,000 jobs. Why didn’t the media think to ask the treasurer to define the word support? His own treasury doesn’t agree with the word support, means what the treasurer thinks it does. Treasury indicated in Senate estimates hearings, that JobMaker will create not 450,000 jobs, but a meager 45,000. 1/10th. This inconsequential measure will not make a noticeable difference to the prospects of everyday Australians. And yet the government is treating JobMaker as a headline grabber. Here’s a brochure from the government, the centrepiece of their quote “Economic recovery plan for Australia, JobMaker. Creating jobs and rebuilding our economy.” It’s right here on the cover, must be true. It’s glossy. Once again, this liberal national government is misrepresenting announcements as achievements. A well-worn ploy that many marketers use and coupled with a glossy brochure. And with diagrams and with high vis vests and headlines and lots of colour. JobMaker is budgeted to cost $4 billion. Yet with only 45,000 jobs likely to be created the cost is actually only $400 million. To put that into perspective the government will spend $400 million on job keeper, in one day, $400 million is one day’s job keeper and then turn to the number of jobs and training places created in this budget. When they’re added up, they exceed the number of people unemployed. The budget,this budget is a hoax. According to the treasurer’s own numbers, this budget will put everyone back into a training place or a job before the next election. Zero unemployment. Didn’t the treasurer add up all these wild claims in the budget and realise that these numbers just don’t add up? The government has led hyperbole run a muck. Then again, working a calculator has never been treasurer Frydenberg’s strong suit. Job keeper itself was out by just $60 billion. The coalition’s restart programme was announced in 2014, as a $10,000 subsidy to help 30,000 older Australians back into the workforce every year. Six years later, And this scheme has helped only 9,000 older Australians a year. less than a third of the 30,000 a year the government announced. Even worse,almost half of those workers terminated, once the minimum employment period ended. That leaves just 4,500 per year. On top of that, many of the businesses that claimed restart we’re not serious about putting on a new employee. Instead those businesses were serious about free money from the government. And that’s the problem with corporate welfare. It turns businesses into subsidy farms, reliant on the government. It creates phoney jobs not sustainable jobs, not breadwinner jobs. It creates weaker accompanies, not stronger companies. It replaces the profit motive with a handout mentality. One nation opposes corporate welfare a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to large corporations. This government’s economic recovery plan for Australia is more corporate welfare more printing money to give to the banks more pumping up the housing bubble. That’s it. That’s the whole plan. If the government was fair dinkum about creating jobs, it would create the right business environment for growth. It would invest in restoring our country’s productive capacity. The productive capacity that’s been destroyed, by a lack of infrastructure by decimation of our electricity sector which is driving manufacturers overseas. We’ve gone from the lowest electricity prices in the world to the highest and manufacturers are leaving in their droves and taking with them their jobs to China, India, and Asia. So restoring our productive capacity includes building dams, new power stations, roads, bridges, and transmission lines. And it involves cutting red tape, cutting blue tape and cutting green tape. And it would involve if the government had courage, comprehensive tax reform. So that we have a proper honest, effective, and efficient taxation system a transparent taxation system. And then let the economy get on with the business of creating jobs and wealth for all Australians. Instead ,this government chooses to promote a casualized workforce. JobMaker is not about creating full-time work. It is the reverse. It motivates indeed drives businesses to replace one full-time employee with two casual employees. Replacing one real breadwinner job, with two junk jobs. The JobMaker protections around higher payroll and head counts allow for this casualization process. This is an attack on breadwinner jobs, jobs that can support families, jobs that can put kids through school and universities. So kids have another option for a better life than did their parents. Remember that Australia. Remember when kids faired better than their parents? under successive Liberal National and Labour Greens Governments. That’s a thing of the past. Our generation is the first generation to pass on less to our kids, not more. Less wealth, less opportunity, less freedom. And the Liberal National Party have form on this. Prime Minister Howard’s Government spent 11 years breaking up full-time breadwinner jobs into junk jobs, casual and part-time work. Jobs that have no bargaining power low wages, less entitlements and less security. And I’ve talked about that many times in the Senate. I’ve got so much data and evidence on that. There is no wealth creation in these low paid casual subsistence jobs. As a result Australia’s median wage has gone backwards over the last 30 years. And why some union bosses have gone along with this is beyond me. But we can talk about that another day. Today we’re talking about the liberal party declaring war on families, war on holidays, war on workers home ownership and war on everyday Australians. trying desperately to accumulate wealth, just to stash a bit away for the future. JobMaker is another nail in the coffin of Australian families. Courtesy of the corporate greed, hubris and arrogance that has overtaken the liberal national party. One nation opposes this legislation, this marketing ploy instead of trying to look good, governments should do good. We need to get our country back to basics. Invest in restoring our country’s productive capacity. That’s what decides our country’s future.
The Farm Household Allowance Bill was on today’s agenda as a matter of importance.
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I support this bill. The reform to make the farm household allowance a flat rate paid on current income, helps to reduce the regulatory burden on farms, who already work long hours for decreasing rewards.
These income audits were a massive distraction, so this is a good move from the government, a welcome move, the extension of time for conducting an assessment helps farms involve their accountants, or bookkeepers, in a process that was previously an ordeal.
My concern in light of current events, is that COVID-19 assistance is targeted at urban, and not rural areas. Our farmers have come through the worst drought in 100 years and the drought may or may not be ending.
What we do know is that the rivers are full, but the damns are empty. Farmers are watching this water, this bounty of water, running down rivers and out to sea. General-security water licence holders are still on zero allocation, they have no confidence that irrigation licences will be honoured.
If international trade is being disrupted, we need to grow food, we need to allow more water to be taken for irrigation. The environment has had a drink, a bellyful, from recent rains, it’s now the farmer’s turn.
What good is farm assistance if farmers go broke, because we took too much water for the environment and not enough for food and fibre? And I’d like to talk about the productive capacity of our country, especially the rural productive capacity.
We have destroyed it in the last 20 years. Farmers have had their ability, their right, to use the land taken from them, stolen from them, to comply with international agreements starting with the UN’s Kyoto protocol.
We need that back, or farmers paid compensation for the loss of their rights. Secondly, water, I’ve just touched on water, but we need to have investment in water infrastructure, and make sure that farmers have that water, because its essential for food. And we need energy prices to be lowered.
We have the world’s biggest exports of natural gas and coal, and yet we have among the highest prices of electricity in this country. We have farmers not able to irrigate, because they can’t afford the electricity to pump water in a country that’s blessed with energy.
What is going on? We have to restore the productive capacity of our country, which means getting back to sensible electricity policies, energy policies, so that we have, once again the lowest prices in the world, the best policies, we’ve got now, the worst.
Restoring the productive capacity will involve, also, other sectors, including education, but it starts with land use, the right to use the land that farmers have bought, the right to access water at sensible prices, free of corruption, and the right to electricity at reasonable prices.
I also want to talk about one other aspect, and that is we have fallen for the globalist trap, of interdependence, inter-dependence, and what that really is, is dependence, because when we’re in interdependent on someone else, with around the globe, and they shut down, we’re suddenly dependent on them.
Australia has got abundant minerals, abundant energies, abundant agricultural resources. We’re not using these resources. Australia has enormous potential with its people, with its resources and its opportunities, and we need to rekindle these, and get back to putting Australia first.
No more interdependence, because that is simply dependence We need to become independent, as we were and we were independent we thrived. And that, when we restore our independence, we will restore our economic resilience and we’ll also restore our productive capacity.
So we compliment the government on this initiative, but we need to go much much further to restore the productive capacity, and economic resilience of our country. Thank you, Mr. President.
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