One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has warned of devastating consequences if Australia adopts the World Economic Forum’s plans for a “great reset” across the globe.
The World Economic Forum is
urging a “revamp of all aspects of our societies and economies” in response to
the Covid-19 recession in the areas of education, social contracts and working
conditions.
“To use the pandemic as an
excuse to overturn lives, push control agendas, and meddle in social systems in
countries across the world is totally unacceptable,” Senator Hanson said.
“This so-called reset is
absolute rubbish and we should make a stand to play no part in it, to protect
Australians and our way of life.”
In a Motion to the Senate,
Senator Hanson will ask the Parliament to note that adopting the policies would
devastate “the economic wellbeing and individual freedoms of Australians”.
Senator Hanson’s motion also
asks the Senate to vote on whether the Australian Government should boycott all
World Economic Forum events in protest over the Great Reset agenda.
The World Economic Forum
claimed the drastic measure is needed to counteract social and economic
problems caused by Covid-19 and avoid what it claimed would be the “worst
depression since the 1930s”.
“Every country, from the United
States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to
tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism,”
the World Economic Forum says on its website.
The World Economic Forum is a non-profit foundation based in Geneva, whose members include world leaders, billionaires, business executives and celebrities. Members include Prince Charles, Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, along with senior executives of the United Nations, the European Central Bank, the OECD, the IMF, Greenpeace and WWF.
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https://i0.wp.com/www.senatorhanson.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/56203737_971458086391837_6371224658062082048_o.png?fit=1774%2C657&ssl=16571774Office Of Senator Hansonhttps://www.senatorhanson.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/logo-11.pngOffice Of Senator Hanson2020-11-10 15:24:122020-11-10 15:27:17Pauline Hanson Urges Government to Reject “The Great Reset”
The JobMaker scheme has not been properly thought through. It has too many flaws to successfully entice businesses into hiring extra employees and help rebuild the employment sector post COVID-19. This pandemic induced recession is an extraordinary once-in-100-year event that has brought Australia and much of the world to its financial knees, and it needs something special to turn it around. JobMaker falls short.
The Senate might recall that on 24 February I was the first member of the Senate to question why the Morrison government allowed Australian universities to put profits before the health and security of this nation. Why I asked that series of questions was that a handful of universities here in Australia were circumventing international border closures unnecessarily and further spreading cases of the virus. It was a precursor to the troubles we would face as a nation due to the virus—in particular, the crumbling of the workforce. It was always going to require significant support from government to help trigger businesses to rebuild Australia’s employment sector.
JobKeeper may have helped keep the heads of individuals above water, but it hasn’t helped in any way to help businesses restore employment numbers. JobMaker, which is the next stopgap measure, also won’t fix it. JobMaker offers little genuine financial incentive to business owners who are struggling to stay afloat. Just like many government programs, it was announced with much fanfare, but when it is truly analysed it doesn’t really do much to help. Government seem to prioritise getting positive publicity rather than actually solving the problem they claim to be solving. The money that has been thrown at JobKeeper and now proposed for JobMaker is wasted money that might be good for the short term, but in the long term it must be paid back with interest, with nothing long term to show for it.
The $4 billion initially earmarked for JobMaker would be better spent on building infrastructure that would not only create jobs during construction but generate ongoing income for future generations. The modernised Bradfield Scheme, which I have highlighted for two decades, is the type of infrastructure project that could make a massive positive difference to the economy. It will pay for itself and then also generate much-needed ongoing income for Australia. It could irrigate such large parts of Central Queensland that it could become a food bowl not only for Australia but for the rest of the world. It’s a shame the Queensland Labor government doesn’t take this project seriously. It needs the federal government to make it a priority project in the national interest to get it off the ground.
Another infrastructure scheme worth analysing is Project Iron Boomerang, which would see the construction of steel smelters near the coalfields of Central Queensland and near the iron ore mines of Western Australia, with the two areas connected by rail. Coal and iron ore could be easily freighted between the two. It would mean we could process our iron ore to produce all Australian steel requirements here rather than exporting raw materials to China and then importing steel at great cost. We could then export to other countries. It would generate $72 billion in income per year, plus $21 billion in tax revenues annually, and create an estimated 75,000 jobs.
These two projects would help pay off Australia’s debt and help the economy to recover. It’s disappointing that projects like these two and others are not given serious consideration, yet debt-creating handout schemes are jumped at with enthusiastic fervour. The government would much rather throw borrowed money at welfare schemes that might put smiles on people’s faces but will have minimal long-term benefit. It fails to mention that all that money will also need to be paid back courtesy of the very people who receive the handouts: the taxpayers.
Rather than providing support that is genuinely helpful, the financial offerings under JobMaker are relatively small and largely dependent on the courage of the business owners themselves to take a leap of faith to hire new workers. This is a big ask at a time when we’re still in a significant recession and those businesses are struggling to survive. I have mentioned previously that the $4 billion to set up the JobMaker hiring credit scheme could instead go towards helping the states to raise the payroll tax threshold, which would support businesses and business growth across the board.
JobMaker also comes with administrative headaches for businesses, which are required to report quarterly to government to affirm their ongoing eligibility for the credits. A lot can change in business in three months. To be eligible, they need to prove an increase in total employee numbers. It makes it a worry for employers who fear the unexpected loss of a staff member or two could see them lose their entitlement to that support. The reality hanging over their heads would create more unwanted uncertainty in a year that has already been plagued with considerable uncertainty. On top of that, the wage credits are paid to the businesses quarterly, potentially adding to the administrative challenges and reducing the attractiveness of the scheme.
JobMaker supports two sectors of the workforce: those aged 16 to 29 and those aged 30 to 35. Jobseekers of other ages are therefore overlooked and disadvantaged, including those who might be a little older but who have considerable expertise and still much to offer. As I pointed out when the scheme was first announced, it is discriminatory towards school leavers and older workers, even possibly breaching age-discrimination laws. While federal laws like the Fair Work Act 2009 outlaw age discrimination, some state laws allow special exemptions that aim to lift those sectors of society that are disadvantaged. So the murkiness of JobMaker gets even murkier.
It was hoped that JobMaker would encourage the creation of 450,000 new jobs, but Treasury itself has downgraded that expectation to more like 45,000. Experts from the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, COSBOA, believe the dollars on offer through the scheme are not high enough for businesses to offset the costs and risks of hiring more employees. At $200 for a new worker aged 16 to 29 and $100 for someone aged 30 to 35, the employer who takes up these incentives still needs to find the bulk of the new employee’s weekly wages. To commit to finding that extra money upfront each week is daunting for many business owners, many of whom are in survival mode due to more than six months of hardship. As I said earlier, the credits are paid quarterly, so they are forced to pay full wages upfront and wait months for the credits to be reimbursed—a further disincentive. Many businesses are still finding their feet and they remain uncertain of what the future will bring. They will obviously baulk at the idea of taking on the costs that come with additional employees. Committing to hiring additional staff members means the business owner is also committing to finding hundreds more dollars in income to make up the full wages. If business growth were that easy, he or she would have hired without the need for a wage subsidy.
JobMaker would be more likely to interest employers if their business had entered a growth phase, but many small and medium businesses today are in a survival phase. It is my concern that JobMaker would encourage the loss of full-time jobs and reduce job security. JobMaker encourages the subsequent casualisation of any new roles. The $200 payment requires a new employee to work a minimum of 20 hours, so it makes sense that an employer might think to employ two workers, each working 20 hours, to qualify for two payments. This would better subsidise an employer than employing someone in a full-time equivalent position. This reduces the demands on the employer, but, unfortunately, the workers miss out on full-time work and the employment sector generally suffers.
Governments of both colours have always believed wrongly that small-business owners live the high life. The reality is that most small-business owners work the longest hours of all their staff, often doing paperwork late into the night. They are the first to be in the office in the mornings, and they are the last to get paid after invoices and overheads are taken care of. As we know, there are many businesses across this country crying out for workers. But, because of the decisions made by this government to make welfare so lucrative, there are not many people willing to take up these jobs. JobSeeker has made it easy for Australians to live comfortably without needing to work. JobMaker has been devised by government to rectify that problem but is unlikely to be successful for the reasons outlined. JobMaker is not a strong enough system to help prise JobSeeker recipients off their couches and back to work. It is throwing bad money after bad money. One Nation will not support it.
The government needs to move away from the damaging handout mentality that is stagnating job growth and building debt. It needs to start thinking about measures that will fire up economic activity and make Australia the powerhouse economy that it can be. The government needs to shift focus to investing in infrastructure projects that will benefit Australians and Australia as a whole for the decades to come.
As I’ve stated in my speech, we won’t be supporting this. I’ve spoken with a lot of small businesses along the way. A lot of businesses are thriving. They’re doing extremely well with COVID. They’ve come out the other end. The trouble is that they don’t want the $100 or $200 that’s given to them. What they want is people to work. The signs are out there. When they’re taking on 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds for work because they can’t get anyone else to work then we have a real problem in this country. I know a lot of people are happy, and, under COVID, we needed to pay people who have lost their jobs and the jobseekers. I understand that. But extending this program out to March next year is not getting these people out of the way of life of sitting and getting paid by the government. That is not getting them to go and apply for these jobs.
My question to Michaelia Cash today was about what the government are going to do about these people who are offered jobs. We have 20,000 people in Cairns and the Hervey Bay in Queensland on JobSeeker, yet the farmers are crying out for about 15,000 workers, and they can’t get anyone. No-one applies for their jobs. If you go to Maranoa or the Darling Downs, there are another 7,000 on JobSeeker, and the farmers can’t get workers to pick the fruit. The farmers are ploughing their crops into the ground because no-one will pick the fruit. Is this how low this country has come—people don’t want to get out to work because it’s too hard? The handouts don’t send out a lot of money. It’s not a lot of money by the time you pay the rent, but the fact is that people here are quite happy to live this lifestyle. They don’t have to get up, get in the car, go to work and travel an hour to work like most other Australians have to do. They’re quite happy to receive that money and live this lifestyle, because they don’t have to be told what to do or work for that money. There is a handout mentality in the third and fourth generations of this nation—a handout mentality of people not working. They feel it’s an entitlement; it’s not. It was set up as a helping hand.
When we bring workers from overseas to pick the fruit in this country, we have a real problem. Both sides of parliament keep giving handouts to buy votes. Once you give the handouts, you can’t take them back. People think they’re entitled to them. Where has the country that I grew up in gone? People have to provide roofs over their own heads, not rely on the government to provide them. It is there for those that need that helping hand. But when we have a generation on welfare payments, we have a real problem. This here is not helping the situation. Businesses don’t want handouts. Businesses want Australian workers.
END
https://i0.wp.com/www.senatorhanson.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/56203737_971458086391837_6371224658062082048_o.png?fit=1774%2C657&ssl=16571774Office Of Senator Hansonhttps://www.senatorhanson.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/logo-11.pngOffice Of Senator Hanson2020-11-10 08:00:182020-11-10 08:00:25Flawed Jobmaker falls short
On the 17th of August last year I wore a burka into the Senate to confront the Senate with failed immigration policy. The burka puts the issues of extremism, gender equality and integration front and centre of the immigration debate.
It is time we deal with our failed immigration policy, which has seen culturally separate communities establish themselves near our major cities funded by our welfare system.
Integration is the subject of public and political debate, but little progress is being made, because the fools on the left side of politics are acting like ostriches with their heads in the sand.
In Denmark citizenship is available only to those applicants resident for 9 years who have been self-supporting for 4 out of the previous 5 years. Additionally applicants need to evidence cultural competence and knowledge, including language skills and knowledge of society.
In Australia, you only need to be resident for four years, one year on a permanent visa, and then get 12 questions out of 20 right in a multiple choice test to gain citizenship.
In July this year the Danish government announced it would introduce new laws to regulate all aspects of life in low- income and heavily Muslim enclaves in an attempt to bring this group into Danish society.
The proposal includes mandatory day care for a minimum of 30 hours a week for children up to the age of six, so they can participate in a course in Danish values such as gender equality, community participation and co-responsibility.
Additionally the Danish government proposes withdrawing social benefits from parents whose children miss more than 15% of the school term.
Controversially the Danish government also proposes a possible four year prison sentence for immigrant parents, who take their children on ‘extended visits’ to their country of origin, in a way that the government determines compromises the children’s schooling, language and well-being.
Children are a focal point for immigration policy, because they learn languages faster, make friends more easily and more rapidly adapt to their new culture and customs.
Denmark is not the only country in Europe taking this approach, because German asylum applicants including children go through integration courses to learn about Germany and German values.
It is time to call a spade a spade. We have heavy concentrations of overseas born near our major cities and the patterns of settlement suggest that the past pattern of integration will not continue.
Let me be clear I am talking about a minority of Australian Muslims. I recognize and appreciate the hard working Australian Muslims who have embraced our democracy and values and do not support an extreme ideology.
If we want to avoid the European problems with immigration, we need to ensure a permanent visa and citizenship is given only to those people who integrate into Australia and work.
We take migrants from regions with vastly different customs and practices to those in Australia, including their attitude towards women.
When the women of the left side of this chamber stood and clapped the Attorney-General, as he berated me for wearing a burka, we saw the clearest contrast between the right and left side of politics.
I saw the fools on the opposition benches pander to minorities without realizing the implications of creeping Islamic fundamentalism in our society.
Islamic fundamentalism has emptied the Middle East of Christian communities and many of those people have come here and are frightened by what they see.
Oxford Imam and scholar Taj Hargey says he is frustrated that white feminists are defending women in burkas, because all they do is support misogynist and patriarchal attitudes to women, which see women as chattel, possessions and belongings.
Dr Taj Hargey suggests that those who bend over backwards to Islamic fanatics are suffering a white guilt complex and do not understand that the burka signs the arrival of sharia law which entrenches women as second class citizens.
If you don’t think women are being treated as second class citizens in Australia then you must have your eyes closed.
Only last week Sydney Muslim preacher Nassim Abdi from Auburn in western Sydney said that wives who refuse to have sex with their husbands have committed a sin. His sermon drew outrage from outside that community but illustrates our failed immigration policy that will not recognise that these comments represent the norm in some Islamic countries.
What makes politicians think migrants with very different attitudes and beliefs will give them up just because we give them a permanent visa and citizenship.
Australians have had enough of the complacency of pro-immigration elites.
We have been giving about 230,000 permanent visas a year to those born overseas. Despite the misleading statements by the government and Labor, permanent immigration accounts for most of Australia’s permanent population growth, because our natural rate of increase is low.
In 2016-17 a total of 40,000 permanent visas were issued to people from sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East. We have issued 291,975 permanent visas to people from these regions in the past decade.
These regions have vastly different cultural norms to those in Australia, including polygamous unions, child marriage, female genital mutilation and the rejection of gender equality.
These customs and practices have not been given up on arrival into Australia and they have financial consequences, which are being funded by the taxpayer through the health system and Centrelink.
The Australian Medical Association in 2017 reported on the extent of female genital mutilation and found in one hospital in Melbourne, over 600 women a year are being treated for female genital mutilation. This is just one hospital in Australia and does not include the horrific injuries sustained by young girls who end in the Children’s hospitals of Australia. These injuries are life- long for these individuals and costly for the taxpayer.
Of course additional health costs are just one issue.
I recently interviewed south Australian imam Mohammad Tawhidi, who told me that Centrelink is the new Mosque.
He told me of a man with 4 wives and eleven children who lived on Centrelink benefits and he was able to pay off more than one home.
Centrelink is not meant to be a way of life.
I want to know when the government will stop funding polygamous unions and encouraging people to have more children than they can afford.
Why should the taxpayer be working to support a man who does not want to work and has more children than he can afford to look after?
Why should women who make themselves unemployable be funded by the taxpayer?
But the government has thrown in the towel with the result that money that should go into aged care and into disability services is going to fund polygamy.
It is time we acknowledge the failures of multiculturalism and find solutions before we find ourselves with European scale problems.
The Labor vision of a multicultural society was never meant to be one of multicultural separatism. There have been successes and I acknowledge hard working Asian families.
Most Australians think multiculturalism has been good for Australia because we appear to have absorbed a number of culturally diverse migrants, but high levels of immigration and heavy concentrations of overseas born around our major cities threatens our future and the future of our children.
A growing number of people in Australia cannot speak English well or at all, over a million people. If we are to maintain social cohesion and economic prosperity we need people to read, write and speak English.
Too many federal electorates now have populations where more than 50% of people were born overseas and it is clear we cannot manage.
We need to reconsider the level and mix of permanent migrants to Australia because we are heading down a dead end road at 90 miles an hour and it is going to end in tears.
https://i1.wp.com/www.senatorhanson.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Generic-Flag-2.png?fit=800%2C418&ssl=1418800Office Of Senator Hansonhttps://www.senatorhanson.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/logo-11.pngOffice Of Senator Hanson2018-09-19 15:29:582018-10-02 09:19:21Protect Our Australian Way Of Life | Senate Speech
If Labor and the Greens, supported by Senator Anning, thought their stunt on Monday would silence me, on immigration, then they are dreaming.
The Labor Green alliance is afraid to tell voters that from December 2005 to December 2016 Australia’s population grew from 20.5 million to 24.4 million and that 62% of this growth was from overseas immigration.
Further, they are afraid to ask voters at the next federal election the question “Do you think the current rate of immigration is too high?”
Fear that this information will be given to every voter at the next general election is the reason Labor and the Greens voted against debating my private Senator’s legislation titled Plebiscite (Future Migration Level) Bill 2018.
We know, voters are concerned about the level of immigration and the pace of population growth, but what is less well known is that Labor and their partners the Australian Greens need very high levels of immigration for their political future.
Labor holds all the seats, where the overseas born population is above 50% and heading for 60%. Labor holds the vast majority of seats where the overseas born population is above 40% and heading for 50%.
These electorates are close to Sydney and Melbourne. How does the government expect new migrants to learn about Australian values and Australian law when everyone around them was born overseas?
Over 40% of the members of the lower house in this parliament represent electorates where over 30% of the population was born overseas.
Is it any surprise that the Lowy Institute survey found a ‘sharp spike in anti-immigration sentiment’ in 2018, causing their annual sentiment measure to change from positive to negative?
The same survey found 4 out of 10 Australians say that ‘if Australia is too open to people from all over the world we risk losing our identity as a nation’.
No other comparable country in the world is pursuing legal immigration at a pace where the population is growing at 1.7% a year.
How do we expect migrants to develop a sense of belonging, when the majority of migrants settle in regions where the number of people born overseasoutnumbers the number of people born in Australia?
Some in the government have acknowledged we need to slow the rate of immigration, but Labor and the Greens want higher levels of immigration than we have today.
If voters are experiencing problems with 200,000 permanent migrants, a year just imagine what Australia will feel like when Labor returns to permanent immigration levels of 300,000 plus.
Who is to say the immigration level under Labor will not be much higher.
Labor and their partners the Australian Greens are playing a high risk game of poker with our future and the future of our children. These socialist parties want the next election to be about anything but immigration, but every issue keeping Australians awake at night is related to immigration.
Immigration levels are now just too high for us to manage. For the majority of Australians however, high immigration means poorly paid jobs, high electricity and water prices, unaffordable housing , long wait times for access to health services, insufficient money for schools and congestion on public transport and our roads.
Australian voters need to understand the next election is about immigration
One Nation’s policy on immigration has been misrepresented and it is time for me to set the record straight.
We recognize the invaluable contribution of overseas born Australians, who have enriched our culture, committed to our values, our law, our political institutions and I thank them.
When migrants come to embrace our way of life and not to change it, the contribution of migrants and their families to Australia is undeniable.
Most Australians believe multiculturalism has been good for Australia, but the right to express cultural identity comes with the responsibility to accept Australia’s liberal democracy and to read, write and speak English.
I support English as Australia’s official language, because it’s a unifying force and advances migrant communities as well as Australia’s interests. Labor and the Greens believe hand gestures and a few words of English is enough to integrate into Australia and that is why they would not support the government’s proposed legislation to strengthen the English commitments for Australian Citizenship.
Right now the English standard, required for citizenship, is getting 12 multiple choice questions right out of 20. This is the lowest standard of any comparable country in the world.
In a country taking migrants speaking over 100 languages, English helps us get along together and that is critical to the working of our democracy. Parliamentary business is conducted in English and the record of the Parliament is also in English.
How can we expect anyone to cast an informed vote if they cannot understand, in English, the issues of the political parties seeking their vote? There is no guarantee that information provided in other languages is accurate.
Of course it suits Labor to have as many voters as possible unable to understand their poorly thought out policies.
One Nation’s legislation to amend the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 titled Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Commitments for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2018 is currently before a Senate Committee.
Similar legislation was withdrawn by the government, because Labor and the Greens would not support strengthening the commitment required by migrants to gain citizenship. These commitments related to core values and English, requirements are essential to integration.
Labor and the Greens do a disservice to new migrants especially those on the Humanitarian program, when they keep expectations low, because English is necessary for employment and participation in our society.
Labor and their mates in the press find it offensive when I say Australia has the right to choose the number and mix of migrants to ensure that immigration is in the national interest of existing citizens. I will not apologize for saying the interests of existing citizens comes first.
Australia’s Constitution prevents us from asking the religion of those who seek to migrate to Australia, but equally we cannot ignore the potential to integrate into Australia. I believe we should add this criterion in our assessment process.
When we look at countries with high living standards we can see they have relatively small populations and that the population is in harmony with the natural carrying capacity of the country.
One Nation believes the best population growth comes from Australian citizens having children. We want Australians to have the number of children they can afford to look after, but we also want to reduce the barriers for Australians to have children, including lowering the cost of housing which will follow if we reduce the level of immigration.
Governments both Liberal and Labor have based their immigration targets on the ridiculous belief that high rates of immigration will prevent or slow the aging of Australia’s population.
Yes, migrants are younger on arrival than the average Australian but migrants get old and the only way to keep Australia ‘forever young’ is to increase year on year the number of new young migrants settling permanently in Australia. This population Ponzi scheme will end when social cohesion breaks down and that day is not as far away as you might think.
Government’s both Liberal and Labor, argue immigration is good for the economy but economists know that immigration benefits specific special interest groups like property developers.
In the short term immigration reduces per capita income which is why wage growth has been low and will stay low. In the long term immigration gains are very modest but the calculations ignore congestion costs, house prices and loss of amenity and jobs.
If immigration at the current levels is such a great idea, why have we gone steadily into debt so that every worker in Australia pays over $1300 a year to service our debt mountain?
At the end of World War II Australia’s population was over seven million people and 90% of those people were born in Australia.
In 1945 we were short of labour and it was thought we needed to be a much bigger population to defend ourselves. But today we are a population of 25 million people and there is no need to have the highest level of legal migration in the world.
[END]
https://i0.wp.com/www.senatorhanson.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/population-surge.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=110801920Office Of Senator Hansonhttps://www.senatorhanson.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/logo-11.pngOffice Of Senator Hanson2018-08-22 13:59:222018-08-22 16:34:56Immigration Debate Cannot Be Silenced | Speech Transcript
Firstly, I would like to explain to the chamber that my absence for the second reading division was simply unfortunate and not designed to give any further time to this debate, given my very clear stance on not supporting any further corporate tax cuts. We find ourselves with an amendment that Treasurer Scott Morrison claims was given to me last week. Let me make it clear to this chamber that I had not seen this amendment until it was emailed to my office at 12.09 pm today.
This week has been a complete shambles—an embarrassment to every Australian. You’ve got the Liberals knifing each other and Senator Cameron was caught dancing down the corridors with his air tambourine, singing Oh Happy Day. The people are over it. They’re tired of every single one of you urinating their money up against a brick wall. If they could bang your heads against the same wall they would—both of you: Labor and the coalition. You have left the people in this country with a filthy hangover today. When I go shopping, people ask, ‘Why can’t the government help the farmers instead of these big companies?’ They’re right. The bulk of multinationals don’t pay their fair share of tax in this country. People ask me, ‘Why do we send billions overseas in the form of foreign aid?’ It’s a good question, isn’t it, especially when every single one of you drives past at least six homeless people sleeping near Outback Jacks on Northbourne Avenue here in Canberra. And let’s not forget the other 105,000 homeless people we have in this country. I’ve got cane farmers across Queensland, who want a code of conduct. Nothing else—no money, just surety for their industry, which employs tens of thousands of Australian workers and pumps $2 billion in cash through this economy.
Why aren’t we looking after those people? Aren’t these tax cuts about saving jobs?
I’m tired of the people of this country sitting at their dining-room tables saying: ‘Did you hear what those clowns in Canberra did today? They don’t care about us.’ They are talking about us. Tonight I’m voting with the lion’s share of people in Rockhampton. I’m voting with the bulk of mums and dads in Tamworth. I’m voting with the majority of people in Coal Point, Townsville, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Beerwah, Bowen, Kilcoy, thousands of towns across my home state of Queensland and thousands more across the country. The majority of people don’t want these tax cuts for businesses with turnover greater than $50 million. You know why they don’t want me to support these tax cuts? You refused to fix the PRRT. Let me explain the PRRT. It is a tax imposed on the gas offshore in North West Australia. This is 15 per cent plus. Over the period of time that we’ve had the PRRT, companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell have now cumulated $290 billion in tax credits, so that they say they will not be paying tax in this country for a long time to come.
Countries like Japan are making more money in excise tax out of ships with our gas on them, around $3 billion, than we do. We made about $800 million off our sales of approximately $55 billion this year. You refuse to collect billions in royalties from Commonwealth waters. Qatar made $26.6 billion in gas and oil sales, and we made $800 million—and you’re worried about investment in this country, that the multinationals won’t come here unless we reduce corporate taxes? I don’t think you have it right. The whole fact is they will come here, because they are not paying the right taxes in the first place. Why wouldn’t they come here?
You refuse to acknowledge that our tax system is different to those of every other country. You made a reference to America, who dropped their rate to 21 per cent. Yes, but their state taxes are between two and 12 per cent on top of that. You don’t refer to their different tax systems. You can’t compare apples with oranges. Every country has a different taxation system. Just because they drop their taxes doesn’t mean that we do. You say they are dropping it every year, and that other countries are going to drop it to 17 per cent. Is this a race to the bottom? Who can give the lowest tax rates, so that we don’t lose the investment? If they are not going to pay taxes in this country, what are we losing? They are only more competitive for the Australian businesses here who are struggling and trying to do the right thing. America has lower wages. That’s another thing. I’m definitely not advocating that we have lower wages in Australia.
What have your free trade agreements done? You have signed away the workers. You talk about more jobs, but your free trade agreements have allowed these multinational companies to bring in their own workers. You are destroying our own workforce. America has half-price energy. There’s your problem. Reduce the cost of energy in Australia, so industries and manufacturing can compete, instead of escalating prices. America has 325 million people in their domestic market and, more importantly, trading partners on their doorstep. There are a combined 450 million people in Canada and South America that they can sell their products to. They have also applied tariffs to imports—fancy that! I recall a younger version of myself calling for tariffs 20 years ago.
These countries protect their homegrown industries—in Australia, we tie our companies up in red tape—and flood our market with cheap junk.
As for suggestions on how to spend the money if you don’t do this, because you’re going to end up with about $4 billion in the coffers, what about long-term-vision projects, infrastructure projects like roads and rail? What about dams and the Bradfield water scheme, which would drought-proof our nation and help the poor farmers out there that are on their knees? What about the watering Australia program to bring the water down from the Territory, the Ord scheme, so we actually water Australia? These are projects that would make our country prosper and help those that are in dire need. This country is not going to grow or move forward if we don’t provide the water that it needs. We have countries like Israel that have put in a watering project that can water their country. But we can’t do it?
There is no vision in this country whatsoever for future generations. What about railway projects like the Carmichael mine and duplication of the Sunshine Coast Railway through to Nambour? Why aren’t we duplicating the Bruce Highway from Brisbane to Cairns for tourism and freight? Coal-fired power stations to produce the dispatchable energy that we need to reduce the power prices in this country; hydro power like the Tully-Millstream project—why aren’t we doing these projects? Where’s the debate on nuclear energy? Why don’t we do that?
I have respectfully listened to the government’s arguments, and I do thank Senator Cormann for his good-natured negotiations. But I cannot support a shift in the threshold to increase further corporate tax cuts, carving out the big four banks. My question is: what about the other banks? They have to answer for the wrong they’ve done to many people across this country, and the damage and the heartache that they’ve caused. It’s more than just the four banks.
My obligation is to the everyday people of this country and to ensure we start paying down the mounting debt. One Nation supported tax cuts up to a $50 million turnover. That’s a cost to the budget of $35 million. We supported the personal tax cuts; that’s another $144 billion. You want to pass these further corporate tax cuts; that’s a further $45 billion. And you’re talking about in eight years time. How do we know the state of this economy in eight years time? How do we know if this country will be able to afford it? How do we know who’s going to be holding the chequebook—because I don’t trust any one of you. I’ve seen it. Under Labor, when it changed over to the coalition, the country was in debt by about $270 billion. Now we’re reaching nearly $600 billion. There has to be a debt ceiling put on, because someone has to curtail your spending. No-one’s talking about future generations and how we’re paying down this debt.
You talk about how it’s going to create jobs. I’ll tell you the only way you will create jobs in this country and get a better, higher wage increase: please work with your state counterparts and investigate reducing payroll tax, which is a bigger impost on business across the nation. That will—it will—stimulate jobs in this country. That’s why I say to you that you can’t guarantee corporate tax cuts are going to create employment and bring higher wages. For a lot of these businesses, what I hear all the time is that the biggest problem in this whole country is payroll tax. I know it’s not a federal issue; it is a state issue. You have to work with the states to compensate them for slowly reducing the payroll tax, which will increase employment. Why would these businesses put more money into their companies and businesses through a corporate tax cut when they know that, if you create more employment and higher wages, that’s going to put them over the threshold and they’re going to be paying more in payroll tax? It needs to stop. Address your free trade agreements and stop these companies bringing in their workers from overseas—and that is actually happening. Ensure that we as a nation can afford this. You haven’t proven that to me.
I’m worried about the future generations and the debt we are going to leave them. You can sit there and promise me all these things, but with all the deals that you may have done in this chamber with the other senators, there is no guarantee of who’s going to be the Prime Minister of this country next week—whether or not it’s going to be Malcolm Turnbull. If we go to an early election, are these deals going to be secure? They possibly won’t be. So, I want to know that the future of this nation is in good hands. I don’t feel that it is.
[END]
https://i1.wp.com/www.senatorhanson.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Generic-Flag-2.png?fit=800%2C418&ssl=1418800Office Of Senator Hansonhttps://www.senatorhanson.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/logo-11.pngOffice Of Senator Hanson2018-08-22 08:44:262018-08-22 15:56:55Corporate Tax Cuts and Government Failure | Senator Hanson Speech
