Transcription
Today at the National Press Club, the four men who hold all the cards, Rob Oakeshott, Bob Katter, Tony Windsor, and Greens MP Adam Bandt, unite to discuss their plans for the next government. At the National Press Club in Canberra, it's Independence Day.
Well, good afternoon and welcome to the National Press Club in Canberra for this National Australia Bank address. We live in interesting times. Let's just hope it's not the Chinese curse version of interesting times. And four of the men around which most interest coalesces at the moment are on stage with us here. And that is, from our left, Bob Katter from Kennedy, Adam Bandt from Melbourne, Robert Oakeshott from Lyne, and Tony Windsor from New England.
Time is short here today. We won't waste it. Our guests have agreed to speak each for three minutes. At the outset, we'll give them a little bit of latitude, a bit of a bell at three minutes, and then hopefully, they'll start to bring their thoughts to a conclusion. And then we will take questions from the floor. Now, given this is the new consensus politics, the independents have agreed on the order in which they will go. And first man up is Tony Windsor.
Well, thank you very much for having us. And though, if I could firstly pay my respects to the family of the soldier that was killed in Afghanistan. We have an enormous opportunity in front of us. I believe this is going to be a very, very exciting Parliament, and it's something I don't think anybody should be afraid of. And in fact, I think it's something that most of us in the Parliament could make a very positive contribution to, and your people in the media could also make a very positive contribution. The three independents, and we're not a block, I don't intend to be part of any block, but what we've done today is put together what we believe is a bit of a preemptive pathway. We really don't know how the numbers again crunch, and it could be 10 days before we do now.
So what we've embarked on is a process today. And the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister, would have received this within the last half hour. Is in fact, a letter from us requesting a number of things, something to do with Treasury, some to do with parliamentary procedure, some to do with what they're actually got in mind for the nation over the next three years. And there's also questions in there in relation to the longevity of the Parliament. I, for one, am not interested in forming a government if, in fact, it is the agenda of that government to get to the polls as quickly as possible. If that is seen as the option or the agenda of either side, I won't be opting for either side. I would opt out of the process, and if enough people do that, we would return to the polls. Now, no one really wants that, least of all me, because I see enormous opportunities, particularly for regional Australia, in relation to the circumstance we're being placed in, but also for Australia generally to actually do things differently, to actually try and establish a better relationship between the House of Representatives and the Senate, to try and establish better pathways of communication. One of the things we have done in this country has probably created one of the worst examples of the Westminster system where it's actually become too confrontational, and there's an expectation, and even within the media, that it will be the two dogs barking, and that's what the reporting is made of. We're trying to establish a pathway that's slightly different to that. And we can't tell you all about today because it would be improper and rude to both the leaders that we are serious about trying to establish a pathway where government can be formed, and government can be very proactive and progressive in terms of the future of this nation. So when people say, what are the issues? There is one issue only, and that is the stability of governance of this nation for the next three years. Obviously, the government will have a program for the period of those years, and they'll be various things that we will be questioning in relation to Treasury costings, etc., various programs that are out there that have been committed by God.
Is that the three? Yeah, but you have some grace. Mode. Let me stop you there. They'll have some grace. Now, I've got to lead by example for Bob Katter. That's that's three. Bob. It's a. We do have a number of issues that will be explored, and we would ask both leaders to go into this process with goodwill. I think there's enormous goodwill out in the community to try and get this right, to do it differently. We aren't going to hold the Parliament hostage. That is not my intention. I'm sure it's not the others. I'm sure I could probably speak for Adam in relation to that. What we're about is trying to improve the process so that the people in the building, the members of Parliament, the representatives of the constituencies, can actually be more involved in the day-to-day running of the Parliament rather than the imposition of the executive through the Parliament, and then another catfight in the Senate. So thank you for the opportunity, and I've don't attempt to answer any questions if I could later on. Thank you.
Next up is Bob Katter.
Thank you. Um, I am quite figures and I never quote the figures without bringing along the source documents. So if you want to question me, have a fight with the ABS. I'm trading food in live animals, ABS catalog 5368. Don't matter how you read these figures, within 14 years, Australia will be a net importer of food, which doesn't surprise me. In 2003, we become a net importer of pork. In 2004, I was quite staggered to find we'd become a net importer of fruit and vegetables. And in 2008, and I think the Sydney Morning Herald has been the first media outlet in Australia to draw attention to the food security issue in this country, and in 2008, we've come a net importer of seafoods. Now, whether you want to look at the cattle figures, the last time I looked, eighteen percent. Sheep figures are down forty-one percent. Dairying, which amazes me, butter and cheese down nineteen, and fresh milk down ten. Sugar, we're closing six mills every ten years. I'm not an expert on wheat, so someone else can give those figures. Um, we've only got twenty mills to come. We have no sugar industry at all. Those shipped your for big, really huge industries in Australia. These figures have carved some forty or fifty thousand jobs out of rural Australia. So if you live in a country town in Australia, every year, the owner of a business, you know it's going to get less and less. It's not going to get better, it's going to get worse and worse every year. You know, your kids are going to leave because there's no jobs for them in the local town. Every year, you know, maybe a high school closes this year, maybe you lose your dentist next year. When we went around in the selection campaign, nodding our little meetings to people turned up. One in Burra Bender, right up near Cairns. Stone straight from Cairns and went out in Richmond and North Queensland. They had to pull their own teeth out. They couldn't get any dentists. Um, so having said that, you say, well, why is this occurred? Well, if you're going to free trade when none of the rest of the world going to free trade. And let me be very, very specific. The last time I looked at the OECD figures, their average support level, subsidy, tariff levels were forty-nine percent. All right. It's wonderful to free trade. I'm more for free trade, but if you're doing it, no one else is doing it, you'll close down your food industries and your manufacturing industries. Say goodbye to them. Well, we know all know that we have no manufacturing again. The figures are here for car manufacturing, eighty-two percent Australian now, only sixteen percent Australian since 1987. Um, we have a situation in Australia, and both the mainstream parties who have had inquiry after inquiry into this, they knew that will worsen. Coles said fifty point five percent of the market in 1991, and they had inquiry after inquiry as the percentage control of the marketplace rose to sixty-eight percent or seventy-two percent, depending what statistical figures you want to use. And now it is, according to their own growth figures, over eighty-five percent of the market. So we're going to go to people to sell food to in Australia, and only two people to buy food from in Australia. And I'd love to say more about that.
Let me conclude on a positive note. We thank, we thank very much the Rudd government, and I don't mean to exclude Julia from that, and the Treasurer, my Sydney, for the clean energy corridor in northern Australia. We thank Tony Abbott for his direct action approach because that's really what is happening here. But we would say to the Coalition, the Liberal Party, talk about it, but this time do it. They were actually doing it. They were actually doing it. And the clean energy corridor is to get power out to Mount Isa, instead of us burning up huge amounts of energy in getting energy out to Mount Isa. There'll be a massive transmission line along that transmission line. Will be the biggest wind farm in the southern hemisphere. In that long, that transmission line will be two of the biggest solar biofuel plants in the world. And that line will produce, if we carry it through to completion, and I plead with the major parties to look at this, three percent of Australia's electricity and seven percent of Australia's petrol, clean, renewable, forever, and at a price. And I'll conclude on this note. There's a picture of a very handsome Fulham star here in a Akubra hat on his only trip overseas, but he went to Brazil, Blake, and he filled up his Holden motorcar there for 120 Australian dollars, which is 73 cents a litre. When I filled it up in America, it was 84 cents a litre. When I came back to Australia, at that time, it was 138 cents a litre. Look, we're buying our petrol from overseas now. We are no longer self-sufficient in petrol. We get it from Indonesia, horrible thumb. And I conclude on that note. Do you want to fill up at that price with clean energy, or do you want to continue down the pathway which both major parties lined out for us over a long period of time?
Robert Oakeshott.
Thanks, Chris. Thanks to the media, parliamentary colleagues of all persuasions who have come together today. It's a nice unity moment right there. And to all the organisers in the room, and to I guess the bag one, Simon, thank you for pulling together this function. And can I publicly congratulate you and the organisation for taking the High Court action you did? The significance of that for the organisation was potentially, if it was a loss, I gather it was going to cost you an awful lot of money, but because it was a win.