Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Are you? The gentleman over here says he is pretty sure he is an Australian. But why wouldn't you bring your dollar into line with the rest of the world and look after your own country? Why wouldn't you do that? Why wouldn't you do something about Woolworths and Coles when you know they are murdering agriculture in this country? Why wouldn't you do that if you are an Australian? Why wouldn't you bring our subsidies and tariffs into line with every other country on earth if you are an Australian? It is because you are not; you are a globalist.

The minister spoke about foreign investment. I happen to be an expert in that field—because I was the mines minister in Queensland. I was in a government that was the most mining oriented and development-achieving government in Australian history. We did not build the mining industry with foreign investment. It was built with our money. We borrowed the money. We borrowed the money to build the biggest and most efficient power station in the world. That gave our fellow Australians the aluminium industry, because aluminium is about 40 per cent bauxite and about 60 per cent electricity. We produced the cheapest electricity in the world. We were not into this free market and be fair to everybody business. We were out there for our people to win. That is what we were about.

We were not too worried about taking two per cent of the coal from the mining companies. It was called a reserve resource policy which every country on earth—except us—has. We took two per cent of their coal for free. We had this giant power station and we could produce the cheapest electricity in the world. Australia now—have a look at the register—has the second highest electricity costs in the world after West Germany. We have gone from being the cheapest in the world, in Queensland, to being the second most costly.

Let me go back to foreign investment. It was not done with foreign investment; it was done with the money of the Queensland government. They built the port of Gladstone. They built the railway line into the coalfields to open up the coal industry in Australia. There was no foreign investment involved. The miner we were looking after was Thiess, an Australian mining company. (Time expired)

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