Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is important for this House to understand what is taking place in Australia. I invited myself to stand up on a chair at the Moranbah Community Workers Club.

I asked people not to throw beer bottles at me and just give me three minutes of their time. I said, 'Look, fellas, everyone here, ladies, everyone here knows we're on close to $190,000 a year.' That was eight or nine years ago. Everyone here knows that we are now on about $135,000, and they are not stopping there. They will push our wages down, down, down.

When we were on nearly $190,000, or the equivalent of $190,000, five of the six giant mining companies in Australia were owned by Australians. Successive Labor and Liberal governments agreed that these mining companies could be purchased by foreigners. Fancy a government allowing the overwhelming majority of its giant resources to be simply handed over to foreign corporations! We only have three sources of income in this country: iron ore, coal and gas. Each of those is worth over $100 billion, or near enough to $100 billion for each of the three of them. The next one down is probably gold or cattle at maybe $15 billion. We only have three sources of income from overseas, and successive Liberal and Labor governments gave away the gas for 6c a unit. We Australians are having to buy our own gas back at $19 a unit. We sold it for 6c and we're buying it back at $19 a unit, which makes us uncompetitive in the world market. We can't competitively produce fertiliser because the major component is ammonia from natural gas, and we're paying $19, whereas in America they are paying $6 and in other countries they are paying $4 a unit.

You sold your country out. Every member of the ALP here sold their country out. Every member of the Liberal Party here sold their country out—and the National Party, I don't want to leave them out, the running dogs with the National Party.

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