Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker Chesters. But I'm sure you're going give me a whole 15 minutes all over again. I was in full flight! That's okay.

I'm old enough to remember when there were former Labor members sitting on the benches of this parliament on the government side, during the last term of a Labor government, debating legislation. I wasn't here; I was but a member of the public concerned about the future direction of this country. I remember when Labor members were sitting on those benches, and what were they using telecommunications powers for? They were using them to shut down the media—to silence and regulate the media, look at pathways to introduce internet censorship and limit what Australians could see when they didn't like what Australians were searching for. They looked, particularly, to impose different pathways of internet censorship, because they wanted to control people's lives.

I've said this in this parliament many times before: the objective of the Labor Party at every stage of your life is to control Australians. They want to control education so they can control what your children learn and how they see the world. They want to control the workplace so that unions can control you and your standards. They want to control housing so that you rent and they can control how you live and make you dependent. They want to control you on a salary so that you never have the dignity and independence of owning your own small business. They want to control your superannuation through an industry superfund so that you never have the independence and dignity of an SMSF to manifest and manage your own destiny. And, of course, when it comes to telecommunications powers, it is the most wonderful backstop for them to be able to go on and control the information you seek, how you can access it and, even with the wonders of mobile telephony and technology, stop you accessing the information that you seek.

So I look at this legislation—I look at every piece of legislation in the context of telecommunications—and my starting position is that I look at the minister, I look at those at the table, I look at those on the opposition benches, and I go, 'I never start from a position of trust,' because I've seen what you've done before. I know your natural temptation to control the Australian people and how you weaponise this legislation to do so.

You just need to look at their performance in the past week. We talked about it earlier in the week. Think about the gift that they have been given by the Australian people of a 94-seat majority and the trust that they have been given. What are they using—or abusing—that trust to do at the moment? Introduce a veil of secrecy and shut a curtain down over this parliament and Canberra to silence journalists, to limit their capacity to access information and to limit scrutiny of this parliament. They have made it harder for Australians to submit freedom of information requests to scrutinise decisions of government. They have introduced fees to make it harder for people to access basic information about how public servants and the government are making decisions.

We've seen how they want to literally abolish pathways for reviews of decisions in the context of Defence medals. I have never thought that this was a priority of the Australian government, but, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis when people are dealing with the realities of financial stress and getting to the supermarket with a red basket, this is their priority. When it comes to the powers and the priorities they have, this is where it is. It is not based on how they empower the Australian people. When it comes to telecommunications and introducing standards, I always look with a high degree of scrutiny, because their focus has never been on how they empower the Australian people; it has been on how they control the Australian people.

It doesn't mean there aren't important measures that need to be addressed through telecommunications powers. One of the biggest problems we face in this country right now—and it's a big challenge in the context of Victoria; you can speak to the member for Mallee—is the proliferation of crime. Crime is a massive problem, no matter where you go in Victoria. The failure of Victorian government to address the problems of crime—whether it's in the streets of Black Rock, Beaumaris, Brighton, Bentleigh, McKinnon or Ormond. Throughout the Goldstein electorate, there are violent home invasions, people breaking into people's houses, or scams and cybercrime, which is going on all across the country. That was why community safety and crime were such important issues in the Goldstein electorate at the election, including the proliferation of antisemitism, which was manifest both in the physical form and on telecommunications platforms.

One of the things we also took to the election was the importance of having mandatory minimum sentences in the context of online sexual violence and crimes. That isn't the priority of this government. Closing FOI pathways for Australians is. Closing Defence medal review pathways is. Stopping the access of the opposition to be able scrutinise the decision-making government is their priority—

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