Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday a rally was held out the front of this Parliament House and also in my home town of Adelaide. Apparently the rally in Adelaide got some 50 people along to it, as reported in today’s Advertiser by Mark Kenny, a very experienced and well-respected journalists for the Adelaide Advertiser. So we have this so-called people’s revolt—some 50 people in Adelaide and a few more here in Canberra.

I thought I might just focus on some of the signs that were held up at yesterday’s rally. There was ‘Science of AWG isn’t settled’—that is anthropological global warming. Another sign said ‘Carbon dioxide is not pollution, I love CO2’. There was one that said ‘Juliar…Bob Brown’s bitch’. There was a sign that said ‘Ditch the witch’. There was a sign that said ‘Great liars are also great magicians. Adolf Hitler’. Others read ‘No multiculturalism Assimilate and Integrate’; ‘What you expect from an atheist in Canberra—ain’t that right Ju-liar?’. Of course there was the old favourite ‘Pauline knew 10 years ago’ and my favourite, which was held up just behind the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Warringah’s head—just behind him as he spoke so eloquently to his audience: ‘Say no to Carbon Tax 4 UN/IMF Global Gov = Agenda 21 Genocide’.

I have for members a copy of that. I am happy to table it, if you wish. It is an interesting sign. I could not for the life of me the work out what it meant, though. It seemed to me to be somewhat confusing. So I went and had a look and it does actually refer to the UN economic and social development guide. There is an agenda 21 there. It espouses such radical concepts as:

(a) Promoting sustainable development through trade liberalization;

(b) Making trade and environment mutually supportive;

(c) Providing adequate financial resources to developing countries and dealing with international debt;

Radical concepts like that! I thought: ‘What could be confusing about free trade?’ So I went and had a look and I found all these weird conspiracy theories like the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank are somehow going to shut America down—end America; I am not quite sure what would happen.

There is another one ‘WHERE WE STAND—The Genocide Agenda—Agenda 21: The United Nations Program of Action.’ There are all these sorts of very interesting observations! I highlighted some of them. One was talking about how we were all going to be forced to live in ‘arcologies’ and vast piles of apartments and the like.

It took me back to last year, of course, when the Leader of the Opposition met with Lord Monckton, who once claimed that AIDS could be resolved by compulsorily blood testing every adult in the population and then isolating AIDS carriers on an island, presumably. He later walked away from those. We do wonder what commitments the Leader of the Opposition gave to Lord Monckton in his private audience with this grand master of climate scepticism. I wonder what commitments were given there.

I have the ABC news report: ‘Abbott pencils end date with Monckton’. That was 3 February of last year. So we know that there is a bit of a problem here with the Liberal Party meeting and associating with and talking to and having a dialogue with these very extreme groups on the loony Right; interactions with these conspiracy group people.

Of course there were other groups along yesterday. The League of Rights, I think, were there. There was the Consumers and Taxpayers Association. Apparently they have three members. There was One Nation. Where would we be without Pauline and the Liberal Party? There was the Coalition of Law Abiding Sporting Shooters. I do not see what they have got to do with climate change. Of course, there was the Lavoisier Group, which apparently thinks that the Kyoto protocol is all about a new imperial structure to relocate Australian sovereignty to Germany. That is very strange. We just wonder: who is going to save the Liberal Party from these extremists? It won’t be Tony Abbott, because even today he is hedging his bets, he is sliding. He refuses to denounce these groups, because he is happy to be associated with them. We are just waiting for Hockey or Turnbull or somebody else to save the great, moderate Liberal Party of this country.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the honourable member for Wakefield that he ought not to ignore standing order 64.

Question agreed to.