House debates

Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Adjournment

Economy

9:10 pm

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

This is a very different speech from what I normally give. I would like to put on the record for future Australians that in the year of our lord 2014 I said that my country is in dreadful peril. I say that with very great knowledge of the industries involved. This nation's economy depends upon coal, aluminium, iron ore and, to a lesser extent, a number of other commodities. Coal is in desperate trouble because we are no longer the biggest exporters of coal in the world. Indonesia is the biggest exporter of coal. Over the next two years Mongolia will come on stream big time, since the greatest demand for coal is coming from China, and Mongolia is part of China. The value of our coal exports has dropped from $47,000 million a year to $40,000 million a year. Aluminium is doomed. Aluminium came to Australia because we had the cheapest electricity in the world. We now have the second-highest electricity charges in the world—second to West Germany—and, of course, aluminium is just 'congealed electricity'. So aluminium cannot possibly survive. Aluminium operators in Australia have put all of their plants up for sale; of course, no-one is going to buy them. A lot of people have said natural gas will be wonderful for Australia; it will bring in $23,000 million. Yes, but it will bring it in the same as a boomerang, which runs away from you; the boomerang will go back out again because it is all foreign owned and the cost of production is negligible. So the $23 million would yield no benefit for Australians.

So why aren't we staggering? Thirteen 13 per cent of the nation cannot find full-time employment or do not have any job at all. That does not include the disabled. People hiding in the disabled category are another five or six per cent. During the Great Depression, there was an average of 22 per cent unemployment. It is iron ore that has rescued us and given us a tiny bit of breathing space.

Eleven years ago we sent $1,000 million overseas to buy oil. This year we sent $25,000 million overseas. So we have to find $25,000 million there. The motor-vehicle industry, which is worth $16,000 million a year, is vanishing. We brought in 400,000 on section 457 visas—because they are ostensibly going to leave. There is $20,000 million going into their pockets. The timber, fertiliser and furniture industries are worth $5,000 million, and they are doomed. The steel industry is doomed and the aluminium industry is doomed. So that is $85,000 million. I do not know where we are going to find any of this money.

We would plead with the people who have the power in this place, and who in the future will have power in this place, to understand that every other country on earth has gone to ethanol. For a country that has to buy all of its oil from overseas, why you would not go to ethanol staggers me. Of course, the answer is that the major political parties are owned by the oil companies. Ethanol would bring in $23,000 million a year. It would rescue the grains industry, the beef industry and the sugar industry. If government contracts are given for motor vehicles, for warships and for steel—the same as is done in every other country on earth—you would rescue the motor-vehicle industry and the steel industry. Also, you create a shipbuilding industry, without the discontinuity and buying your ships from Japan.

Of course, overall, there are the interest rates. If you have interest rates that are 1,000 per cent higher than your competitor nations, clearly your dollar is driven up to artificial heights. When it was allowed to freefall under Keating, it went to 49c; when it was allowed to freefall under Costello, it went to 51c. There is no doubt in my mind that this is where it should be at the present moment. If it were, none of these industries would be in trouble. Our farmers in our vanishing agriculture sector in Australia would have got double the income that they have enjoyed for the last 15 years. (Time expired)