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

I will speak on the NAIF proposals. Having watched politics from the inside over a period of nearly 45 years, I mean no disrespect to the last speaker, but they get up and they tell you how wonderful everything is because of their side of politics. I've been known to do that myself on many occasions, so I'm not denigrating the previous speaker. But I am asserting that this we know: the free market policies were introduced originally by Mr Whitlam. He had a 25 per cent cut on all tariffs in Australia and, according to the trade union movement, wiped out 150,000 jobs in Australia.

Mr Keating, of course, was the great free marketeer of this country. I remember getting out of bed one morning and listening to the ABC—I think it was the last time I ever listened to them—and he said: 'This country will be the most free market economy on earth. We have taken away all subsidies, all tariffs and all embargoes, so, whereas once we were a sort of extended sheep run and some sort of quarry, now we will look forward to a very bright future in other areas of the economy.' Well, he was sort of right because he most certainly got rid of the extended sheep farm. In the irrigated wool industry, we went from 6,000 million down to 2,000 million. Oh, boy, that was a marvellous achievement of the free market system!

It was a big coincidence because, when the free market was abolished and we went into the marketing scheme proposed by Doug Anthony, that wonderful man who led the Country Party in those days, it increased threefold. When the marketing scheme was taken away, it collapsed to one-third of what it was. It was funny: it was a coincidence then; it was a coincidence later on! It was no coincidence at all. If you aggressively market your product collectively, you get a much better outcome than if you go out there and have something like 12,000 or 15,000 sellers all doing their own thing.

We've closed down all manufacturing in this country. The last white-goods factory closed in Orange two or three years ago. The last motor vehicle plant closed last year. So we've made our last motor car. We've made our last fridge. We've made our last stove. The country has no manufacturing base now, and I think everyone here would understand that and know that, unless they are complete hypocrites. The manufacturing base has gone.

The agricultural base cannot survive. The OECD did a landmark report in about 2007. It said that, on earth, a farmer gets 41 per cent of his income from the government, except in two countries, and almost of the subsidy levels are between 36 per cent and about 56 per cent, except in two countries where they have no support base at all. We're out there trying to compete against these people.

The NAIF fund was introduced. Peta Credlin—I saw her on television—said that $5,000 million was put away 5½ years ago, and not a cent has come out of it since. Well, yes, $27 million has come out of the $5,000 million in 5½ years. The government thinks that they can line up for a third election telling northern Queensland—where, I might add, there are four marginal seats—'Oh, we're going to develop northern Australia,' meaning North Queensland because no-one else is living much in northern Australia except in North Queensland. 'We're going to open it up. We're going to give $5,000 million and $500 million for water development.' We have not seen one single project—not one. But there's still time for the government to do something, and we hope that the NAIF, not the government, will do something.