Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Happy New Year, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle! It's good to be back and engaging in some interesting debate. But I have to say, it is disappointing to come in and listen to contributions like the one just made. I have a lot of respect for Senator O'Neill, but some of the things that have been given to her to read out today don't quite stack up. Often, and over many years, this country's been referred to as the 'lucky country' and—as I think Senator O'Neill said herself—a land of opportunity. People have come here from distant lands over many, many years to make the most of what is on offer in this country, to take advantage of the wonderful opportunities and the level playing field that I thought we had in this country. Everyone has a chance to make a go of it here, no matter what sort of a background they come from.

Recently, we celebrated Australia Day, when many of us have the privilege of representing the minister for immigration and citizenship and reading out the minister's message at the Australia Day citizenship ceremonies. People come from wherever they've come from, countries that don't have the same nature and system of opportunity that we have here in Australia, and they seek out these opportunities that our country provides and offers to them. You talk to these people and you hear their stories about the countries they've come from and the conditions they lived under—often squalor and fear. Many of these people, under certain regimes in different countries, couldn't get ahead no matter what they did. And so they were looking forward to the opportunity to make a go of things here. These people often come here with nothing. Some people have sought refuge here as asylum seekers. Often they are at a disadvantage to those of us who were blessed enough to be born in this country, because they don't speak the language. So they start from way back there. Yet these people will take any opportunity that is thrown their way. I don't hear them complaining about it. They are grateful to have the opportunity here to be able to do these things.

My own mother-in-law came from Albania. She couldn't speak English. They had nothing with them when they came here and sought political asylum. They worked three jobs. My father-in-law, who trained as a cardiologist in Albania, came here and worked as a cleaner for an extended period of time at the Greenslopes Private Hospital in Brisbane. They did not take a cent of welfare. They've worked very, very hard since they've been here. They were at a disadvantage, compared to the situation that those of us who were born in this country started our lives with. But they made a go of it. They've done very well. And that's because this country presented to them opportunities that they did not have in their home country of Albania. They were not allowed to choose their line of work. They were not allowed to live in the town they wanted to. That is the difference.

Listen to Senator O'Neill and some of the other contributions from those opposite and you'd be tricked into thinking we're in some awful dictatorship where people are forced to work against their will at ridiculously low wages, where they don't have a chance to do what they want to do and improve the life of the next generation of their family coming through.

It's about equality of opportunity, which I was so pleased to hear Senator O'Neill mention, versus equality of outcome. We have opportunity. We have the chance to do something: to start a business, to study, to go and do something out of our comfort zone that may well yield a benefit, that may result in a profit or a promotion at work or a new job or something like that, something to improve our lives. In my view we should be nurturing that, not equality of outcome, where no matter what you do, however little you put in, you're guaranteed to get as much as the person who busts their guts over here and risks everything—mortgages their house—to start their business, to employ the 13 or 14 people that they employ in their small business. We should be rewarding those who want to put in, who want to make a go of things, who actually want to do something not only for themselves but also, through paying tax, for this country.

We talk, or at least Senator O'Neill talks, about these business people as if they're big moguls who sit in smoke filled rooms plotting to undercut workers in this country. It's madness. We have small-to-medium business enterprises in this country that make up a huge portion of our economy. They employ a huge number of Australians. They're the ones we're talking about. They're the ones we need to help out.

So I was pleased that Senator O'Neill talked about equality of opportunity, which is important, and we should protect that at all costs. But the rest of the rhetoric, the rest of the baseless claims that were made in her address, didn't stack up with that. They were all plucked out of thin air and they all pointed to the usual Labor stance of equality of outcome, which is the wrong thing to aim for. We should be aiming for and protecting equality of opportunity. We should be empowering Australians—young Australians, older Australians and new Australians. We should be motivating and encouraging them, not shaming them. This debate is all about shaming people who do well. It is talking about profit as a dirty thing. As I said before, people who run a small business, who have started up a business for the first time and have mortgaged or sold their home—maybe they're renting because they haven't been able to afford to buy one yet—are the ones who've risked everything to set up this enterprise which employs other people.

I commend and applaud that. I applaud those people who take that risk, who contribute to the economy, who aren't looking to government to sort their life out for them. They are taking matters into their own hands, and that's what we should be fostering. We should not be shaming these people into thinking they are doing something dirty and something wrong because they have done well in business and can afford to buy a nice car, send their kids to a good school and take their family on a holiday. This sort of debate is all about shaming those who actually want to do well, and that's what annoys me about this. It is something I'm ashamed of, that we in this country have this sort of attitude towards people who take risks, who put everything on the line, who have skin in the game, and—