Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) | Hansard source

I speak in continuation of my comments from yesterday with regard to the Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Bill 2019. Farming is very important to the lifeblood of this nation. These morons, idiots, ratbags—you name it—are the ones who are actually going out protesting and trespassing, and they think they're doing a wonderful job in trying to help the animals, but, as I expressed here in my speech before, they are actually killing animals. They are actually seeing the death of animals, as I have explained.

Farming is a life of dedication, effort and hardship. As we know, it is a struggle for farmers to make good profits year in and year out. A relatively small number of people here in the parliament would have a deep understanding of rural living and life on the land—a very small number. I'd like to really have an understanding of how many people, especially Greens, who are actually standing up and making comments, have ever lived on a rural property, bred livestock, understand drought and understand the connection with the livestock that you rear. Very few in this chamber have ever experienced that—very few. You need to understand the commitment and the hardships that are connected with this. You do look after your animals, but, at the end of the day, you rear animals as part of the food chain. They are there for us to eat, to consume, to sell. That's what these animals are reared for. You have your pets—you have your dogs, you have your cats, you have your birds. That's fair enough. Those farm animals are livestock, reared for the fact that they are there as part of the food chain. That is a fact. If you want to have a pet cow or a pet horse, you can have it. If you have a pet sheep, fine; that's your pet. Don't start imposing your views, your thoughts, on the businesses in the farming sector. They have businesses for their own livelihoods and income.

It is a bit rich for the Greens, who pushed for the so-called protection of animals at almost any cost, to try to tell these farmers what is right and wrong when they have never walked a mile in their boots. The consequences of this vegan terrorism, by a group that is otherwise seemingly not making any true contribution to society, can be financially damaging, harmful to livestock and, in cases, has created great fear among family members. Thank God that there has been no loss of life at any time as a result of these illegal actions.

I'd like to reiterate something Senator Roberts said earlier today. Our farmers are valuable, not only to their local communities but also to their state, to Australia and to the global market. This bill provides an added protection to help them get on with the challenging job of growing food to help meet the growing demands of our population. Larissa Waters from the Greens calls them heroes. These people are breaking the law. Are the heroes the protesters on the streets of Brisbane who glue themselves to the roads and can't be removed? Those people are disrupting the lives of people getting to work. Protests happen at the ballot box or protests can happen in areas of parks that don't disrupt ordinary Australians trying to get on with their lives. They are not heroes. To actually call them heroes is disgraceful. The true heroes are the people who fought for this nation in battle to give us freedom and what we have today. I think it's absolutely disgusting that Senator Waters calls them heroes. They're not in my eyes and those of many Australians.

We have laws in this country. I hear the complaints about the sentences that are given to them. They are breaking the law. They say the sentence given to someone who commits a crime against an animal is up to two years. These are people who are going out purely to incite violence and to trespass on other people's property. They are putting out maps of where they live. What about the Privacy Act? It is pure terrorism to incite violence. That is worse than doing cruelty. I'm not saying it is worse—I retract that; it is not worse than cruelty to any animal. No animal deserves cruelty by anyone, but the fact is that I totally disagree with saying that these sentences are too strenuous. They meet the circumstances.

We are here debating this on the floor of parliament—we are changing this legislation—because the courts have not dealt with it with strong enough sentences. The lenient judges are too gutless to hand down decent fines or imprisonment to stop this from happening and to stop the impact it's having on our farming families and those who are trying to do right. As I've said, businesses have shut down and jobs have been lost, and if that deserves this sort of action by the parliament and responsible government then so be it. But don't dare stand up and call them heroes in this parliament, because I will not accept that and neither will other Australians. I will be fully supporting this bill and I thank the government for bringing this forward. At least someone's trying to do something about it. These protesters have to realise that they can't just go out there and shut down businesses and destroy people's lives at their own whim because it doesn't suit them that animals are used in the food chain. That's what it's all about at the end of the day.