Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I support the Farm Household Support Amendment (Relief Measures) Bill (No. 1) 2020. The reform to make the farm household allowance a flat rate paid on current income helps to reduce the regulatory burden on farmers, who already work long hours for decreasing rewards. These income audits were a massive distraction, so this is a good move from the government—a welcome move. The extension of time for conducting an assessment helps farmers involve their accountants or bookkeepers in a process that was previously an ordeal.

My concern, in light of current events, is that COVID-19 assistance is targeted at urban and not rural areas. Our farmers have come through the worst drought in 100 years, and the drought may or may not be ending. What we do know is that the rivers are full but the dams are empty. Farmers are watching this bounty of water running down rivers and out to sea. General security water licence holders are still on zero allocation. They have no confidence that irrigation licences will be honoured. If international trade is being disrupted, we need to grow food. We need to allow more water to be taken for irrigation. The environment has had a drink—a bellyful—from recent rains. It's now the farmers' turn. What good is farm assistance if farmers go broke because we took too much water for the environment and not enough for food and fibre?

And I'd like to talk about the productive capacity of our country, especially the rural productive capacity. We have destroyed it in the past 20 years. Farmers have had their ability—their right—to use the land taken from them, stolen from them, to comply with international agreements, starting with the UN's Kyoto protocol. We need that back and all farmers paid compensation for the loss of their rights.

Secondly, while I've just touched on water, we need to have investment in water infrastructure to make sure that farmers have that water, because it's essential for food. And we need energy prices to be lowered. We have the world's biggest exports of natural gas and coal, yet we have amongst the highest prices of electricity in this country. We have farmers who are not able to irrigate because they can't afford the electricity to pump water—in a country that's blessed with energy. What is going on? We have to restore the productive capacity of our country, which means getting back to sensible energy policies so that we once again have the lowest prices in the world and the best policies. We now have the worst. Restoring the productive capacity will also involve other sectors, including education. But it starts with land use—the right to use the land that farmers have bought—and then there's the right to access water at sensible prices, free of corruption, and the right to electricity at reasonable prices.

I also want to talk about one other aspect, and that is that we have fallen for the globalist trap of interdependence. But that is really dependence, because when we're interdependent with someone else, around the globe, and they shut down, we're suddenly dependent on them. Australia has abundant minerals, abundant energy and abundant agricultural resources. We're not using these resources. Australia has enormous potential with its people, with its resources and with its opportunities, and we need to rekindle these and get back to putting Australia first—no more interdependence, because that is simply dependence. We need to become independent, as we were. When we were independent, we thrived. When we restore our independence we will restore our economic resilience and we'll also restore our productive capacity. So we compliment the government on this initiative, but we need to go much, much further to restore the productive capacity and economic resilience of our country.