Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026. One Nation is not here to rubberstamp legislation for Labor. We're here to represent the people who have been forgotten, ignored and taken for granted by the two major parties for far too long. Our voters—in fact, your voters—sent all of us here to question and scrutinise legislation that this government is constantly trying to rush through. They are laws that hand more power to Canberra without accountability. We didn't get a copy of the proposed legislation until yesterday. Today we're being asked to consider a bill that gives the Treasurer sweeping new powers to declare exceptional circumstances and then allows the ACCC to grant exemptions from competition law. This is for a crisis that doesn't exist, by the way. We are expected to deal with it in a timeframe that makes genuine scrutiny almost impossible. It is the government of transparency and more tax!

How are we supposed to properly represent our constituents when we have not had a real chance to review this legislation? This is the first and most fundamental problem with this bill. It is being rammed through probably with the help of the votes-for-sale Greens. We have a duty to read legislation; to understand its implications; and to consult with experts, small business, consumers and people actually keep this country running—or have you forgotten about the people you're meant to represent? When the basic process is short-circuited, we can't do our job. If we can't do our job, the people who voted for us are not being represented. It's pretty simple.

This is not an isolated incident. This is typical of the Labor government. You might have heard of them—the government of transparency and more tax. They constantly complain about the Senate not moving fast enough. They lecture us about the need for urgency. They accuse anyone who asks for proper process of getting in the way. They claim we don't support their rubbish legislation. Yet they have done absolutely nothing to cultivate trust with this Senate or with the Australian people. Remember old Mr 'My Word is my Bond'? Trust is not something you demand. It is something you earn, and you are losing the trust of the Australian voters very quickly. This government has done everything possible to destroy what little trust remains. We don't trust them. The Australian people don't trust them, and they have every reason not to.

Look at the budget handed down only this week. Australians were told not once, not twice but over 50 times, allegedly, that there would be no changes to negative gearing. That sounds like Labor. 'There will be no child living in poverty'—blah, blah, blah. Seriously. Australians were told repeatedly that capital gains tax arrangements would not be touched. The Prime Minister himself stood at the dispatch box and said it again and again and again. 'For the 50th time' he said on one occasion. Then, the moment they believed they had the numbers and the political cover—oh, and the little issue of running out of your money—they turned around and slammed through major changes anyway. This is not a change of heart based on new information. This is a deliberate deception. This is not a Robin Hood budget, as it was being sold—you know, 'Take money from the older people who have worked hard and saved and give to the young'. This is a Klaus Schwab budget—'You will own nothing and you will be happy.'

Now they expect us to take them at their word on this bill. If the government genuinely wants support for its legislation, then it needs to start being honest. It needs to start being transparent. It needs to stop treating this parliament and the people of Australia as an inconvenience that gets in the way of its agenda and start treating it as the democratic institution it's supposed to be.

The government says this is necessary because of the current fuel crisis. One Nation understands the pressures on fuel supply and energy prices caused by the complete lack of foresight by this very government. We understand that, in genuine emergencies, there can be a need for rapid coordination between businesses to keep essential goods moving. No-one wants to see fuel shortages or panic buying because the law is too slow to respond. But understanding the problem does not mean we accept any solution the government puts forward, no matter how flawed.

Competition law exists for a reason. It protects consumers from price gouging. It protects small businesses from being squeezed out by larger players who can coordinate their behaviour. It stops anticompetitive conduct from becoming normal. Any law that carves out exemptions from those protections must be treated with extreme caution. This bill gives the Treasurer an extremely broad power to declare exceptional circumstances. Do we really want this bloke to have more power? It is not limited to the current fuel situation. It could be used in a future pandemic, another economic shock or any situation the Treasurer of the day decides qualifies. Once that door is open, the ACCC can grant exemptions that this parliament cannot disallow. The only transparency requirement is that the exemptions be made public within seven days. In some cases, that might be acceptable. In others, it is nowhere near good enough.

Then there is the retrospectivity. The bill is backdated to 1 April 2026. We ask why that particular date was chosen. The Treasurer's office apparently said they wanted sufficient flexibility. That is not a justification. Is this a belated April fools joke? Who knows. That is an admission that they want to cover their tracks or give themselves room to act without proper oversight. Retrospective lawmaking, especially in the area of competition law, should be extremely rare. It should require a clear, specific and compelling reason and maybe some oversight. 'We want flexibility' does not meet that standard.

One Nation has seen this movie before. Governments of both persuasions use any crisis as an excuse to permanently expand their power. They say it's only temporary. They say the safeguards are adequate. Then, when the next crisis comes along, those expanded powers are still there and the safeguards have been quietly weakened even further. We are not prepared to let that happen again without a fight. This bill should be subjected to a full and proper inquiry by the Senate Economics Legislation Committee. That inquiry should examine whether the existing ACCC powers are genuinely inadequate, it should test whether the Treasurer's declaration power is drawn too broadly, it should consider whether the ACCC exemptions should be made disallowable by parliament, it should look closely at the transparency requirements and whether seven days is anywhere near sufficient, it should demand a clear and specific justification for the retrospective start date and it should consider whether stronger sunset clauses and review mechanisms are needed so that these powers do not become permanent.

None of that is unreasonable. None of that is obstruction. It is the basic responsibility of this chamber, the house of review. Cries of urgency do not justify our trusting a government that has repeatedly broken its word to the Australian people. Our constituents did not vote for us so we would roll over every time a minister said that something is urgent. They voted for us because they are sick of being treated with disdain, sick of being ignored, and sick of watching the power of ministers and bureaucrats grow with every passing crisis.

If Labor wants this bill to pass in a form that commands genuine support across the chamber, they know what they need to do: stop the rush; support a proper Senate inquiry; be transparent about why these particular dates and these particular powers have been chosen; and start treating the Senate and the Australian people with the respect they deserve. Until that happens, One Nation will continue to ask the hard questions. We will continue to demand proper scrutiny. And we will continue to stand with the Australian people who sent us here, rather than with a government that seems to believe it can command a trust it has never earned.

It is time for this parliament to start earning their trust again, one honest debate, one proper inquiry and one transparent piece of legislation at a time. You can screech across the chamber as much as you want that we don't vote for your rubbish legislation, but this is exhibit A of our defence.