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

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak on cancel culture. Australian politics is facing a crossroads regarding the climate of cancel culture. As a nation do we believe in robust political debate or are we going to act like Xi Jinping and start squashing and silencing opponents of the so-called progressive age? We appear to be lurching towards the Beijing approach, giving into pettiness, small-mindedness and pathetic displays of insincere partisan politics.

A visa delay on the part of we don't know who ended plans for a speaking tour by the son of former US President Trump. Perhaps I should say the next US President Trump? Functions and interviews were booked in several capital cities. I'm pleased to say these speaking engagements have been rescheduled and new dates are being announced for later this year.

Turning Point invited Donald Trump Jr, alongside UK political phenomenon Nigel Farage, to tour Australia. Nigel Farage has had his own brush with cancel culture. Coutts Bank cancelled his bank accounts for no other reason than they didn't like his politics and said so. This isn't speculation. The scandal this caused in the UK has brought down Peter Flavel, CEO of Coutts, and NatWest Group chief executive Alison Rose. Debanking has been a practice in Australia for many years with political opponents of our COVID response, HEMP, and retailers being debanked, along with competitors of the banks. I imagine that Turning Point are in someone's crosshairs right now for bringing Donald Trump Jr to Australia and challenging the status quo.

Yet, as a nation, we should celebrate political diversity brought about by some of the biggest names in international politics. It's a chance for friend and foe to compete in that once-great Westminster practice of debate. Far from being excited by the prospect of testing their ideas, the Left have lifted the drawbridge and filled Australia's moats with spikes. A bedwetter petition frequented by 17,000 sensorial complainers demanded that Donald Trump Jr be banned from entering our country. Their argument was long on smear and short on fact. The petition read:

Donald Trump Jr is an illegal drug-taking bigoted person who should not be allowed to enter Australia for the purpose of earning himself and possibly his father any "Campaign Contributions"—

before demanding he be banned. When I read this for the first time, I thought they were talking about the son of the current president, Hunter Biden, but, no. The Left project onto others what they are incapable of seeing in themselves. Some of those signing the petition hilariously and hypocritically shouted, 'We don't need no more fascists here!'

Powers given to the Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O'Neil, date from the postwar period, when there may have been legitimate reasons for denying people visas on national security grounds. But the postwar period is a long way behind us and those powers are now being used for political purposes, not national security. The discretion part of these powers rests on the deliberately vague idea of failing a character test, although those who penned the legislation were probably not envisaging its abuse in recent decades by various governments. I feel certain that, had they possessed a crystal ball, the drafters of this legislation may have added a few warnings and restrictions on its use to ensure it did not become a tool for bullying and political heckling.

As he is the son of former president Donald Trump of the US, a nation that serves as one of Australia's longstanding and vital geopolitical allies, it seems extraordinary that an Australian minister would intervene to prevent his visit, if that is indeed what happened, and then backtrack when more sensible heads intervened—a rare compliment here for the Prime Minister. The powers, which the minister has every legal right to exercise, are meant to be for individuals who are of ill repute or present a danger to the safety of the Australian people. Too often in politics our ideas of safety and danger are taken for granted instead of being put through the rigour of reality. Too often these words relate to feelings and political narratives, not anything of a physical, factual nature. It is easy to see the misuse of this discretionary power when you look at the performance of previous governments who have vetoed the visas of speakers, sports stars and political individuals who are known to hold views against whatever the prevailing dogma of the day is.

Or is the government planning to go start cracking down on free speech in the media? The new censorship bill, which the public are calling 'the ministry of truth bill', put forward by Prime Minister Albanese, suggests that this is exactly what they are planning. The media do not like the former US president Trump, mostly because he did a good job of shaking the nest and exposing the media class for not only its extraordinary bias towards the Left but its general hopelessness when it comes to investigative reporting. Everything the Australian newspaper, for example, just criticised Trump for has been proven correct. It is the Australian promoting disinformation with that criticism. It's a shame that the Australian is also exempt from the Albanese government's misinformation and disinformation bill.

It was the health autocrats, the chief medical officers and the vaccine salesmen on the public payroll who acted dangerously, recklessly and criminally. Turning on the son of a former president will not save you. Nothing will save you.