- Servant to the people of Queensland and Australia,
this is One Nation's address in reply
to the Governor-General's opening speech
for the 47th Parliament,
a speech on behalf of his government.
The reviews on social media were underwhelming.
Everyday Australians struggling with cost of living
were looking to the government for a real plan
to bring inflation under control.
None was forthcoming. No plan.
The truth is we have a new government
that has a long list of sponsors that it needs to placate.
Everyday Australians, sadly,
are not on the government's list.
One Nation is ready with bold nation-building ideas
to deliver breadwinner jobs, lower inflation,
and energy security.
So let me start where all good governments should start,
with the people.
If everyday Australians today
feel like they're working harder and going backwards,
it's because people are.
This month's Treasury financial data shows
that the share of our GDP going to people,
that's wages and salaries,
is at an all-time low.
Yet the percentage going to corporate profits
is at an all-time high.
Over the last 30 years,
education, healthcare, and housing have increased 300%,
far outstripping wages growth.
Next, One Nation continues to pursue our commitment
to workers' rights across the course of this Parliament.
Today we re-introduced
our Fair Work Amendment Equal Pay for Equal Work Bill 2022.
This bill ensures casuals on labour hire contracts
in industries that do not have provision
for casual employment
receive the same pay as the full-time worker
alongside doing the same job.
Our bill covers black coal, airline crew, and stevedoring.
In anticipation of any future exploitation of workers,
the bill is worded to allow additional awards to be added.
Next, energy.
It's unbelievable that a nation
as resource rich as Australia
has plunged its people into an energy crisis.
Our governments should be able to guarantee
affordable and reliable energy,
yet in 2022, state and federal governments are failing.
I remind the Senate,
Australia has enough coal and uranium reserves
to last hundreds of years,
yet we have the highest electricity prices in the world.
The highest in the world.
We're the world's largest exporters of energy.
Number one in gas, number two in coal.
Yet due to government subsidies
for unreliable wind and solar,
we have the world's highest domestic prices
of gas and electricity.
Australian families bear the cost
of the unreliable wind and solar fairytales
with our living standards declining
and electricity bills climbing.
The inefficiencies and consequences
of unreliable and expensive wind and solar
are breathtaking, devastating,
and totally unchecked against reality.
Small and medium businesses
are struggling to keep the doors open
in the face of frightening electricity bills
causing supply chain inflation.
Large corporations with dominant market power
are able to simply pass on higher energy prices.
Small businesses are not.
Small business employs 4.7 million Australians
who are struggling
because their employers are struggling.
This government has signalled their intention
to use unreliable wind and solar
to lead an attack on the living standards
of everyday Australians.
Or more accurately,
unreliable, unstable, unscientific electricity.
Let me break it down for you.
It's simply impossible
to build the volume of wind and solar and batteries needed
to meet the 2030 deadline.
Wind and solar constructed so far in Australia
operate at just 23% of rated capacity
because relying on nature's variability
gets you just 23%, not 100%.
To meet the Prime Minister's 43% target,
for every one megawatt
of reliable baseload coal power that's shut down,
Australia will need to build 4.3 megawatts
of unreliable wind and solar power.
For example, replacing the 2,000-megawatt
Liddell coal-fired power station
will require 8,600 megawatts
of wind or solar.
Even this will only deliver power reliably
if matched with a big battery having a similar capacity.
Absurd.
To build the volume
of unreliable wind and solar and batteries needed by 2030
is simply impossible.
So the 2030 carbon dioxide reduction target of 43%
is not a target for the construction
of unreliable wind and solar electricity generation.
We know that's impossible.
Rather, it's a sneaky target for reducing electricity usage.
In 2010, Australia's electricity consumption
was 213 terawatts.
It's already fallen in 2021 to 188 terawatts,
11% decrease,
despite Australia's population growing
from 22 million to 26 million,
almost a 24% increase.
At 10,071 kilowatt hours per capita,
Australia ranks 14th
in per capita electricity consumption.
Now, it's a legitimate argument
to say that Australia should reduce
our electricity consumption further
only once the rest of the world reduces theirs.
Anyway, why should we reduce electricity consumption?
High prices are not an unintended
or transitional outcome of unreliable energy.
High prices are designed
to deliberately reduce electricity consumption.
That's why Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
has already abandoned his campaign promise
to cut electricity bills.
That was never real.
It was hollow tokenism. A deliberate lie.
Parliamentarians, corporate leaders,
and their media mouthpiece in protected ivory towers
live in a parallel reality
where cost of living price hikes like fuel and electricity
are a mild inconvenience,
not the bloody difference between eating dinner
or staying warm
that confronts many people in Australia today.
Destroying baseload power with reckless abandon
is hurting the people who must make the choice
between food and warmth.
Where's the humanity in that?
Where is the care?
The fairytale climate contradictions
making electricity production dependent
on nature's variable wind and solar is a nightmare.
There's no happy ending.
Increasing numbers of businesses are failing,
jobs are vanishing,
families are being torn apart,
and communities, especially regional centres,
are being destroyed.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows
that there are currently 24,000 people directly employed
in unreliable energy.
To contend that these same unreliables
will cause an increase in jobs of 600,000
is the lie of the century.
It will never happen.
Indeed, the reverse will be true
because studies overseas show
that for every unreliable wind and solar job,
there are 2.2 jobs lost in the real economy.
They are facts.
One only has to understand
the inherent inefficiency of wind and solar
and the low energy density to understand,
and their high consumption of resources in being built.
That is basic.
Baseload power, though, and jobs go hand in hand.
The Prime Minister and the Labour Party,
after nine years in opposition,
have admitted they have no idea
how to create jobs for everyday Australians.
Instead, the Prime Minister will host
a stage-managed talkfest on job creation.
Why?
Where's his plan we heard so much about before the election?
The Albanese plan is revealed to be a plan
to ask other people what the plan should be.
One Nation, though, does know how to create jobs.
Get back to basics.
Today, the biggest cost in manufacturing is electricity,
not the cost of employing workers,
not the labour cost.
High energy prices have destroyed jobs,
and with that, gutted workers' power.
And what drives wages?
Supply and demand drives wages.
Australia has significant reserves
of iron ore, bauxite, copper, and rare earths,
yet we import our electronics, our whitegoods,
our finished products made from these same materials.
If Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was serious
about job creation,
he only needs to safeguard our baseload power
through coal and nuclear.
That will bring down energy prices
and supercharge our manufacturing sector.
A One Nation government will do that.
Get back to proven, common-sense basics, fundamentals.
Why has the Albanese government agreed
to increase immigration
when the Prime Minister has admitted to having no idea
how to create the jobs for these people?
High immigration without addressing
jobs, housing, and energy sells out workers.
It sells them short and creates disadvantaged groups.
It's that simple.
So let's turn to infrastructure.
An ambitious infrastructure programme
will deliver the jobs growth needed
to restore workers' rights and restore secure employment.
Real infrastructure,
not the green fairytales that we hear from the government
and the previous government.
One Nation will advocate for:
a national rail circuit;
North West Queensland's CopperString 2.0
high-voltage power transmission;
the Tully-Millstream hydro project; Urannah Dam;
the Bradfield Scheme conditional on the business case;
and many more nation-building projects.
Let's turn to the Reserve Bank.
During COVID, the Reserve Bank admitted
conjuring up $500 billion
using electronic ledger entries
called quantitative easing.
The Reserve Bank's words, electronic journal entries.
We now have, as a result,
the highest inflation since the 1980s.
Quantitative easing is undoubtedly related
to the current spike in inflation.
It's driving it.
Money conjured out of thin air
and spent on recurring expenses
rather than nation building is inflationary.
Both sides of this chamber took the decision
to conjure so much money
and spread it on economic,
and spend it on economic sherbet.
Now we have the Albanese Labour Party,
while in opposition,
was complicit in this economic catastrophe,
so they inherit the consequences of their complicity.
But don't point fingers across the chamber on this.
Work together.
If this Parliament gets it wrong,
everyday Australians will suffer through inflation,
or worse, stagflation, for decades.
And instead of working together
to push Klaus Schwab's World Economic Forum plan
based on United Nations policies,
work together instead for our country.
Klaus Schwab's life by subscription, quote,
is really serfdom.
It's slavery.
Billionaire globalist corporations will own everything,
homes, factories, farms, cars, furniture,
and everyday citizens will rent what they need
if their social credit score allows.
The plan of the Great Reset
is that you will die with nothing.
To pull off this evil plan,
Klaus Schwab's World Economic Forum will need to take more
than just material possessions from Australians.
Senators in this very chamber today
who support the Great Reset
threaten our privacy, freedom, and dignity.
Yes, they're in this senate chamber.
One Nation vehemently opposes the Great Reset,
the Digital Identity Bill,
theft of agricultural land use
forcing farmers off their land,
and all of the Great Reset.
One Nation has a comprehensive plan
to bring our beautiful country
back to sustainable prosperity.
And in the months ahead, we will be rolling that plan out.
Instead of Lib-Lab pushing Klaus Schwab's Great Reset
with the tagline, you will own nothing and be happy,
One Nation advocates the Great Resist.
We stand for a world where individuals and communities
have primacy over predatory globalist billionaires
and their quisling bureaucrats, politicians,
and mouthpiece media.
One Nation accepts the challenge
to provide a better future for everyday Australians.
We have one flag, we are one community,
and we are One Nation.
Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President.