Colleagues. I was hoping we could do it a bit later on because everybody leaves and you can say whatever you like. That’s very entertaining and very dangerous.
Yesterday Nige gave a speech and he was talking about relationships. I was thinking about that last night. I was thinking, relationships, there’s two things you have to have. You have to be positive. If you are not positive in a relationship it will definitely fall apart and you have to be honest. You have to be completely honest with how things are and how things work.
Today I would like to talk about a number of things. I want to talk about the LNP in Queensland, I want to talk about the West Australian Nationals, I want to talk about ourselves as a party and I want to talk about a 34-year-old Spanish gentleman Hernan Cortes.
Hernan Cortes, 34 years old set off from Cuba. He was going across the Yucatan Peninsula. He wanted to take on Montezuma. He wanted to go in to Mexico City and knock out the Aztec Empire. Hernan took with him 504 soldiers, 100 sailors, 16 horses and 11 ships. That was it. He landed on the Yucatan Peninsula and he wandered up, he wandered up the coastline. He had a battle at a place called Tabasco, it’s a hot place, Tabasco and then he did something very interesting. He was convincing the people that he was with, that this was not going to work in the Central American jungle unless they were completed committed to the purpose. If they weren’t completely committed to the purpose they were all going to die. They were all finished.
So what he did, colleagues, was he burnt the boats. He set fire to the boats and said ‘Now, you are in it for good. This is it, you will not float back to Europe on a cinder. You are either in this or you are not.’ Why do I say this? Today we have delivered a policy document. We have delivered a policy document and we are saying this is it. There is no going back. You are not going to float back and live on a twilight zone and live on a cinder. If you want this party to grow, if you want to survive, then we have to do one thing. We have a leader, we have Warren and we are going to get behind him and follow this right through to the election. This is it and we are going to actually stand up for what we believe. For regional Australia. This can not be just a statement. If it is just a statement we are finished. It has got to be something that is enforced in the way we vote, the way we act in the way we conduct our business.
I am now going to draw the parallel between why this works and I am going to bring two disparate issues and how they are both the same. In Queensland we have burnt the boat. There is no National Party in Queensland and there is no Liberal Party. There is a new party, it is the LNP. That is it. Dispel the illusion that that is not the case. In Queensland there is the LNP and it watches very closely what happens down here. The reason the LNP worked is we have burned the boat. They said there is nowhere to go back to. They said this is it, this is what is going to happen. That is now in train.
In the Northern Territory we have the CLP and people will be part of an organisation down here as long as it is working, as long as it is cutting through. But if it is not cutting through and it is not working they won’t.
So, in Western Australia, they did exactly the same thing, they burnt the boats, they said it is the National Party, we are going to be standing everywhere, we are in this for the long haul, let’s go and they did it. They burnt the boats and they survived. They did exactly the same things and they did it in two separate ways.
It is how you politically survive. If you live as a vague colour, if you live as a shadow of another organisation then you won’t survive. So this is what we have in front of us, we have a challenge we have a challenge laid down for us this is fair dinkum this time. We will be going to an election, don’t know if it will be the end of this year or early next year but we will be there. The Labor Party have loaded the gun not with one double dissolution they have loaded the gun with I think five or six double triggers. So we are off to an election and we have to be ready for it. To go to our constituents and tell them who we are and what we are on about.
And it’s got to be who WE are, and what WE are on about. It must be that.
Let’s look at some of the things that we have talked about so far.
We talked about the ETS. The National Party at a Federal level has been completely consistent on the ETS. It is the Employment Termination Scheme. It is the Extra Tax System and when that metaphor was working and cutting through the Labor Party got cunning and thought they would change it to the CPRS. Well the CP stands for cunning plan to get yourself to a double dissolution and RS stands for what the economy will look like if they ever get there.
This is just another tax. It is a tax that is going to come to you from the power points. Every electrical appliance in your house will have a tax on it. The ironing will be taxed, the vacuuming will be taxed, watching footy on a Sunday will be taxed, turning the lights on will be taxed. Who will they be taxing, working families. Then you’ll want to go shopping and what will happen? All your food will be taxed. If you are sick of it and want go on a plane and go away for the weekend, it’s on aviation fuel, you’ll be taxed. Everything in this new world under Kevin Rudd is taxed. Kevin in the shopping trolley, Kevin at the ironing board, Kevin in the kitchen, Kevin on the plane n the plane, too much Kevin makes me feel very sick.
And what is he going to do this for? Because Kevin is going to change the climate. It is amazing, he is going to make that out there different. He told us so, it must be true. The reality is the ETS Iis not going to change the climate one iota. Not one thing will change in the climate because of this new tax. Metaphorically speaking, the difference Australia will make is the equivalent of the breadth of a hair on the length of about a one kilometre bridge.
It is so infinitesimally small. So ridiculous, so pointless, yet we are putting our economy out to dry.
I was talking to Brad and he said you have got to talk about jobs. If you want to talk about jobs, talk about the ETS. Just the other in Rockhampton, in my state, they are putting off people, working families out on the street because of the CPRS. That’s what Kevin has done for working families.
He’s put them out of a job and we are going forward with this scheme that will bring a 20% reduction in regional economies. We worry about two negative quarters which gives us a recession and they’re probably ¼% and ½%. Yet if we agree to this ETS, we sign our regions up to a 20% reduction in their economy.
There is nobody, nobody who should be supporting that. If we believe in that (pointing to sign Regional Australia), then we do not believe in a new tax to put them out of a job. It is as straightforward as that. It is as straightforward as that. If we confuse that metaphor we are lost.
So this is one of the big issues and the National Party has led the way on this. The National Party has turned people’s views around on this and we are winning. If you listen to talkbacks and look at the polls we are winning. The National Party led, the Australian community is coming in behind and now everybody will start ducking for cover on this one.
We must remain consistent because this is how you politically survive.
This weekend we have also talked about food security. Hoary chestnut issues that always get brought up. We are belling the cat, saying if you keep losing prime agricultural land, if you lose the capacity to put on the table for the Australian people something that is the greatest semblance of their standing of living, that is affordable food. That is one of the greatest things you can deliver to your nation. One of your greatest gifts to your nation is the capacity to feed it and we don’t acknowledge that so often in Australia. We take a steak for granted, we take a roast for granted. We just think it happens.
We just think it is my right, it is my birthright that this be affordable. In other nations you will live on peanuts and salad. You won’t get the sort of food you get in Australia. It is one of the greatest examples of what we are and what is our standard of living.
But slowly it is being whittled away. Slowly whittled away, whittle away. By caveats and imposts and ridiculous taxes where people presume they are going to change the climate from a solo decision in Australia and we must bell the cat and we must bell it not just for people in regional Australia but for the whole of Australia.
Every person in every suburban street wants the capacity to be able pay for what is in that shopping trolley when they take it through the check out and if they can’t do that we have not delivered to them what is one of the basic fundamental things that any government should deliver. It is the National Party that leads this. We have been talking about food security, we have been talking about branding and we have been selling the message back to the suburban street from regional Australia.
It is the National Party that once more goes to the fore. Other people say sorry to indigenous Australia and then promptly forget about them. They go through the rhetoric, oh it’s all marvellous, they say sorry and the rhetoric is marvellous and promptly forget about them. It is the National Party that says let’s follow this agenda through. Let’s pursue this agenda. Let’s bring about the form and the mechanism and change that will bring a better standard of living. We in the National Party talk about zonal taxation as a stimulus to remote regional areas and who lives in those remote regional areas? Indigenous people.
We in the National Party talk about making sure we have sustainable economies and we don’t completely lose all water rights from an areas because if you do you destitute the people in the area and who lives in those disparate areas, indigenous people.
We in the National Party talk about health and making sure it is brought out to all communities and we in the National Party bring the guest speaker to talk about health and we in the National Party work out how we can actually provide those outcomes because we believe in it. We don’t just go through the rhetoric. We follow the issue all the way through. It is in the National Party as well in regional areas we build our constituency as well. Those who wish to destroy us see us only as a party for farmers. My heritage is in farming. My family came off the land but I am an accountant. If I have made any money in my life I have made it as an accountant and I certainly didn’t make it in this job, by the way.
Small business, that is the thing that drives me and smart farmers, guess what they are? They are small businessmen, without a shadow of a doubt. If a farmer doesn’t call himself a businessman then he won’t be in business for very long
We are a party of small business people. Look who represents us, we have got. Bossie, paintbrush salesman, Fiona, she is a farmer, she is the genuine article.
Me I’m an accountant and this is a true representation of who we truly are. Not union officials, not all solicitors, small business people. If you have a look around the room ask this question about the National Party, the penny drops, we have all been in business. That’s why we don’t got through the scripted lines. The great thing about this is, this weekend has been a genuine political forum. The Labor Party conference was the most inert, boring, biscuit of rubbish I have ever watched. It was just inspired insomnia. Then they say that is vibrant political organisation.
They say that is democracy at work. It goes to show you that the immense micro management of Kevin Rudd has gone all the way to the very heart, the very nub of his own people to speak their own mind. His own people can no longer speak their own mind. It has to go past Lachie and the other people in the media unit in the Labor Party and they are great people, they are doing a great job, they have all shut up. There is only one voice in the Labor Party and it is King Kevin.
They all come up with the same lines. Decisive, they love the word decisive, you always hear it, and they trot the lines out and the media and everyone is starting to see through it. It is just this centralist ridiculous process.
Where the Labor Party come apart is on detail and I want to quote to you something that happened just the other week. I asked a question in Question Time.
I said how much foreign debt does our nation have. I actually have the answer, it interest me, I am an accountant, I am boring. I had the answer and I looked to the Assistant Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia as he went backwards and forth and stumbling over and all around and shuffling through papers. As an accountant you would think it would come to you like that (fingers click), this is our foreign debt, this is what it is. We asked the same question the week before so they had a bit of a heads up on it.
So we go around and he comes and he says the foreign debt is $678 bilion dollars. And I go Oh My God we’re broke. He was only out ladies and gentlemen by half a trillion dollars. It is $108.165 billion. He was out, Assistant Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia, by half a trillion dollars and people make mistakes like that when they don’t have a clue. When they haven’t got a clue how the economy is working. How on earth are we going to pay this debt back.
Not one of them has tabled an exit plan. In accountancy, in banking, that’s really important. How are you going to pay this money back Mr and Mrs Jones? How are you going to do it. I will tell you what their plan is. It is on page 6 and 7 of their little orange manifesto which is the second stimulus package. When things get better we will pay the money back. Bingo, that’s simple. I thought I’d try that out on my bank manager. I just want a lazy couple of million and he went what for and I said don’t worry mate because when things get better, I’ll pay then money back.
He called the police. And this is where our nation is. Our Treasurer says our debt will peak out at 315 billion dollars. All this billions, quillions, Brazilians, whatever you want to call them they become just numbers. Let’s put it in a form.
$315 billion and the sub prefecture debt which is the debt of the states which we have underwritten, remember Queensland is broke, NSW is heading broke, they are all A over T. What this means, is that if we put this money in the corner of the room and had a good hard look at it, it is about half a trillion dollars and that matches up with where the forward projections are in the Budget. If we put a cost of funds of 7%, see the rate curve is racing through the roof, there is big upward pressure on interest rates. It is going to happen. So 7% of half a trillion dollars is $35 billion a year just in interest. What’s important is we have never had a surplus of all the states and the federal government combined together that could ever pay our interest bill. Ever. So you ask this question of Treasury, how are we going to pay the interest when we don’t have the money? They are going to borrow the money to pay the interest. Borrow the money, that is economic palliative care. This is when you get another credit card to pay off the one you’ve got. Now this is the reality of Australia. This is the reality of our nation now and unfortunately this is where we are heading to this position. Everybody is saying this debt is terrible but it has not affected them yet. But you will get to a point where there is no money and then you’ve got a problem because who pays for the doctor in the hospital, who pays for the nurse in the hospital, who pays for the train driver in the train, who pays for the defence force who pays for the roads, who pays for your subsidised cancer treatment under the PBS. Who pays for this? The public purse but there is no access to more money in the public purse so it stops.
And if you think that doesn’t happen, have a look at a little state in the United States called California. This is what happens. They don’t get tax refunds any more they get IOUs. Serious, this is where it is off to.
That’s what happens when a nation goes broke. That’s the reality. That’s the reality for all of us. That is the message if Mr Rudd wants to pull on an election we will be taking to him and we will be saying the only lunatic in the western world who has a plan to make it worse Kevin is you with your ETS. You are the only one who has come up with a great way to make a the worst situation undoubtedly worse.
To put an overhead on every production site on our economy where the people who pay are the coalminers, the farmers, the graziers, the working families, the pensioners, every person who actually produces something has to pay the tax and who benefits? A very select group of people called share brokers in Sydney. They make money out of this. Big money, the banks love it. Banks get the churn on the tradable product. They get the one and a half per cent commission each time it goes through. $11 billion worth of permits the first year. $11 billion times what? $165 million. $165 million churn it three times, what’s that $495 million, that’s half a billion. It’s a great little earner, It’s a great little earner all I’ve got to do as a banker is say I am very concerned about the climate. I am very concerned that we are about to make an absolute bucket load of money. That’s what I am concerned about. But we will bell the cat to make sure it doesn’t happen and we will go into bat.
Then people say oh you are a climate sceptic. How do you get around this debate? I am not sceptical about climate at all. I walk round in it every day. I breathe it, I know it is there. What we can do if we are serious, if we really want to move ahead on the agenda is we start asking ourselves some very serious questions about how we do things.
One of the agendas we must start looking at is nuclear power. We must be serious about it. We have to start asking the question, do we live in 1954? Paul Howes from the AWU is out saying this is ridiculous it is time to move on.
Well we should be saying this as well. We export this product all around the world, we obviously think it is philosophically correct to export it to everybody but we don’t believe we should use it ourselves.
Then you have the query that everyone will put up well do you want one in your backyard? That’s the ultimate payback, but do you want one in your backyard? Well I bet we can devise a plan so that I do. You give me my power at half price I’ll take one. I’ll take one tomorrow and if gave every council in Australia the right to have a referendum to ask if you want one we’ll give you your power at half price, that is your choice. And then just let the Australian people make the decision. That would be a nice way to go about doing business. Let the Australian people make the decision about whether they want to do it.
This is what we have to do if we really want to think around the corners. If we really want to reduce carbon emissions then these are the issues you are going to have to do. If we just run around thinking that we are going to stack the world up with windmills and solar panels that are going to cover half of Victoria, well that is a noble gesture. You could put it at the side but don’t rely on that as a baseload power source. And if we lose our baseload power source we lose the whole mechanism of one of the greatest efficiencies Australia has. Cheap power.
These are the issues which the National Party can be at the fore at.
We talk about the issues and we do lead, we have led on things. We have led on the ETS, we are leading on food security, we are leading on indigenous issues, we have talked about the way we can go through in the future.
We have the capacity, we have made the commitment now that we are for regional Australia. That is it, we have burnt the boats, there is no going back. This is it, there is nowhere to go back to, we have made the commitment now that we are either going to differentiate ourselves as a unit, we can do that within the Coalition, there is absolutely no reason at all we can’t.
If Western Australia can work as a perfectly good government then so can we, so it is all in front of us, but if we want to back down to the beach, and if we want to back down and if we want to stick those pieces of charcoal back together again, and then vainly swim out into the ocean, hoping that we will survive, we won’t only be letting ourselves down we will be letting this nation down. This nation needs us as a conservative force in Canberra.
This nation needs that capacity to have that other person to talk to. This nation needs the capacity to have a National Party that is there, that can bell the cat and move the agenda. Without this National Party, the whole of this nation will be run out of two offices. It will be run out of the Leader of the Opposition and Mr Kevin Rudd’s office and that will be it.
I see my nation as a far stronger place, as a far better place, I see my nation as a far more vibrant place. We have a duty to our nation, we have set our course this weekend, I look forward to being part of that course and we will make it to our ultimate goal and we will win.
Thank you very much and God bless you.