Government shouldn’t divide people by identity: Vote NO

Chamber: Senate on 20/03/2023
Item: BILLS – Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2022 – Second Reading
Speaker: Rennick, Sen Gerard

Senator RENNICK (Queensland) (18:55): I can’t believe that in the year of 2023, in the month of March, I am standing up here tonight to have to speak about the integrity of our democracy. It is just beggar’s belief. But, then again, that is the type of government that we have in power at the moment. It isn’t interested in representing the rights of all individuals. No, what they want to do is divide the population by race, and they want to be sneaky about how they go about it. They’re not going to conduct this referendum by normal rules. No, as usual they’ve got to hide and basically have no transparency and no accountability. This is the recurring theme of my time in government and Labor’s time in government: with the bureaucrats, they never want to disclose anything. It is secret after secret after secret.

What is this referendum all about? It is designed to give a class of people a voice that they already have. We have a voice in this country. It’s called the ballot box. It is the fundamental bulwark of Western democracies. It has made many countries prosperous, based on the fact that every individual gets a say. What have we got over on the other side of the chamber? Are they interested in wanting to preserve the rights of every individual, the dignity and worth of every individual? Do they want to empower the individual? No, they do not.

The other side of the chamber is interested in one thing and one thing only. That is command and control. They do that through three means. Number one, of course, is Marxism itself. That is where they to want to divide the world by race, by gender, by whatever you can think of. It is always us against them. Instead of just coming out and saying that there is only one race, the human race, and that we should all work together for the betterment of our children—no, that is not what the other side of the chamber are interested in. They are only interested in division, so that they can distract us with superfluous issues like the Voice at a time when we have much more pressing issues, like the cost of living.

We have Australians who can’t find houses—can’t buy a house or rent a house. We have other Australians who are in mortgage stress because we have an out-of-control RBA that has no idea about monetary policy. We have got people still locked down who can’t get work because of COVID mandates, and here we are wasting time on a Monday about a bill that is designed to undermine the very essence of democracy itself.

We’ve already got a National Indigenous Australians Agency that has over $2 billion a year that is spent through it. It employs people that cost up to $300 million a year. So tell me this: what is it that this agency can’t do that a change to the Constitution will? Why do those opposite actually want to change the Constitution? Heaven forbid that this ever gets into the hands of an activist High Court Judge. We well remember the impacts of the 1983 Franklin dam decision, where a High Court judge undermined the Constitution. I’m not talking about saving the environment; I’m talking about how the court ruled that foreign treaties could override powers of the state government. That was an attack on democracy itself.

This is an administration issue. By all means, let’s close the gap; let’s provide essential services. I touched on it in my maiden speech. You hear me talk ad nauseam about improving essential services, building infrastructure—dams, power stations, roads, rail, ports, airports and telecommunications—especially for those people in the regions. That is what the role of government is. It is to build things and to serve people. It is not the role of government to regulate people to within an inch of their lives, and it is most certainly not role of government to try to divide people on any identity or every identity you can think of. That is what this referendum is all about, and that is why Labor is being so sneaky—very, very, very sneaky.

If you look at the Constitution, you will see we already have a section—section 51(xxvi)—that says government has powers with respect to making laws on race. So, yet again, I ask the chamber and I ask those on the other side: why are we wasting millions of dollars on a referendum when we need to be focused on those things that matter? We need to be focused on providing essential services to all people, regardless of race. Let’s focus on building hospitals, building schools and providing better water supply or better transport or whatever it takes to lift the standard of living in all regions of Australia. That is what we should be focused on.

Instead, all day today, we have been winding ourselves up like the Tasmanian devil, in a spin over the rules of this referendum, which is basically dealing with something that shouldn’t even come into it. I note the questioning of my colleague Senator Antic in estimates, where he asked what the definition of an Aboriginal was. Of course, he got the usual reply; somehow, in asking a very simple question, fundamental to this referendum, he was accused of being a racist. And that is what we’re up against here. This side of the chamber wants to deal in facts. It wants to deal in the output of deliverables—real services that make a difference to people in their everyday lives.

People don’t go around the world looking at people through the lens of race. We’re way past that. This is Australia. We’re a proud multicultural nation, brought together by wrongdoings, whatever, in the past. We’ve all come from—

Senator Pratt: Then then why won’t you recognise Aboriginal culture and have a voice to parliament?

Senator RENNICK: I’ll take that interjection, thanks, Senator Pratt. It’s good to know that you don’t think Australia’s a multicultural country. But we have all come from persecutions. I’ve got Irish ancestry. The maternal side of my family came from the potato famine in 1851. My great, great, great grandfather—however many ‘greats’ I’ve got to say—was picked up on the streets of Dublin in 1826 and sent out here to build Paramatta Road. But, apart from paying out on my Pommy mates in the pub, do I go on about? No. The point is that a rising tide will lift all boats. The best thing that we should be striving for is prosperity and unity, not division and poverty, which is what identity politics will give us, because poverty will distract us from those things that really matter, like family, and respect for the dignity and worth of every individual, regardless of their background, their race, their gender or whatever, because it doesn’t matter. It is none of our business as politicians. As politicians and as bureaucrats we need to get out of people’s lives. People are sick and tired of the government telling them what to do and regulating them or, on the other hand, being fear merchants about things like COVID, climate change, the race division—fear and loathing.

This stuff has to stop. This stuff has to stop, and we need to get on as one country, as one race, and work together to provide better services. We have an enormous number of bureaucrats involved in providing services to Aboriginals and their communities, so why can’t they close the gap? That is the question to ask. What is it that we have to do to close the gap in regional Australia, in whatever community that may be, and across the entire nation? What we should be striving to do in this chamber when we make laws is to actually lift all the boats of all the people by providing services to the Australian people.

I can tell you we won’t be doing that this year while we’re wasting time debating the intricacies of a referendum that is designed to permanently divide this country along the lines of race. It is abhorrent. It is completely abhorrent that, in the 21st century, this Labor government has sought to bring about a referendum to undo the work of the great 1966 referendum brought about by the Liberal Party. The Labor Party is trying to tear a wedge in this country, and it is completely wrong. They’re playing games.

I read today, for example, that the Australian Electoral Commission is now mandatorily signing up people to the electoral roll without even informing them. If that report in the Australian is true—it came up this afternoon—that is alarming. That has got red flags for electoral fraud. I’m not sure if that’s a part of this bill, but you don’t just go around signing up people; they have to sign themselves up. Let’s face it; what government agency hasn’t made a stuff-up when it comes to managing databases? It’s signing people up without their consent, without their knowledge. There are shades of compulsory superannuation here, where Keating ripped out—it started off at two per cent, but it’s gone to 12 per cent of people’s wages. There was never a referendum there. There are shades of the COVID mandate, forcing an untested jab into people’s arms. Now we’re going to sign people up to the electoral roll without them even knowing it. This just smacks of control and division.

Of course, this is what we have come to expect from those on the other side of the chamber, who aren’t interested in peace and prosperity and unity. No, no, no. These people want to control you by fear and loathing and division. That’s the modus operandi of the Australian Labor Party, backed by their mates in the Greens party—basically a watermelon party: Greens one day, Marxist the next, green/red. It’s very, very scary. Let me tell you that this side of the chamber isn’t going to allow our country to be divided by race, or fear and loathing.

Senator Shoebridge: You’ve had seven conspiracy theories in one speech.

Senator RENNICK: I’ll take that interjection. Thank you very much, Senator Shoebridge. As you can see, they won’t even tolerate a different type of opinion. For those of you who can’t hear him on the audio, Senator Shoebridge is over there shouting at me. That is typical of the Greens. They always try and shut down a different opinion.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Rennick, resume your seat. Senator Shoebridge, what is your point of order?

Senator Shoebridge: Surely it’s contrary to the standing orders to have seven separate conspiracy theories in one speech, which is what Senator Rennick has had.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: That is not a point of order. Resume your seat.

Senator RENNICK: Of course, what we saw there was the same old modus operandi, in saying this is a conspiracy theory. That’s what these people do. They attack you. They have to make personal attacks all the time. This is the Greens, and this is the element of wokeness. This is what the essence of wokeness is, which is that feelings matter more than facts. Let me tell you that the world and Western society originally—it’s been the basis of our prosperity—was built on empirical science, not on feelings. It was built by empirical science underpinned by mathematics. That is what we should be focusing on as a government in delivering engineering projects that are going to improve the prosperity of this country.