Mr PITT: In September I will have been in this place for a decade. In that time I’ve seen a lot of things, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a worse or poorer decision than the one taken by the Labor Party this morning to abandon the low-level radioactive waste facility in Kimba, South Australia. It is an absolute disgrace.

Mr PITT: The big survey numbers are coming in, and my staff are working hard to do that data entry. There have been 2½ thousand responses so far. What is the true voice of the people saying?

Mr PITT: I have here correspondence from one my constituents, Dr Adrian Frick, a dentist in my electorate, the son of a cane farmer, to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. It’s with regard to Mr Frick’s survival of a massive heart attack on 8 March 2022. I seek leave to table this correspondence.

Mr PITT: Last week I attended the opening and the dedication of a new college chapel at Xavier Catholic College at Hervey Bay. This was an incredible story, to be frank, and congratulations to the principal, Simon Dash, and all of the people who worked on this project.

Mr PITT: Yesterday was pollie Sunday, as it’s known colloquially amongst those of us who travel a lot. Arrive at Canberra Airport—check. Down the escalator—check. Temperature falling—check. Press gallery on the floor—check. I wandered past that erstwhile reporter Nicole Hegarty, formerly from ABC Wide Bay.

Mr PITT: The first point I’d make is this: the biggest cashless debit card trial site in this country was my electorate. One of the reason we put that trial in place was that we have multigenerational welfare-dependant people in their thousands.

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
So said Nelson Mandela. His message is one of perseverance. If you’re a conservative, someone who fights the socialist agenda, an individual who truly believes in our democracy, who thinks you advance through the sweat of your own brow, not through a reliance on handouts from the state, then it’s a message you should hold dear to your hearts.

Mr PITT (Hinkler) (19:50): Is there any other greater indicator of the hopelessness of this Labor government, of how its ideology overrules common sense, and of how it is directed by the socialist alliance, the left, than the cancellation of the cashless debit card in the mandatory trial sites around this country?

Mr PITT: There’s a big game on this week. It’s Queensland versus New South Wales on Wednesday night. But it’s not the biggest game in town. The big game is at 6.50 pm tonight at the Brothers Social Touch Football Club, where we’ll see the McHugh Steel team—my team—take on Livingstone Low Electrical in the over-35s grand final.

Mr PITT: This bill is about paying landholders and farmers to produce koalas and not cattle, to produce possums and not protein, and I think these are some of the fundamental challenges about this proposal that every Australian should be concerned about.