Speeches

Mr PITT: Christmas and the new year are rapidly approaching, and I think it’s an appropriate time to look at the year in review, the challenges that have been overcome and the great things that have happened in the electorate of Hinkler in the last almost-12 months.

Mr PITT: The Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Accountability and Fairness) Bill 2023 is a complex bill, but I’ll be focusing my remarks on the PRRT, the petroleum resource rent tax, deductions cap.

Mr PITT: Just when the Australian people thought electricity prices couldn’t get any worse, along comes the ‘Minister for Energy Secrets’ with a new plan.

Mr PITT: What we see here is an indication of the inability of this Labor government to actually defend the Australian people and their interests. Our job in this place is to act in the interests of the Australian people, not others. It’s their safety and protection.

Mr PITT: I rise to thank Prime Minister Albanese. The Prime Minister came to my patch a couple of weeks ago to open the Bundaberg Brewed Drinks super brewery.

Mr PITT: The previous speaker, Mr Laxale, had quite the jumble of talking points. We’re here talking about national security and keeping Australians safe, but the focus from those opposite is always on the Leader of the Opposition or the shadow Treasurer. How about you just tell us what it is you intend to do? That is what the Australian people want to know.

Mr Pitt: Coming to the MPI: what we know is there a very few tradespeople on that side. The member for Hunter is here,
and I acknowledge that, as he’s a former fitter and turner, there is at least one on that side of the parliament; I’m not sure about the others. I want to use an analogy. When it comes to the cost of living in this country, the people
of Australia are in the iron vice.

Mr PITT: This month is Dyslexia Awareness Month, and 11-year-old George Rowland from
Hervey Bay wrote to me recently about the fact that it is Dyslexia Awareness Month, which is held right through October.

Mr PITT: The horrific events in Israel might seem far removed from Australia, but they are
a stark reminder that terrorism still exists, and our nation, Australia, must remain vigilant.

Mr PITT: Today I rise to acknowledge the passing of Enio Troiani. Enio passed away unexpectedly on 19 August at the age of 64. He was the beloved husband of Marianne and the dearly loved father and father-in-law of Natalie and Tyson, Pia and Chris, and Gabriella and Andrew.

Mr PITT: Water is always a difficult issue. It’s a fraught issue. It’s a complicated issue. The Murray-Darling Basin has always been that way. No matter where you stand, whether you are at a farm here in Australia—whether you’re in Queensland or South Australia or New South Wales—or in fact anywhere around the world, if you want to really narrow this down, the easiest way to think about it is: when you’re talking to a local farmer, they will think that downstream are wasters and upstream are thieves.

Mr PITT: I want to put out an open invitation to Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles: come up to the electorate of Hinkler. Jump in the Uber Air Force One. Bring the Pings, the Titleists and the Callaways.

Mr PITT: I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, a bill for which the coalition has been allowed just over a week to prepare to speak on what are significant changes to fair work legislation. There are hundreds of pages, in fact, adding to the already hundreds of pages which employers in this country have to wade through to try and ensure that they are not making any mistakes, any breaches or any errors when it comes to employment in this country. This bill makes things even more complicated. In fact, 15 minutes is nowhere near enough time to cover all of the elements, so I’ll stick to only a few in the time that’s allotted to me.

Mr PITT: Right across the weekend in Hinkler we saw finals everywhere, in particular at the netball. As a former netball dad I know just how many parents are out with their kids. Those kids were out having a great time playing sport, and they had some wonderful results. It’s also an opportunity for clubs to recognise those individuals who have spent decades assisting, volunteering their time and doing what’s necessary to make sure their club functions and runs well and all the things parents and others do to help out their local community.

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.

Mr PITT: We heard it here, we heard it there, we heard it everywhere in the election campaign. I’m talking about the commitment from the now Prime Minister Albanese for a reduction in power prices of $275. What do we hear now? Nothing, not a whisper, not a whimper, not a peep, not a peekaboo.

Mr PITT: As they say: ‘Grievances? Well, I’ve got a few!’ It’s good to have this opportunity. My first grievance is this: the Albanese government has stopped funding the Stronger Communities Program.

Mr PITT: I rise to give the House an update on a couple of athletes from my patch, and they are both absolute crackers. They’re from different fields.

Mr PITT: In the 2019 election, the Australian people heard all about the bill that Australia couldn’t afford. And they knew it was the wrong bill. They knew they didn’t want that bill. They didn’t want to see that bill. They couldn’t afford that bill.

Mr PITT (Hinkler) (18:21): We’ve seen the third instalment of ‘Jimbo-nomics’ in the most recent budget. We saw the first instalment last October. The second instalment of ‘Jimbo-nomics’, of course, was the treatise that we all saw—some 6,000 words, from memory—that said that the Labor Treasurer is going to change the way that economies works and the way economics works and the way business works.

Mr PITT: I’m very pleased to rise to speak on the Defence Legislation Amendment (Naval Nuclear Propulsion) Bill 2023. Of course the coalition will be supporting this bill; after all, the AUKUS arrangement is a coalition arrangement. It’s an agreement that we struck when in government.