MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Mr JOYCE (New England) (16:24): I'd like to go back a little bit. I'm going to go all the way back to the Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BCE. During the Peloponnesian War, there was an Athenian general of the Delian League, Thucydides.
Thucydides was up against the Peloponnesian League. Athens was on the rise and Sparta was on the fall. Why would I quote that?
Now I want to go to today. Today there is a meeting between President Xi and President Trump. The person who quoted Thucydides and the Thucydides Trap was President Xi.
Why? It's because he sees that China is on the rise and the United States is on the fall. The concern is that the falling power pushes back and there's a war.
Why is that important to us? We have to become as powerful as possible as quickly as possible. I've been saying that now in this place for well over a decade.
To become powerful, we must strengthen the natural assets on our balance sheet. These are the assets that actually underpin wealth and underpin growth, and they are in regional Australia. If you want to understand where our wealth is, then consider our terms of trade.
Everything about you—your shirt, your watch, your car, your fuel, your underpants, your television set—is coming on a boat from overseas. Somebody somewhere must be sending something in the other direction to pay for it. What goes on a boat in the other direction so that thing in your pocket is not just a piece of polymer but has value?
It's coal from regional areas. It's iron ore from regional areas. It's gas, overwhelmingly from regional areas.
It's cotton. It's beef. It's grain.
It's wool. This is what underpins the wealth of Australia. If you do not realise that, if you do not comprehend that, then you have no idea about the economics of Australia.
I want to go to the budget. In the budget I looked for a thing called the Tomago smelter. I really did.
It's about to close. There's no money to prop up the Tomago smelter—none. That's going to be a big issue for about 12,000 people whose jobs are associated with the Tomago smelter.
So I'm just going to say to the members for Paterson, Newcastle, Hunter and Shortland: there is a party called One Nation, and we are going to be playing incredibly hard in that space. We are coming to eat your lunch. Government members interjecting— Mr JOYCE: They're talking now!
I've got their ears now, oh yes. I'm looking forward to it. I kind of know how to do this job.
I've had a little bit of practice. You saw it the other week. I'm only warming up.
Government members interjecting— Mr JOYCE: Oh no, I'm coming. You won't be laughing so much when I turn up in your electorate, mate. So now we have to see how we can actually build up this balance sheet.
There is nothing in this budget for dams. They took away the money for freight rail. They have no idea about substantiating the nation's balance sheet.
They go to the profit and loss and go to expenses and give out cost-of-living measures. They don't know how to generate the wealth on the balance sheet, so they go to the revenue side and put up the taxes to pay for their promises, literally giving money with one hand and ripping it out of the same person's pocket with the other. Let us go to the other thing that's really going to hurt people in regional areas.
As was said earlier, in the town of Woolbrook we have poor people with a very meagre house on five acres. Their house is now up for the Treasurer to take his swing at it. This is a disgrace.
Government members interjecting— Mr JOYCE: You don't know because you don't know what poor people look like. You've never been around them. This is the issue.
I want to say it to people out there: this is the Labor Party that's supposed to understand you. Don't you love it? Might I remind the Labor Party that your vote is around about 30 per cent—you are on ice.
You don't understand them, and that's why you've rubbed their noses in the dirt. You have rubbed their noses in the dirt. You are arrogant without any foresight as to what you're doing to people.
(Time expired)