ADJOURNMENT
Senator LAMBIE (Tasmania) (20:34): I got pretty angry last week, and, as often happens, it was my electorate office that had to wear the abuse. Thank you, guys, once again for being so stoic as you always are. I received lots of nice calls too, but the nasty calls and emails—oh my God, Australians—they were beyond awful.
They were. They were just absolute un-Australian gutter trash. I don't mind people disagreeing with me.
I'm pretty good at disagreeing with others. It's the level of personal abuse and hatred from One Nation supporters that absolutely blows me away. We know social media can be used as a weapon of mass destruction and also as a fundraising tool.
But calling a veteran a traitor because he responded, as he should, to a subpoena is just plain wrong. Calling Aboriginal people the most primitive people on earth is wrong. Blaming women for domestic violence is wrong.
Saying there are no good Muslims is wrong. When things are wrong, you have to call it out. You have to show courage.
One Nation whips up the anger, and they tell people who to blame. That's the populist trick—blaming immigrants, blaming the vulnerable, making enemies of those who get in their way and pretending to be fighting for working families. It's a trick, Australia, and we've got to wake up to it, because every time a populist leader like Trump or Farage get any power, the lives of working people don't get better; they get worse.
Nigel Farage led the campaign for Britain to leave the EU. Ten years later, two-thirds of English people think it was a mistake. The UK economy is tanking, and British families are facing a cost-of-living crisis.
Their pensioners are going to bed fully clothed and under their blankets because they can't afford to turn on the central heating. Just like in the US, the gap between the rich and poor is surging. Nigel Farage is a millionaire.
Trump told working American families that he would lower the cost of living on day one. He told them he wouldn't get involved in any more 'forever wars'. Then he went to war with Iran, tanking the world's economies in the process and driving up prices for fuel, fertiliser and food.
When Trump first came down his golden escalator, he was worth roughly about $3.5 billion. He's now worth double that and some say much more. Senator Hanson is fond of saying she knows what it's like to struggle for money, but since her election to parliament, she has stacked up a load of investments, with various media reporting that she is worth anywhere between $5 million and $20 mil.
Senator Hanson has been dividing and frightening Australians for years. It's the only thing she's good at. In Donald Trump, she found her political hero.
She said: I think it's fantastic what he's done. … Everyone thinks he's radical … but he goes and follows through. …We have to rely on people like Donald Trump. Rely on Donald Trump—are you serious? Really?
Do we? You know what Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Senator Hanson are great at? They're great at telling people who have nothing that they will fight for them, but they don't care about you.
They care about hanging out with billionaires and feathering their own nests. I know people are doing it tough, but dividing Australians and setting us up against each other is not the answer. Our fuel prices are still going up as a direct result of the forever war Donald Trump promised never to start.
When news of the bombing of Iran hit, Senator Hanson cheered it on and called on the Australian government to send in the ADF. Oh dear! Can you imagine, after 20 years in the Middle East and all the injuries inflicted on our diggers, you'd put them back in another American forever war?
This woman is not only dangerous; she is delusional. In late 2025, Senator Hanson was at Trump's Mar-a-Lago. She told the audience: It's wonderful to be in America with a re-energised, strong, and patriotic leader who has the best interests of his people at heart.
Trump's big message to Americans doing it tough is that immigrants are the problem—just like Nigel Farage in the UK and Senator Hanson in Australia. When Trump ran for election in 2016, the gap between the rich and the poor in America was at record levels. But the gap between rich and poor has only got worse.
In his second term, one per cent of America's wealthiest people have over 30 per cent of its wealth. Trump's one big beautiful bill, as he called it, gave the wealthiest Americans a big tax cut and cut health care and supports for millions of Americans who needed it. It's not only the working poor who have been impacted; the American middle class have too.
Instead of draining the swamp, he stacked his administration with his mates. His family members are on boards of companies that just happen to pick up massive government contracts. Something is terribly wrong there.
Meanwhile, Americans have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs from their government departments. Families have lost food stamps and health coverage. Trump calls journalists the 'enemy of the people'.
Not only does he ban them; he puts his people in powerful positions to intimidate them. He gave Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, free rein to sack and strip out experts in US government institutions, sacking hundreds of thousands of Americans and making the cost-of-living crisis in America even worse. We have our own cost-of-living crisis.
Australians have a right to be angry. Too many families are going backwards, no matter how hard they work. But Senator Hanson will be fine in her retirement, as will Nigel Farage and President Trump in theirs, because, once again, they are all feathering their own nests.
I'm angry too, but playing the blame game isn't going to make us a wealthier, stronger or smarter country. We need changes in policy. We need changes in law.
That requires work, and it means you have to come up with policies that help the poorest, inspire the smartest and tell our kids, 'You can dream big, because we have your back.' Governments of both stripes ignored our housing shortage for years. That's where the problem lies. That's where it is.
They don't properly fund our rural and regional areas. They let gas companies sell off our gas tax free. Social media platforms make billions out of Australians and then hide their profits overseas.
There's a truckload of work to be done, but we don't have to follow in the failing footsteps of Trump or Farage. Don't go there. Australians can choose not to follow the ugly politics of populism.
We can do so much better. Do you know why? It's because we are so much bloody better.
And it's not about right or left; it's about respect and it's about finding solutions, not operating from a place of fear. It doesn't matter what side you're on.