Senator McGRATH (Queensland—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (13:10): I would like to talk about what happened on 18 May. I think we'd all like to know what happened on 18 May. I think it was a valuable lesson for those who have a lot of arrogance about them in terms of taking the people for granted. Honourable senators interjecting— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Sterle ): Order! Hang on, Senator McGrath. Senators, this is very serious. Senator McGRATH: And I'm not necessarily saying for those opposite; I'm saying for those who take the people for granted, for those who only listen to the shrill, loud voices of Twitter, for those who only listen to the commentariat who write on the pages of Fairfax and for those who do not listen to the quiet Australians—those people who go on with their lives, who have a job, who would like to get a job, who would like to start a business, who would like to just to get on with life and who don't want the heavy hand of government, the heavy hand of unions, the heavy hand of leftist politicians telling them what to do. For those who are still a bit surprised by the result, 18 May was a wake-up call, and I say to my friends on the left of politics, my friends on the other side of the chamber—I use 'friends' in the broadest sense of the word—that you should listen to those quiet Australians. You should listen in terms of not only what they said but what they didn't say, and of why they said that, because 18 May was not just a wake-up call. It was a clarion call to the political class to stop chasing after vested interests, to stop chasing after those who put the interests of radical minority groups before the interests of those quiet Australians who live in the suburbs and drive second-hand cars. Sometimes they might be lucky enough to buy a new car. Sometimes they can only afford a new car when they retire and use that super to buy a new car for the first time in their lives. The quiet Australians aren't flash. They get pretty excited when they get one of those nice, big flat-screen TVs and it goes up on the wall. They're really happy they've got this great, big TV. And you know what? Sometimes they might leave it on stand-by—accidentally—because what they want to do is make sure they can get on with life. They also don't want people to interfere with them. They want to make sure that their kids and their families can have the best, and sometimes— Senator Pratt: I raise a point of order. Mr Acting Deputy President, if you could direct Senator McGrath to come back to the Governor-General's address in the address-in-reply debate, rather than leaving the chamber on stand-by, that would be terrific. Senator McGRATH: Mr Acting Deputy President, I'm clearly relevant to the debate. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Hang on. Settle, tiger. I haven't given you the call yet. On the point of order, Senator McGrath—assuming I'm going to say there is a point of order. Senator McGRATH: I apologise, Mr Acting Deputy President. On the point of order that has been raised by Senator Pratt, I'm clearly relevant to the terms of the debate. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator McGrath. On the point of order, as you know, I can't direct the senators word by word, but I would remind you that we are talking about the parliament's address-in-reply. Senator McGRATH: It's going to be 16 minutes and 49 seconds of pure excitement for those who will be listening to this debate. In terms of the address-in-reply, in terms of what was outlined in the Governor-General's speech and in terms of the broad, massive program that this government has for the betterment of Australia where it came from was from those quiet Australians who live in the suburbs— Opposition senators interjecting— Senator McGRATH: I'll ignore the interjections from the Greens. I think it's sensible life advice for most people to ignore the Greens. Those quiet Australians who live in the suburbs and live in those small country towns, like my parents—my parents who live in a little place called Toogoolawah— Senator Pratt: Where do you live? Senator McGRATH: I'll tell you where I live in a moment actually. My parents live in a little place called Toogoolawah, a little town in the Brisbane Valley. They are some of those people who live in wooden and tin houses. They don't have much money. Their neighbours get on with their lives. They don't want the government and they don't want the left wing telling them what to do. The good Senator has asked where I live. I live in a beautiful place. I live on the Darling Downs— An opposition senator interjecting— Senator McGRATH: I will take that interjection— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Sterle ): You don't have to. Senator McGRATH: All of Queensland is a beautiful place. I cannot choose one part of Queensland over the other, because that would be career limiting for a senator. You should go to the Darling Downs sometime, particularly Warwick. I'm glad you raised the issue of Warwick, Senator. It's very, very sad, though—I was texting my dad before so, 'Hi, Bruce'—in that there has been no rain at home for a while. It is a very sad situation—this is a serious point—that the drought is impacting on Queensland. It has been going on for some time. That's why it's so good that the— An opposition senator interjecting— Senator McGRATH: I'm not letting go now. I got 14 minutes and 43 seconds to go. In this sitting fortnight, we have been able to pass legislation that was foreshadowed in the Governor-General's address in relation to what we can do to help those who are impacted by the drought. We can also assist those with the farm household allowance in terms of the changes that were passed by the Senate yesterday. The drought is an issue that is threatening not just the viability of rural, regional and remote Queensland, it is a natural disaster that will impact upon the entire economy of Australia. We know that when the bush does well that the cities do well. We also know that when the bush does not do well—when that rain does not fall, when that dirt does not become mud and when those crops do not grow and the beasts do not live—the cities will hurt. We are in the midst of a drought that is akin to the one that hit Australia in the seventies. We can talk about the great drought of the 1890s—there's nothing great about it when you think about it. This is the terrible drought of the 2000s. As Senator Scarr, Senator Stoker, Senator Renick and Senator McDonald know—we have almost the full suite of Queensland senators here, and Senator Canavan is no doubt watching me in his office—there are children in Queensland who are yet to feel the magic of rain falling on their heads, because the drought in parts of Queensland has been going for almost eight years— Senator Duniam interjecting— Senator McGRATH: That is a shame, as Senator Duniam says. The government cannot make it rain, but we can help those who are suffering, whether they are on the land or just as importantly in the towns because—this is what people sometimes don't understand—when it becomes dry in the bush the towns also become dry, because it means the graziers and the farmers do not have the money to spend in the shops. They do not have money to spend in the farm supply businesses. When the money is not spent in those towns and villages it becomes this vicious, vicious cycle, because those businesses do not have customers going through their front doors. And if the customers do not go through the front doors it means staff will have to be laid off and that perpetuates the cycle. That is why, sadly—and Senator McDonald in her brilliant maiden speech talked about the ghost towns of Queensland—we are seeing, or have seen, living towns at the moment that are on the verge of dying. This is where the government does have a role—a role to help those towns survive, to help those on the land survive. This is why you go into power. This is why you go into politics. This is why you go into parliament because you want to go in to help people, and you want to help those people who do not have a voice—those quiet people. Some of those who spoke up on May 18 were those quiet Australians who wear the big hats and have those sunburnt faces from spending a lifetime out in the sun. Those quiet farmers and graziers, those who work on the land, spoke up, because they wanted to make sure that they had a government that was on their side. Because, sadly, what the election showed was that some on the left of politics no longer understand rural Queensland and rural Australia. The opposition want to bring in vegetation management laws—and they want to do preference deals with the Greens—and replicate the Queensland Labor Party's vegetation management laws nationally. They thought that was the answer to the drought: to bring in more bureaucracy, to bring in more red tape on farmers, to stop those farmers from getting on and turning Australia into a food bowl—a food bowl for not just us but the rest of the world. With your permission, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, I will make a slight diversion: I was in Hughenden on Saturday in the Flinders Shire. We, the Queensland senators, all know Jane McNamara, a wonderful mayor. There are many wonderful mayors, but you don't want to choose a favourite up in that neck of the woods because the others will lynch you. They're all brilliant mayors, but Jane McNamara, the Flinders Shire Council and a lot of people did a lot of work to bring together an agreement between the shire, the people of the shire and a company to build a meat-processing facility—an abattoir, in plain English—and a feedlot, in Hughenden. This is so important because they want to be able to process some of the finest cattle in Australia in Hughenden and send it direct to China. The emerging middle classes in India and China know that Australian produce, whether it is from cattle, sheep—or even goat, in some cases; if you go out to Charleville people are pretty keen on goat—or our crops, is clean and tastes good. We can value-add to it, as my colleague Senator Scarr, said. That is a good story. That is something that should be able to unite everybody in this chamber: in a small remote part of Queensland—I don't think it is remote; Hughenden to me is just down the road, but it's classified by those who know better that it is remote—a small rural council has been able to work with a company to try to bring together a facility that will put jobs into Hughenden, stop the decline of that town and stop it turning into a ghost town. That is brilliant, brilliant news. So, the people in Hughenden understood that 18 May was about the future of Australia to make sure that those who shriek on Twitter weren't running this country. The people who are running this country are— Senator Sinodinos interjecting— Senator McGRATH: those quiet Australians, as Senator Sinodinos says. Those people aren't actually on Twitter. They probably don't know what Twitter is—and that's also sensible life advice: never go on Twitter! Although, Senator Sinodinos, I think you are on Twitter, aren't you? Renowned troll! But I digress—a troll of the Left, which is very, very good. So, these quiet Australians wanted a government to get out of their lives, to cut taxes. What is the first thing that this government did? Senator Scarr: Cut taxes! Senator McGRATH: It cut taxes. Because cutting taxes is good for you. It is good for your family. It is good for your job, whether you are working for a small company or a big company. It is good for the company that employs you. It is good for you if you want to get ahead and start your own company, for those people who have a dream. Those of us on the Right and the Centre Right of politics believe in this concept called freedom; those on the Left don't. We believe that you, as the individual, as the family unit, as the community, should have the freedom to do as much as you wish without impinging upon the rights of the other, and the classic case of this is the freedom to spend your money. Because it is your money. It is not the government's money. It has never been the government's money. It is your money because you worked for it, whether you were digging holes or sitting in an office, whatever you were doing. It is your money. And we on this side of politics—and it is that defining streak that goes through this chamber—believe you can spend that money as you wish, because it's your money and you know what to do with it. It's not the government's money. The government has a role to play—a limited role, in my view—in the affairs of the nation. The nation is best served by powerful individuals who have the means, through their own blood, sweat and tears, to go ahead and do as they wish and not be controlled by a government that taxes them from birth until death and spends their money, often on vanity projects of politicians, like Pink Batts, 'clash for clunkers' and many of the other renowned—I don't know if 'renowned' is the correct word to use there—schemes of the Left. Senator Scarr: Infamous. Senator McGRATH: Infamous—thank you, Senator Scarr—notorious schemes of those on the Left, who think that they can make people happier by taxing them more, taking their money off them and giving it to other people. We say: no, you should have that money. You should have that money in your purse or in your wallet. You should have that money because it is your money. You can spend it on buying a car—often it will be second hand—and you can spend it on buying that new TV if you wish, because that is what a society is about. It is about ensuring that the individual and their family, in whatever colour or make it comes in, has power over their own destiny, without that ugly hand of the state intervening in there. That's why we are so proud on this side of the chamber—so proud—that we were able to vote for tax cuts. One of the premier elements of the Governor-General's speech, when he came here at the opening of parliament, was our tax plan. It's a tax plan that didn't just start with tax cuts on 1 July, a mere month ago; it's a plan that takes tax cuts for the next few years. Sadly, one of the big complaints that people level at politicians is that we're too short-term, that we focus on tomorrow, on the headline, on our re-election. This is a party and a government—the Liberal Party, the National Party, the Country Liberal Party, the Liberal-National Party, this coalition of the Centre Right—that took to the election on May 18 a long-term plan for tax cuts, because we wanted to show to the people that we trusted them and that this is what we thought they should be doing with their money. You know what the people did? They wandered into those polling booths in the pre-poll period. They didn't say much. I remember Bribie Island. Bribie Island was on fire, because they wandered in and they were cranky with those on the Left. They couldn't understand why any political party would want to raise taxes and take away their money. They couldn't understand why self-funded retirees—in some cases pensioners—were going to have their savings effectively taken away from them. They couldn't understand why people who had worked hard all their lives, with calluses on their hands, who had given up so much for themselves, for their family and for their community, were going to be punished by a political party for doing the right thing. That is a sad reflection upon the Labor Party. And I'm a little bit of two minds on this, but I probably don't want the Labor Party to learn the lessons from this last election, because if you don't learn the lessons from the last election you'll repeat them at the next election—and I hope you do repeat those mistakes at the next election, because then more quiet Australians will understand that with Scott Morrison and Michael McCormack we have a government of humility, of seriousness, who want to take politics off the front page of the newspapers and put it on page 4 or 6 or 10 or 11 and let people get on with it. Senator Gallagher: You'd like that. Senator McGRATH: Yes, I would like it. I'd like people to focus on real issues, rather than the scatterbrained yahoo-ness of politics, of people shrieking at each other. Let's have serious policy discussions. Let's talk about where this country is going over the next decade. Let's talk about what we're going to do—the solutions we'll find to youth suicide, the solutions we'll find to the appalling infant mortality rate in Indigenous communities. Let's talk about what we're going to do in drought-proofing this country. Where are the answers for that? Stop playing yahoo politics. On 18 May the people decided to vote for a government, for a political party, who believe in the individual and believe in freedom and believe in people getting on with their lives. That's what this government is going to do, and that's what the Governor-General said in his speech to this parliament, because it is all about freedom, all about making sure that people can get on with their lives. (Time expired)