Return to Newcastle Home Page I cannot begin to describe the difficulties that have been associated with my being here tonight.
Suffice to say, that protesters, the Newcastle Council, the Labor Party, and I suspect various minority groups and multiculturalists have done their best to stop me from speaking to you here this evening.
Clearly, they have failed,
but beating them has been a huge cost both in time and money,not to mention the stress for all concerned including the State and Federal Police. I certainly hope that the next time I visit Newcastle, we don’t face the same barriers to freedom of speech we faced on this occasion.Tonight’s exercise in freedom of speech is costing us sixteen thousand five hundred dollars. Tonight’s exercise in freedom of speech has required the protection of 350 Police. Tonight’s exercise in freedom of speech has drawn protesters from all over the country, and include one particularly unsavoury group who follow me everywhere, a socialist group called “Resistance”.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is not the Australia we grew up in, it is not the Australia so many found when they first decided to make this place their home, and I will do my best to make sure that the problems we face today will not be the same problems that our children face tomorrow.
We must address the breakdown of our right to free speech. We must get across the message that criticism is not racism, that to call for all Australians to be treated equally is not racism, to say that to be considered disadvantaged should be based on individual circumstances, not on race or cultural background, is not racism.
None of these things I have called for have anything to do with racism because they do not in any way infer that one race is superior, rather what they do, is recognised the successive governments, both Liberal and Labor, have given us policies that have divided Australia.
They have given us policies that instead of recognising needs on an individual basis for all Australians, they have singled out certain groups for special benefits. There are many government policies that divided us, and are now finally the subject of concern.
Perhaps one of the best examples is the student assistance program called ABSTUDY. This is the strictly aboriginal version of the student assistance programme called AUSTUDY. ABSTUDY is a perfect example of a policy that divides us. It puts the case that aboriginals have special problems not faced by other Australians, but in truth what it does is determine benefits by race rather than individual need.
What we need is policies which are not based on race. We need a student assistance programme that instead of having particular advantages for Aboriginal Australians, recognise special circumstances relating to disadvantages faced by all Australians. This does not mean that anyone truly in need will lose their benefits.
It simply means that we recognise their individual need instead of classing them apart from other Australians by considering their needs based on race. Essentially we only need one programme of student assistance, and that should be a programme that treats all Australians equally.
There are many such programmes that need to be reviewed, but anyone who has criticised such things has been attacked and tagged as a racist and a bigot. I say again, Criticism is not racism. When I speak of the problems of Asian gang related crime, in particular, drug trafficking, this does not mean that all Australians of Asians background are criminals and drug traffickers, it simply acknowledges that the majority of these problems come from one section of the community.
This is an inescapable fact. Just ask Peter Ryan, the NSW Commissioner of Police, other senior police or for that matter perhaps any member of the force who is aware of this aspect of criminal activity. We must not single out Asian people as being responsible for all of our drug problems, but we cannot ignore the protection afforded criminals through the closed and secretive nature of Asian communities within our country.
Many new Australians live in fear of their lives because of the thugs that hide within the community. They suffer crimes of extortion and home invasion, and in many ways this is because they have failed to assimilate. Governments have failed them, and many of them have not adopted the Australian way of life, and so they have been left in little pockets that are more like parts of other countries, than suburbs of Australia.
The majority of Australians do not accept the culture of gangs and crime and drugs that many new Australians are used to living with. We must not only help these new Australians who are suffering under the regime of crime lords, but we must also save ourselves and our children from those criminal elements that are protected by police that simply import little bits of other countries into Australia.
Most people who come to Australia have come for a better way of life. They do not want Australia to become like the place they left, and neither do we. We don’t ask them to forget where they came from, only that they please remember where they are now.
We welcome anyone who comes here with a genuine wish to better themselves, to be law abiding citizens, and to give their undivided loyalty to this country. We want everyone to be Australians, and to join us by being a part of One Nation, not one of many parts of a divided nation.
All we ask is that you do not bring your ancestral problems with you. Leave them behind, or this place will become like the place you left. Your new life here will become like the life you have tried to escape from, and those problems that come with you force upon other Australians difficulties they don’t deserve, or want. We have enough of our own issues that are home grown, we should not have to face cultural or ancestral problems that stretched back hundreds of years, and come from another place.
I say again, Criticism is not racism.
Ladies and Gentleman,
There is no group in this country that has a monopoly on poverty or hunger or unemployment. There is no group in this country that has a monopoly on the insecurity, lack of safety, or the lack of hope felt in our community. There is no group who has a right to either be treated, or expected to be treated any differently from any individual Australian. We must help those who are less fortunate.
We must stand up for those who have fallen by the way, and lift them up once again, so that they may join us, and be proud of themselves, and of their country. But we must do this on the basis of the needs of individuals, and not continue to pursue policies that set us apart.
I call for fairness and equality for all Australians. We must be united as one people, under one flag and with one set of rules. We must stand strongly together. We must be One Nation. The government has it all wrong. They’ve had it wrong for a long time, and with your help, I aim to change that.
Like most of Australia, here in Newcastle, the people are looking down the barrel of ever increasing job losses, and as always the government has little to offer.
Unemployment is one of the issues that is at the very core of the ills that dog our social fabric. It faces people with such hopelessness that they turn to solutions that secure Australians would never contemplate.
It increases our crime, and brings such stress to families as to tear them apart from within, and yet knowing all this, our government sits by waiting for the miracle of a changing economic cycle. When I say I want to stop immigration, I do so to save Australian Jobs. In the speech which launched Pauline Hanson’s One Nation just six weeks ago, the first of what I put forward as One Nation’s immediate goals was, and I quote, “To stop all immigration except that related to investment that will lead to employment, and for this to continue until Australia’s unemployment is solved”.
I now note with interest that at last the Prime Minister, and his Minister for Immigration admit that unemployment, and immigration are linked. When I speak of the need for tariff protection for Australian manufacturing, I do so because of the need to reverse the decline of Australian Industry that has been brought about by the so called free trade policies of both Liberal and Labor Governments.
I speak of these things because to create real long-term jobs for Australians, we must revitalise Australian manufacturing on Australian soil. Solving unemployment must be one of our most urgent priorities, and recent events here in Newcastle typify the uncertain future that faces so many Australians.
We must get Australia manufacturing again, and we must damn this government for its inhumane pursuit of economic rationalism. Some say my policies will hurt foreign trade. Anyone in business will tell you that business is done by being competitive, by having quality products, the right price and providing good service and delivery.
Doing business has nothing to do with Pauline Hanson wanting to stop immigration. I remember when Bob Hawke promised that by 1990 no Australian child would live in poverty. Our country now has seven hundred thousand children in families where no-one has a job, and while Bob Hawke and the heads of BHP sleep comfortably, you can be sure the children of Newcastle do not.
Your town is a steel town. For you, the making of steel has been a tradition that has been passed down from father to son, and fed local families for generations. steel is in your blood. How betrayed you must feel as your lives are rusted away by the dollars demanded by shareholders with no regard for the workers who made BHP what it is today.
The Australian worker usually turns to their union leaders for help, but many of these people are the same ones who have financially and physically sponsored the Labor Party who is actively pursued policies that have broken the back of Australian manufacturing, and opened our country to plundering by multinationals.
Now they say we must become part of Asia, yet according to the world bank Australia is the wealthiest country in the world. You might ask if we are so wealthy were is all the money going, and if we are to be Asianised who is it that stands to gain, us or them?
What will the union leaders do as in the sense Australia is pushed closer and closer culturally and financially to adopting the practices of our Asian neighbours?
What will the union leaders do as Asianisation is forced upon us?
If we are to become part of Asia how long will it be before Australian workers are forced to compete for jobs with Asian conditions and Asian wages? How long have the interests of the Australian worker been corrupted by Labor’s leaders?
What was happening to your wages and your standard of living while Hawke and Keating were running the country and becoming multi-millionaires at the same time.
The people of Newcastle are stuck with the fact that the Liberal Party won’t try very hard because they know they can’t win this seat, and the Labor Party won’t try very hard because they don’t think they can lose this seat.
Well I have a message for Liberal and Labor, there is a new girl on the block, and she intends to give them hell. I want to help the people of Newcastle. I want to find solutions. I don’t mean pie in the sky half-hearted research to look at ways of changing the working culture of Newcastle.
I mean real help like the injection of substantial government funds. Perhaps a joint venture with BHP workers to take over the plant, coupled with tariffs on imported steel, so as to allow Australian workers a chance to complete with steel produced through cheap overseas labour.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and I certainly don’t want to tell you what is the best for you, but I do genuinely want to help. No doubt there are many good ideas, and the best place to hear them is out amongst the people.
I want to sit down with BHP workers and talk about what can be achieved. And I mean sit down with fair dinkum Aussie workers, not labor party hacks, or anyone else who has anything but the best interests of the people of Newcastle on their agenda.
I hope that after tonight, people who truly represent the interests of the workers will come forward and make themselves known to my staff and me. Contact us, tell us who you are, and I will come back here to learn from you. I want to help, but I need your input.
When Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is successful at the next election, we will use our influence to put in place the policies that emerged from consulting with you. The knockers will ask, “Where will the money come from.” Well let me tell you that our taxation policies will be fairer on the Australian worker, but at the same time they will generate income from previously untapped sources.
I might also remind you that the Liberals have socked away in their Budget, a billion dollar electioneering fund that they have called The Federal Fund. This is nothing more than the equivalent of the old Ros Kelly whiteboard trick. What better way to celebrate the Centenary of our Federation, than to siphon off some of these funds to preserve the jobs and security of the people of Newcastle.
Fellow Australians, The next election will give you your first opportunity to vote for something other than Liberal or labor, and know that your vote is not being waisted in some form of protest.
At the next election, the choice is truly yours, vote the same way, and you can be sure of getting more of the same in return, but a vote for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation will be a vote for positive change. Give us your support, and together we will bring equality to all Australians.
We will get Australia manufacturing again. We will cut unemployment and protect Australian Jobs. It will not be other countries, or the United nations that decide our living and working conditions, or how we conduct our affairs. We will make sure it is we Australians who determine our future, and the future of our country.
Please join us, work with us, vote for us, so that we can recover what we have lost, and once again be the proud nation, the One Nation, we once were. I love my country, and I’m sure you feel the same. But there is much to be said, and there is much to be done. Do not be afraid of what must be said.
If you are afraid we will never have the changes we need, but remember in Australia, we settle our differences at the ballot box, not in the boxing ring, we do it with voters not with violence.
Remember criticism is not racism.
Patriotism is not racism.
People of Newcastle, thank you for having me.
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