from Senator Malcolm Roberts

In a recent economic essay released for weekend newspapers, Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers has cobbled together some cliches about how best to run the world’s 13^th largest economy. To summarise, it is a blueprint on how to destroy a $1.3 trillion dollar economy. Of course, Doctor Chalmers has learnt from a master at economic shrinkage, his PhD dissertation was on the economic and social legacy of Paul Keating.

Unfortunately for the Treasurer, his blueprint was released on a weekend when news hit that his tax on beer is set to rise sending the price of beer towards $12 a schooner. Just for the record though, and I’ll get to details soon, Chalmer’s blue print will surely classify your beer as a ‘bad’ investment, because it is full of carbon. Prices will get even higher.

We have to take our hats off to the spin doctor in the Treasurer’s office who released the essay to coincide with the increase in beer prices. 

Schooners of beer are exactly what the Treasurer’s blueprint boils down to. Prices of goods are inflating exponentially, and it is the main topic for discussion at kitchen tables right across Australia. Families are now having to choose between new school shoes or eating; getting the roof fixed or having a holiday at the beach.

A basket of goods that only cost $100 in 1990 set you back $217 in 2022. With sky high inflation, that $100 basket now costs us an eye-watering $234 in 2023, a nearly 8% increase in just one year. Unfortunately, prices will continue to go up. Much of Australia’s price rises in groceries and the bills we can’t avoid are even worse than the headline inflation rate.

Meanwhile in Canberra, the Treasurer is writing new short stories about how to add more pressure to our inflation cooked economy and what he can do to make life even harder for Australians.

Chalmers references the polycrisis of converging pressures. What we really have though in Australia is a pollie-crisis, due to politicians in Canberra making terrible decisions.

Australia’s inflation hasn’t been this high since the Keating days. Families should be terrified, because for those of us who can remember, Paul Keating sent mortgages to 19% and much of the country went broke.

The Treasurer’s neo-Marxist catch-phrase ‘sustainable finance architecture, including a new taxonomy’ to label the climate impact of different investments, has been a topic of much discussion in recent years. Soviet extremists on the left argue that this system is necessary for their fight in the climate change scam and promoting ‘sustainability’. Others, including One Nation, argue that it is misguided and ultimately harmful to economic growth and people’s prosperity.

First and foremost, using a ‘new’ taxonomy to label the climate impact of different investments is the worst and most damaging form imaginable of government intervention in the market. In short, Chalmers says he wants to classify all investments made, including in your superannuation, into ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Ergo, beer full of carbon will be a ‘bad’ investment and need a higher price, while a tree (which is actually made of carbon like much of everything else) will be ‘good’.

This market intervention is the most serious and concerning idea that a government has offered since Ben Chiefly dabbled with communism in the late 1940’s.

The federal government classifying an Aussie family’s assets into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is a terrifying intervention. Firstly, it creates a level of uncertainty for investors, including you, as they may be unsure of how investments will be classified under the new system. Labor has a track record of changing the goal posts at any minute to suit any Greens, union or factional deal on the table. The classification system is purely subjective and cannot be based on evidence or data.

Secondly, it will lead to market distortions, as certain investments are favoured over others simply because of their classification as good or bad, rather than any economic, financial or productive merit. This will lead to a misallocation of resources, as investments that may not be the most economically efficient or profitable are chosen simply because they are classified as more ‘environmentally’ friendly. For example “this model of car (an Electric Vehicle) is ‘good’, while that diesel 4WD is ‘bad’”, even though Australia is not a country suitable nor ready for the forced uptake of 100% electric vehicles in any way.

The good or bad decisions are made based on the Treasurer’s mood as he gets out of bed in the morning. It is simply a chaotic system that is being proposed.  The Soviet-level bureaucracy necessary to write, disseminate and enforce this controlled economy will result in significantly higher taxes and lower economic growth – an inevitable result of bigger government. Higher taxes and debt will continue to be the Labor way.

These plans will trash our economy. When the Government tries to pick winners, the country loses.

All realistic thinkers will reject and debunk the idea that we can accurately classify and label the ‘climate impact’ of different investments . Any policy setting Australia makes with the aim to ‘adjust’ the world temperature will barely be a drop in the ocean, even if you believe we need to do anything, which the science clearly says is neither necessary nor possible.

The emphasis on ‘sustainable finance’ and labelling the climate impact of different investments as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ misses the point that the issue confronting Australians is inflation and a lack of economic advancement. Controlling and directing the economy to favour only climate-friendly projects from ALP donors will not deal with inflation. Instead, concentrating economic power in the hands of a woke few, it will increase inflation.

One Nation proposes, and has always advocated for, systemic economic reform with the primary objective of reducing government waste to reduce the tax burden on families and eliminate government debt.

If Australians think it’s a rough deal that the Treasurer must raise tax on beer this weekend because beer is ‘bad’, they are best reminded that the cost of beer will be small fry compared to other cost of living pressures Chalmers will soon unleash.

The Treasurer can take away one important lesson from this battle, One Nation will fight the Labor party every step of the way. We will fight for lower prices, better working conditions and a safer economy. The Liberals may have abandoned the field to socialism, but we haven’t. When I ran on as a rugby and league halfback as a teenager and young adult, the job was clear; get that ball and drive it up the middle.

So Labor had better realise it won’t get away with trashing the economy just because of a fractious, demoralised Liberal party destined to become totally irrelevant. The Australian political landscape is now far more pluralistic as One Nation’s continuing growth demonstrates.

The Orwellian use of catch phrases like ‘sustainable finance architecture’ and a ‘new taxonomy’ to label the ‘climate impact of different investments’ is designed to hoodwink the public while winning back Labor’s Green voters, who already exist in this world of doublespeak and concocted reality.

Chalmers is proposing an unnecessary and frightening intervention in our economy that has already been screwed over thanks to years of government COVID restrictions. These measures have had questionable impact on our health, and have certainly decimated our economic well-being. Investors can no longer invest with certainty. Banks have introduced their own version of the Treasurer’s “worthiness” index that is forcing the closure of critical industries in mining, agriculture and manufacturing.

Chalmers is promising more of the same. More wealth reduction, more employment loss, more unemployment and more misery for everyday Australians.

One Nation is having none of this Soviet-style economic management. Let businesses get on with what they do best – creating jobs, creating wealth, and creating a future for workers and for all everyday Australians.

In our beautiful country the best method of providing a future for everyone has always been personal enterprise.