Senator, what’s holding you and the Nationals back?

By MICHAEL SLOVANOS

NATIONALS Senator Susan MacDonald paid a fairly high price this week when she and two other senior Nationals were forced to resign from the Coalition Shadow Cabinet – but it was for a good reason: Defending Australians’ basic political rights from one of the most diabolical pieces of legislation ever put before the Federal Parliament.

Losing a Cabinet position means a politician loses all sorts of extra perks like staff and all sorts of allowances not available to the regular backbencher. But that’s by the wayside.

There’s a bigger issue here and the Nationals and Senator McDonald need to fully wake up to it: Certain powers that be have wedged Australia into a destructive downward spiral – not only destroying industrial capacity but destroying the social fabric.

Former long-time National-turned-One Nation member, Barnaby Joyce, is acutely aware of this, especially in regard to the imposition of an intermittent and environmentally destructive wind and solar energy supply system.

“Australia’s wealth and prosperity is built on the backbone of our resources sector. The 1.1 million direct and indirect employees of this great industry work every day to build a better nation, and deliver the essential minerals and energy resources the world needs,” says McDonald in a social media post. But that’s only part of the story.

The senator should look back a few decades and see how Australia was once entirely self-sufficient. We made our own steel, cars and even aircraft and ships, from the minerals processed in the heavy industrial areas of Newcastle and Wollongong.

We also harnessed the rivers of the Snowy Mountains for a massive hydro-electric scheme that also provided regulated water flows to the agriculture of NSW, Victoria and South Australia. This water is now being restricted from agriculture, diverted back into the Murray River and simply left to flow out to sea. It’s called “environmental flows”.

This is a direct attack on our agricultural productivity, and only one of many “environmental” legislative impositions that hinder more than help the farm sector.

McDonald and her Nationals have traditionally supported the rural and mining sectors. But even Liberals and Labor people will say they support them. What’s needed is someone willing to stand up in the Parliament and say “to hell with your environmental impositions!”

One Nation and some other smaller parties are providing that platform, but it’s not a big step for the Nationals to get on board with the global populist movement that is rejecting the destructive demands of globalism. Trump and his team are showing the way at Davos.

There are even Liberals who could or would get on board with the anti-globalist counter-reveolution, but as admitted by Sussan Ley herself, the decision to go with the hate speech legislation and accept the Nationals’ resignations was “a decision of the party leadership”.

But Senator McDonald, after voting against the hate speech bill, sounds like she would have voted for it. This indicates a lack of understanding of the deeper issues.

“I support both the intent of the legislation and the Coalition’s firm stance against antisemitism, hate and extremism. Serving as the Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, and the Shadow Cabinet under both Peter Dutton and Sussan Ley has been a privilege,” she said on her post.

“I thank my leader David Littleproud for entrusting me to serve in this position.”

Yeah, okay Senator, but there are bigger issues at hand than just trying to keep the peace with your leader and the Coalition.

And your double-mindedness on the hate speech legislation is not convincing and indicates that you don’t really understand the deeper issues at play here.

The Senator says “securing the future of Northern Australia, and our resources’ wealth, requires careful planning and considered decision making. I remain committed to serving and delivering for Queenslanders.”

That’s all very good Senator, but the Liberals voting for what a conservative Institute for Public Affairs commentator called “a very, very diabolical bill” should be sounding the alarm with you and your Nationals colleagues.

Now is the time for some hard political decisions for the future of Australia.