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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-05-24 Daily Xml
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Liberal Party

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (15:24): I am a committed member of the Liberal Party. We are a broad church brought together by the fundamental idea that individuals should have the power to live their own lives; that we are, first and foremost, free when we are able to make choices for ourselves. It is a philosophy that empowers, not belittles, people and treats them as capable of following their own dreams.

As someone who believes in these ideas which are very dear to my heart, as I know all my colleagues do, and party members do as well, I cannot abandon them. That is why when I see those who pretend to hold these ideas but whose actions speak to a different truth I am compelled to speak out. In a recent article, I stated that if the member for Waite were a Liberal he would not have sold out to become a minister in a Labor cabinet, in effect siding with those whom he had fought for years previously. It is also why today I am bringing to the attention of the house the hypocrisy of the Xenophon candidate for Mayo for doing the same.

Rebekha Sharkie rails against the major parties. Through her candidacy she has been relentlessly negative, often seeking to blame others for her own misfortune. The truth is, though, that she wanted to be a candidate for a major political party. She was a member of the Liberal Party for a number of years and was even president of one of the branches within the electorate of Schubert.

Rebekha also had multiple dinners with the former member for Schubert and a great mate of mine, Ivan Venning, to discuss her candidacy for the then upcoming preselection for the seat of Schubert. Rebekha has since become a candidate for Nick Xenophon, a man who votes more often with the Greens than with any other party—66 per cent of the time he votes with the Greens, hardly a move that I would consider to be consistent with Liberal values.

Rebekha has also courted fringe groups such as FLAG Australia, a group that holds many extreme views when it comes to the immunisation of children, foreign investment and the proliferation of wind farms. This is an extreme group that aligns more closely with Pauline Hanson than with any other person. Again, it is not something that is consistent with Liberal values. I find it very difficult to believe someone who rails against both major political parties, who previously has been a member of one of them and indeed sought to be a candidate for that party. It is absolute hypocrisy and something that needs to be called out in the electorate.

The difficulty we have here is that a vote for Rebekha is a vote for who knows what. Is it a vote for the Greens or is it a vote for far right fringe groups? Indeed, in a recent article on measures to support our dairy industry, the Xenophon party cannot even decide for itself what it stands for. Whilst Nick was all in favour of a levy to support our dairy farmers, one of his candidates disagreed. Indeed, his candidates had variously advocated for $1 limits on foreign investment, acupuncture on unspeakable parts of the body that were alluded to last week in this place, the fact that Roundup causes genetic mutation, and the wholesale cutting of penalty rates. These are extreme views and views that really belie what the Xenophon party stands for.

Being a member of a major political party requires difficult choices. There simply is not enough money to fund every good idea. This means that you need to prioritise and you need to fight for what you believe is most important. The way to get things done is to fight for your community, and the best way to do that is to get elected. You then need to fight from within your own party to influence your party's platform, then fight to gain acceptance within the broader electorate, and then get the agreeance of the parliament. This is a long and arduous process, but this is how change is effected. This is how major parties effect change within our electorate.

The current member for Mayo, Jamie Briggs, is someone who has fought admirably in this way. Whether it be getting outcomes for his electorate, working with state governments or working across the country to make Australia a better place, Jamie has been very effective in bringing about change. By contrast, Xenophon's promises, which so far have costed in at $100 billion, are totally uncosted. This party has been successful at carping from the sidelines but has been extremely unsuccessful in actually getting something done. My father always taught me that if something is too good to be true, it probably is. So when I see a party promising $100 billion worth of ideas but no way to pay for it, I remain sceptical and so should voters.

Major political parties are not perfect, but we should respect those who have been able to effect change. I would like to finish with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt from 1910, which I think sums it up best:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Roosevelt's speech went on for a week, did it not? Where are you stopping?

Mr KNOLL: Done.

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