Australia's Sovereignty Must Not Be Jeopardised

Senator RENNICK (Queensland) (3rd Feb 2021 - 13:43 - Senate): The last 12 months has illustrated the importance of self-reliance. When a country cannot rely on itself then its sovereignty is jeopardised. In his political masterpiece The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli wrote:

"Wise princes have always shunned auxiliaries and made use of their own forces … in the belief that no true victory is possible with alien arms.
Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous.
If a prince bases the defence of his state on mercenaries, he will never achieve stability and security."

At the time of writing, Machiavelli was lamenting the downfall of the Italian state, which in his opinion had been caused by the reliance placed on mercenary troops for so many years. Australia today in many ways resembles Machiavelli's Italy. We rely on foreign auxiliaries for so many of our core responsibilities: defence, capital, labour and manufacturing. The fake meme of an Australian soldier on Twitter last year showed why we can never trust foreign companies to defend our national interests if it is against their vested interest. Self-reliance is the bedrock of sovereign independence.

It is my view that there is too much focus on trade and not enough focus on production. While trade is obviously important for a country like Australia, it is no substitute for the ability to control our means of production. In the same way the horse comes before the cart, production must always come before trade. What is the point of generating wealth if it is to end up in an offshore bank account? There is no future for our children if they cannot control the means by which wealth is generated and, more importantly, do not know how to generate the wealth in the first place. True liberty is the ability to stand on your own two feet and not have to depend on others. If Australia is to remain a truly sovereign nation and not become a vassal state of multinational corporations, we must ensure control of our wealth and be responsible for the tasks that underpin any nation's sovereignty, in particular our infrastructure that provides essential services to Australians. I've spoken about this many times before; infrastructure built and paid for by Australian taxes should be controlled by Australians. To those that say Australia has always relied on foreign capital, I say think again. As the words of our national anthem state, it is 'wealth for toil', not 'wealth for foreign debt'. Using foreign debt to fund our way of life only begets more debt and, with it, the loss of control over our nation's wealth and the high standard of living that comes with it. Ultimately, debt becomes slavery, and we owe it to our children not to enslave them with the burden of debt.

FULL TRANSCRIPT AT: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansards/ea939d7c-2b2b-4055-a965-7d46f930db10/&sid=0091