IPA Closing Speech
Australians first, or bureaucracy first?
Good evening.
And thank you to the dazzling speakers. I hope your messages and efforts can be spread far and wide. Please join me in another round of applause for all our dazzling speakers.
Now I’ve saved the best overseas speech until last, one Australians should be able to learn much from.
Taken from his recent address to both houses of the USA Congress. 75% of the American people polled stated that they were in favour of the lead their President was taking. 75%! Another poll apparently 76%! Let’s not be timid, let’s learn!
And this afternoon at the IPA forum, I learnt that we have a male American with us, indeed from the Presidents earlier administration, Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney.
So, I thought would be much better if you heard these quotes, from an American voice.
Quoting President Trump.
”Six weeks ago, I stood beneath the dome of this Capitol and proclaimed the dawn of the Golden Age of America. From that moment on, it has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country. We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in 4 years, 8 years and we are just getting started.
Our spirit is back. Our pride is back.
And the American Dream is surging bigger and better than ever before. The American Dream is unstoppable, and our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never witnessed, and perhaps will never witness again.
Now, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction.
Likewise, small business optimism saw its single largest one-month gain ever recorded, a 41-point jump. Over the past six weeks, I have signed nearly 100 Executive Orders and taken more than 400 Executive Actions, a record to restore common sense, safety, optimism, and wealth all across our wonderful land. The people elected me to do the job, and I am doing it.
In fact, it has been stated by many that the first month of our presidency, it’s our presidency, is the most successful in the history of our nation.
This is my fifth such speech to Congress, and once again, I look at the Democrats in front of me, and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile, nothing I can do.
Every day my administration is fighting to deliver the change America needs to bring a future
America deserves and we’re doing it. This is a time for big dreams and bold action.
Upon taking office, I imposed an immediate freeze on all federal hiring, a freeze on all new federal regulations, and a freeze on all foreign aid. I terminated the ridiculous green new scam. I withdrew from the unfair Paris Climate Accord, which was costing us trillions of dollars that other countries were not paying. I withdrew from the corrupt World Health Organization, and I also withdrew from the anti-American U.N. Human Rights Council.
We ended all of Biden’s environmental restrictions that were making our country far less safe and unaffordable. And importantly, we ended the last administration’s insane electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto workers and companies from economic destruction.
To unshackle our economy, I have directed that for every one new regulation, ten old regulations must be eliminated, just like I did in my successful first term. And in that first term, we set records on ending unnecessary rules and regulations like no other president had done before.
We ordered all federal workers to return to the office. They will either show up for work in person or be removed from their job. We have ended weaponized government, where, as an example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent like me.
We’ve ended the tyranny of so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military. And our country will be woke no longer.
We believe that whether you are a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer or an air traffic controller, you should be hired and promoted based on skill and competence, not race or gender. You should be hired based on merit.
We have removed the poison of critical race theory from our public schools, and I signed an order making the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.
I also signed an executive order to ban men from playing in women’s sports.
On my first day in office, I declared a national energy emergency. As you’ve heard me say many times, we have more liquid gold under our feet than any nation on Earth.
And by far, and now, I fully authorize the most talented team ever assembled to go and get it.
It’s called drill, baby, drill.
My administration is also working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska, among the largest in the world, where Japan, South Korea and other nations want to be our partner with investments of trillions of dollars each.
Later this week, I will also take historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths here in the USA.
To further combat inflation, we will not only be reducing the cost of energy but will be ending the flagrant waste of taxpayer dollars.
And to that end I have created the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE!
Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Which is headed by Elon Musk.
Just listen to some of the appalling waste already identified:
$22 billion from HHS to provide free housing and cars for illegal aliens, $45 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarships in Burma, $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows what that is.
$8 million to promote LGBTQ+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of, $60 million for indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment in Central America.
$8 million for making mice transgender. $32 million for a left-wing propaganda operation in Moldova. $20 million for the Arab “Sesame Street” in the Middle East.
$1.9 billion to recently created decarbonization of homes committee. A $3.5 million consulting contract for lavish fish monitoring. $1.5 million for voter confidence in Liberia,
$14 million for social cohesion in Mali, $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City.
$250,000 to increase vegan local climate action innovation in Zambia, $42 million for social and behaviour change in Uganda, $14 million for improving public procurement in Serbia, $47 million for improving learning outcomes in Asia. Asia is doing very well with learning.
A $101 million for DEI contracts at the Department of Education. We found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud. And we’ve taken back the money and reduced our debt to fight inflation.
This is just the beginning. The Government Accountability Office, a federal government office, has estimated annual fraud of over $500 billion in our nation, and we are working very hard to stop it. We’re going to.
We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors and that our seniors and people that we love rely on.
Government databases list 3.6 million social security members from ages 110 to 119.
I know some people that are rather elderly, but not quite that elderly. 3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129, 3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139, 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149.
A lot of money is paid out to people, because it just keeps getting paid and paid, and it really hurts Social Security and hurts our country.
1.3 million people from ages 150 to 159 and over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are aged over 160 years old. We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby.
Including, to finish, 1,039 people between the ages of 220 and 229, one person between the ages of 240 and 249 and one person is listed at 360 years of age!
More than 100 years older than our country. But we’re going to find out where that money is going, and it’s not going to be pretty, by slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft.
We will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors and put more money in the pockets of American families.
And today, interest rates took a beautiful drop.
And in the near future I want to do what has not been done in 24 years to balance the federal budget.
For nearly 100 years the federal bureaucracy has grown until it has crushed our freedoms, ballooned our deficits, and held back America’s potential in every possible way.
The nation founded by pioneers and risk takers, now drowns under millions and millions of pages of regulations and debt. Approvals that should take 10 days to get instead, take 10 years, and even 20 years before you reject it.
Meanwhile, we have hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have not been showing up to work. My administration will reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy, and we will restore true democracy to America again.
Any federal bureaucrat who resists this change will be removed from office immediately.
Because we are draining the swamp, it’s very simple, and the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over. And the next phase of our plan to deliver the greatest economy in history is for this Congress to pass tax cuts for everybody.
We have had $1.7 trillion of new investment in America in just the past few weeks. The combination of the election and our economic policies that people love. SoftBank, one of the most brilliant anywhere in the world, announced a $200 billion investment.
OpenAI and Oracle, Larry Ellison, announced a $500 billion investment, which they wouldn’t have done if Kamala had won. Apple announced a $500 billion investment.
And just yesterday, Taiwan Semiconductor, the biggest in the world, has a tremendous amount of 97% of the market, announced a $165 billion investment to build the most powerful chips on Earth right here in the U.S.A. And we’re not giving them any money.
I’m also asking for a new crime bill getting tougher on repeat offenders while enhancing protections for America’s police officers so they can do their jobs without fear of their lives being destroyed.
I am pleased to report that in January, the U.S. Army had its single best recruiting month in 15 years, and that all armed services are having among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services. What a difference.
It was just a few months ago where the results were exactly the opposite. We couldn’t recruit anywhere.
People love our country again. They love our country, and they love being in our military again.
As commander in chief, my focus is on building the most powerful military of the future. As a first step, I’m asking Congress to fund a state of the art “golden dome” missile defence shield to protect our homeland. All made in the U.S.A..
Americans have always been the people who defied all odds, transcended all dangers, made the most extraordinary sacrifices, and did whatever it took to defend our children, our country, and our freedom.
That same strength, faith, love and spirit is still alive and thriving in the hearts of the American people. Despite the best efforts of those who would try to censor us, silence us, break us, destroy us, Americans are today a proud, free, sovereign, and independent nation that will always be free, and we will fight for it ’til death.
We will never let anything happen to our beloved country because we are a country of doers, dreamers, fighters, and survivors.
Our ancestors crossed a vast ocean, strode into the unknown wilderness, and carved their fortunes from the rock and soil of a perilous and very dangerous frontier. They chased our destiny across a boundless continent.
They built the railroads, laid the highways, and graced the world with American marvels. They lit the world with electricity, broke free of the force of gravity, fired up the engines of American industry, vanquished the communists, fascists, and Marxists all over the world.
We stand on the shoulders of these pioneers who won and built the modern age, these workers who poured their sweat into the skylines of our cities, these warriors who shed their blood on fields of battle and gave everything they had for our rights and for our freedom.
Now it is our time to take up the righteous cause of American liberty, and it is our turn to take America’s destiny into our own hands and begin the most thrilling days in the history of our country. This will be our greatest era.
With God’s help, over the next four years, we are going to lead this nation even higher, and we are going to forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic, and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this Earth.
Every single day we will stand up and we will fight, fight, fight!
For the country our citizens believe in and for the country our people deserve. My fellow Americans, get ready for an incredible future, because the Golden Age of America has only just begun.
End Quote
Is there anyone, other than those who want our country destroyed, who wouldn’t like our leaders to be able to learn from this too?
President Trump had policies, he was elected, majority in both houses, he’s carrying out those policies and he’s already bringing success to his people.
We have the LINO’s (Liberals In Name Only), terrified of the anti-Trump left media barrage, and espousing they don’t want to learn from Trump. In short, continuing to put the bureaucracy first, rather than Australians.
Changing the course of history has been far from easy, we saw what President Trump has been through, misrepresentations and lies usually daily in the mainstream or fake media, trumped up court charges, not just against Donald Trump but against his elder sons too. Endeavours not just to ruin his name but to bankrupt him as well, even two assassination attempts, and what did he say, when that bullet just missed killing him, he got up, raised his fist and said, “fight, fight, fight.“ Which he sure did, and can now halt the history of bureaucrats first and change it to Americans first.
We need to start here, let’s start with a big one, the Paris accord. And firstly, a big thank you to Ian Plimer, who has bravely spoken out against the Paris accord, for years, and done a better job than I could ever do. Please join me in applause for Ian Plimer.
Australia once had cheap reliable energy. Now after billions and billions of taxpayers’ dollars spent, additional unsafe transmission lines being rushed across farm after farm, damaging prime agricultural land and interfering with farming operations, ruining country roads, importing toxic solar panels, erecting oil dripping noisy wind towers, upsetting native habitats and killing so many birds, rather hypocritically, given this is all being done in the name of saving our environment, and has cost farmers and companies more billions of dollars not adding to their productivity, but the very opposite, all causing anxiety and heartbreak for our farmers, we no longer have cheap or reliable energy. And if we continue down this path, worse is to come, less reliable electricity and far more expense, with greater burdens for our industries and taxpayers, you, and me. The true costs of this unreliable electricity, not made known to us, as partly hidden in taxpayer funded subsidies, commercial in confidence.
And it’s not just the cost of the incorrectly called renewables rollout, what has it cost Australians in the last few years for additional green fantasies, more than 14 billion has been itemised on this slide.
And what about cost to industry, one industry alone, aluminium, estimates are on this slide. Some people may think, that doesn’t matter, its only industry, but please remind everyone, costs added to industry must be onpassed to the consumer.
IPA research shows that in 2023 Australia’s exports of coal and gas generated $119 billion in revenue for this country. Just think of all the hospitals, roads, nurses, police and pensions this has supported.
The federal government wants to give this up for the Paris accord.
Rather than exporting coal and gas, we will be exporting our jobs. IPA research estimates that the commitment to net zero and the Paris accord puts at risk over 650,000 jobs, many of which are in regional Australia.
The wrongly called “renewables’ have created a high energy cost as our country stumbles to reach its 43% target by 2030, at a crippling cost to families, industry and national security. Surely, we can’t be fooled that subsidies or handouts to lower increasing electricity costs, actually bring down the cost of this unreliable energy, the underlying high cost is still there! Isn’t it time, we noticed what happened in California, Germany, England, and other countries who took this Paris accord path. Isn’t it time we called on Mr. Dutton, to immediately commit, should he obtain office, to bring in a pause, to the Paris accord, to reflect carefully on what’s gone wrong, what’s been spent to date, what the full costs of this unreliable energy cost you and me, including bringing to a halt all handouts in the name of renewables including costly experiments such as hydrogen, the costs to farmers including human costs, the costs to industry, including what costs are then passed on to consumers, and the costs of businesses that have struggled and collapsed, the human costs on their families and staff involved, and of anxiety on students suffering from the propaganda barrage inflicted on them at school. We need the truth.
And this Paris accord pause, would have a very important series of extra benefits, given tax cuts could be made and taxpayers money could be redirected into more pressing areas, such as our very defence.
Australia simply can’t afford the Paris accord right now, when we have record business failures, record national debt, cost of living crises, seven consecutive falls in our standard of living, the treasurers minuscule recent lift does not change where in fact we are, with more than 8% fall in our living standards. Even the worst president in the USA was able to deliver much better improvement in living standards. Investment is leaving our country. 80% of the pipeline of future resource projects is now the casualty list, when mining doesn’t do well, nor will Australians. And, we can’t fund our defence.
A pause from the Paris accord and Australia could be put on the path to economic recovery. And Australians could enjoy higher living standards and better internal and external defence.
We are all especially privileged to be here this evening, as we are free of a war on our shores. But are we mindful enough that we are a nation blessed with many minerals, prime agricultural land that is very productive, fresh air and clean water, simply, resources the envy of others, resources needed by others, but are we truly aware that it takes effort, diligence, money and the will to protect our country and its freedom?
In my view to protect our freedom we must be strong, internally and via our defence. Singapore has accelerated its defence to make it into a “prickly prawn”, I would like us to be a “prickly barra” so others think twice about invading us, and so our citizens can be safer.
Our governments have much to do in this regard, but it is us, the Australian citizens, who need to speak up constantly, and remind our governments that their chief duty, their most important responsibility, is to protect our country and our families. If we are spending less than 2% of our GDP on our defence, even less if you take out the spending on the defence departments’ comfortable offices and its bureaucracy, why should we expect others to rush to the defence of this far away country? The USA leaders have told NATO, the European countries must do more, spend at least 5% of their GDP, to contribute to their own defence. It’s been recently reported that President Trump has also told our government that Australia should spend 3% of its GDP on our defence.
You might be surprised to know I actually disagree with the President over that. I believe Australia should also be spending at least 5 percent of our GDP on our defence, i.e. actual defence, not the bureaucracy. But perhaps the president has not been adequately informed regarding the true state of Australia’s defence. He may have been told we have 6 submarines, but was he informed, only one of those old and limited submarines is operational at any given time, and that unlike America’s biggest and best submarines, can’t deliver anything like the missile power of World War 1 and 2 combined that just one of those USA submarines can do, does he know we’re not building our own powerful long range missiles, let alone Israeli style domes to protect any of our own citizens and critical port infrastructure, does he know we’ve only ordered about 200 smart sea mines to “defend” our essential shipping lanes and ports that we must rely upon, does he know that that public enquiry, I could go into length as to why that should have been stopped or made private, but I’d really be up for defamation(!), has demoralised our most highly trained defence force with many exiting, and unlike the USA with record new defence recruits since President Trump, we unsurprisingly struggle to attract people into our defence force, and our defence personnel numbers are alarmingly short, does he know that the minerals we need to build and maintain our defence, are hamstrung at every turn by government tape and bureaucratic regulations, not rectified by throwing taxpayers money at it without fixing the actual government made problem, and that the investment needed is consequently leaving Australia.
Does the president know that we only have enough fuel reserve for about 7 days, more, IF, in capitals, can include ships travelling here with fuel supplies, well, let’s hope any war lasts less than 7 days, rather difficult to fuel our planes, ships, ground transport for defence personnel and supplies and other infrastructure, without fuel, and let’s not cloud our thinking with fuel can be replaced with wind power that still needs oil and only functions for up to around 35 percent of the time, or solar panels, that supply electricity for even less reliability, and not any at nights. And does the president know that with our now high electricity costs and the excessive tape and regulations I’ve mentioned, and other Canberra cocoon mistakes, we don’t have a manufacturing industry capable of maintaining our defence capability, let alone adding what we need to it. We are left to rely on those at high-risk sea-lanes, undefended northern and north-eastern ports and airports to hopefully bring in fuel, some defence equipment, parts and supplies.
I’ve referenced President Trump, but it’s not the president of the USA’s duty to know this, or act upon it. It’s yours and mine, and our governments.
Of course, the usual will be raised, we can’t increase our defence, that would hurt our welfare spend, and our hospitals and education spend. Well, we sure need a DOGE here to help get rid of government wastage, and one not bound in system chains to stop it from being successful. This comes back to my point; we need to pause the very expensive and bureaucratic Paris accord as other countries are also needing to do. And are doing!
The IPAs timely new book No Higher Priority – A blueprint for immediate action on Australia’s defence 2025-2028 sets out 38 recommendations that, if implemented in the next term of parliament, aim to enable Australia to become a “prickly barra”. I have not read the book, but like above, if it suggests we only increase our defence spending to 3% of GDP, given inter alia the very inadequate place our defence is at, in my view, this is wrong, we must increase it to 5% of GDP and ensure that is spent wisely.
I ask you to consider please, as you see the screen shot summary of the ALP’s proposed defence spend. Assuming we need to rely on our allies across the pacific to ship or air our defence needs to us, how can we do this if we don’t defend our sealanes, ports and airports.
To do this, where is our spend on war drones, where is our spend on the many smart sea mines we will need, where is our spend on Israeli style domes to protect our critical infrastructure, our ports and airports, to bring in what we need from the U.S.A. or other allies. We need to be manufacturing all of these here, but where is our defence budget to spend on manufacturing these critical items in Australia, plus to build some refineries in our north, northeast and northwest, given we can’t rely on an assumption that any defence required for our country will only be required for about 7 days, until our fuel reserve runs out?
The IPA defence book should highlight the importance of strengthening our defence bases and critical infrastructure in the north of our country. This should include our offshore islands, as our front line of defence, not because they are undefended. Australia’s north is vulnerable to air, missile, drone, and sea attack. Yet we cancelled our war drone program, and last year the government cancelled the acquisition of crucial air defence missiles. Such decisions must be immediately reversed, and our air and missile defence capabilities greatly expanded. And the decision to order just 200 smart sea mines, well that needs to be vastly increased!
Australia must learn the lessons of modern warfare that have been demonstrated in Ukraine, in particular, the importance of war drones.
Our defence base must be widened from the focus of expensive platforms, which can only be acquired in small numbers from foreign suppliers after many years of delays.
Importantly, we must also put in place a better relationship with the Trump administration, demonstrate we are a trustworthy and reliable ally and prove our willingness to do our bit. Starting with increasing our defence budget to at least 5% of GDP. This will send a clear message to our enemies and allies alike.
I’ve been asked what Australia should do to be able to achieve a better relationship with the USA, firstly we should increase our defence and defence spending, rather than sitting back and thinking USA taxpayers and American servicemen should provide our defence for us.
Secondly, we should stop whining about USA tariffs, don’t forget for many, many years Australia imposed high tariffs against imports. Have we really forgotten for instance that our government-imposed 100 percent tariffs on the windmills farmers and pastoralists needed for water. So, what did farmers and pastoralists do? They had to cut costs. That’s what we need to do now, cut our costs, cut the excise tax on fuel, Peter Dutton has committed in his budget response to cut this by half, a start, but needs more cut, cut payroll tax and license fees, that were meant to be dropped more than 2 decades ago when GST came in, that are especially damaging small and medium businesses and our struggling but fantastic agricultural industry.
And the common factor in this, not only would this help our relationship with the USA and our own country too, but we could achieve all, if we paused the Paris accord expense.
And to let our economy recover and lift our economy and Australians up, we need to dramatically cut the size and wastage of government in Australia.
According to IPA research, government spending on its own growth has skyrocketed during the life of the Albanese government. Costing taxpayers $14.7 billion each year, in wages alone. This is not making us more productive or raising the standards of living outside the bureaucracy, but instead is fueling inflation and the cost-of-living crisis.
Have you wondered when learning that the federal education department in the US cost taxpayers 3 trillion over 4 decades, while it like our federal education department presided over a decrease in education standards, and an increase in cultural change, against our respective countries, why we shouldn’t also cut our federal education department like the USA is doing.
And why do we have a federal agriculture department, when we have state ones, and why do we have federal resources, fisheries, environment departments across our land when each state has these, why not reduce the federal ones to just cater for offshore?
How can we stand by when over 100,000 federal bureaucrats are employed in roles that delay or prevent Australians from building projects, projects that create jobs, revenue and improve our economic growth.
We don’t need insultingly tiny tax cuts more than a year away, we need to stop government wasting our taxpayers’ dollars and swamping our lives and futures with government tape.
Government departments didn’t build our country, our incredible pioneers did. Our pioneers opened up land right across our country, they built roads and dams, they grew crops and raised stock, they drilled and built mines, and we stand on their strong shoulders to build businesses and industries, they worked hard and took risks, to make Australia great.
It’s time to get our spirit back.
It’s time for big dreams and bold action. It’s time to turn off the taxpayers tap to big government that has diminished our freedom, ballooned our deficit, and held back the potential of Australians.
It’s time for Australia’s DOGE.
It’s time for Australians first.
Elon musk was gifted a chainsaw for DOGE, but we may need something more effective for our DIGE, don’t you think!
Adam, let’s show what’s in that box.
For Australia’s DIGE! A pink bulldozer!
Thank you!
