Face of Nation : Liberal senator Gerard Rennick has called for a radical overhaul of rules around international students, saying universities should foot the bill for their economic impacts. In a wide-ranging first speech to parliament, the Queenslander signalled he could be a maverick on the government backbench.
“Why should the taxpayer underwrite this without a guarantee from universities that their graduates will get a job and repay their debts?” Senator Rennick, who spent seven years travelling the world, including to Iran and Syria, said the Middle East was the cradle of civilisation.
“The current military intervention in the Middle East has lasted almost as long as World War One, World War Two and Vietnam combined,” he said. “It has gone on for too long and needs to end.”Bin Laden is dead, Saddam is dead and there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
He said Islamic State would only be defeated when the world called out the “Milo Minderbinder” that funds it, a reference to a fictional war profiteer. It is unclear who Senator Rennick suspects is funding Islamic State.
On immigration, he praised the federal government for reducing the annual migration cap to 160,000 but urged a reduction in the two million temporary visa holders in Australia. “The greatest threat to our environment is not carbon dioxide but unsustainable immigration,” Senator Rennick said.
The controversial sale of the Darwin Port to a Chinese company was an example of foreign investment undermining security, he said. “Just look at the Darwin Port – neoliberal economics at its finest,” the LNP senator said. “A classic case of ideology gone mad.”
The Queenslander wants to end concessions for foreign investors and make withholding tax rates made on profits sent offshore the same as those kept in Australia. Senator Rennick branded the constitution ineffective after 120 years of compromise between state and federal governments.
