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Gerard Rennick
Gerard Rennick (born 5 November 1970) is an Australian politician who has been a Senator for Queensland since July 2019. He was elected as a member of the Liberal National Party of Queensland and sat with the Liberal Party in parliament,[2] until resigning from the party in 2024 to sit as an independent.[3] As of 10 September 2024, Rennick sits as a member of his party, the People First Party.[4] Early lifeRennick was born and raised on a property outside Chinchilla, on the Darling Downs.[5] In his youth he worked as a farmhand, fruit picker, bartender and pump attendant.[6] He completed his education in Toowoomba at Downlands College, before moving to Brisbane, where he completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Queensland. He also has a master's degree in taxation law from the University of Sydney and a master's degree in applied finance from the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA).[6] He has 25 years’ experience in finance, both in Australia and overseas.[6] He is married with three children.[7] Political careerRennick, a member of the National Right faction of the Liberal Party,[8] was a Senate candidate for the LNP at the 2016 federal election, but failed to win a seat. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that Rennick had donated $35,000 to the LNP in the year before winning the third place on the party's Senate ticket for the 2019 federal election, a position that eventually saw him elected to a six-year term. The LNP rejected as "offensive and ridiculous" any suggestion the donations played a role in his pre-selection, and highlighted the fact that some of their members self-funded their elections.[9] During a speech on the Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct Bill 2019, he referred to Queensland Labor Senator Murray Watt as Labor's "chief yapping poodle."[10] In an interview on Sky News Australia in 2020, Rennick spoke about government overreach in the "classroom and the bedroom" and compared it to a communist takeover by the bureaucracy. When asked to clarify, Rennick said: "there are ... groups within Australia, they are not Chinese groups, they are Australian groups, that seek to undermine our individual liberties and I think that is a greater threat to our sovereignty [than the Chinese government]."[11] Prior to the 2020 Queensland state election, the Guardian Australia reported that Rennick had donated to anti-abortion group, Cherish Life, which, according to abortion services provider, Marie Stopes Australia, was conducting a high-profile campaign of disinformation and "blatant lies".[12] On 8 July 2023 at the LNP Annual Convention in Brisbane, Rennick lost pre-selection for the third position on the LNP's senate ticket for the next federal election, after being narrowly defeated by Stuart Fraser, the party's treasurer.[13] He resigned from the LNP on 25 August 2024 and announced his attention to create a new party named 'People First'.[3][14] Rennick officially began sitting as a member of the People First Party in September 2024.[4] Political positionsClimateRennick is critical of climate data. He has promoted the conspiracy theory that the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) is tampering with climate data to "perpetuate global warming hysteria", as part of a "global warming agenda".[15][9] BOM has rejected these claims outright.[16] He has been viewed as a "right wing climate denialist",[16] and was singled out by the ALP leader Anthony Albanese as someone "who thinks the Bureau of Meteorology is part of global conspiracy".[17] Senator Murray Watt described Rennick's BOM allegations as "nuts", adding that such allegations were sourced "from right-wing think tanks". Rennick said his view was based on his experience in accounting, and had not sought a briefing from the Bureau over his concerns.[18][19] He has shared misinformation from conspiracy websites, including WorldNetDaily to support his views.[20] Rennick proposed that the Kyoto carryover carbon credits should be used to support Australia's 2030 emissions target.[21] Australia has been the only country in the world to attempt to use this form of emissions accounting,[22] and was widely criticised for attempting to do so.[23] Rennick claimed that without anthropogenic carbon emissions, phytoplankton would absorb so much carbon from the atmosphere that it would "destroy our plant life", a hypothesis contradicted by the Earth's past history.[24] COVID-19In 2021, The Guardian reported that federal health minister Greg Hunt had described some of Rennick's Facebook posts as containing "false information". While The Guardian did not disclose what the posts said, it described them as "casting doubt over the accuracy of PCR tests", and said that Rennick "questioned why Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) had not yet recommended use of ivermectin".[25] In November 2021, Rennick was one of five Liberal-aligned senators who voted against the government in support of the COVID-19 Vaccination Status (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill 2021, sponsored by One Nation.[26][27] In December 2021, Rennick's claims that COVID-19 vaccines amounted to "experimenting" on children, and his anti vaccine posts on Facebook, were rebutted by multiple health officials. The Chief Medical Officer of Australia, Dr Paul Kelly, said that the Pfizer vaccine is “worthwhile, safe and effective” for children aged five to 11. Head of the TGA, John Skerritt, said: "I reject the assertion that it’s nothing much for kids and doesn’t matter if they catch [Covid]." The Australian Medical Association vice-president, Chris Moy, told The Guardian that Rennick’s surveys of adverse events were “as far away from science as possible” because they “force one answer he wants”.[28] In February 2022, Rennick attended the Convoy to Canberra protests.[29][30] SuperannuationOn 13 November 2019, Rennick called superannuation a "cancer", saying: "Millions of dollars gets sucked out of the pockets of the battlers in the bush and sent to the blowhards in Sydney and Melbourne to manage, all for a small cost of around $37 billion a year in management fees." He said union-linked industry super funds were "laughing all the way to the bank" while no money was reinvested in regional areas. In the same speech he accused the Labor Party of selling regional Australia "down the toilet" during the Hawke-Keating era, through their globalist, privatisation agenda—selling off such government owned corporations as Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. "Now regional Australia has to pay more for flying regionally than it costs to fly overseas ...The CBA, like every other bank in this country, became obsessed with housing rather than driving business and investment, especially in the regions."[31][32] Tax reformRennick has used his background in finance to advocate tax reform. He called for profits in Australia to be taxed at the same rate as profits of foreign owned entities. He stated this could fund cuts to both payroll tax (a state based tax) and income tax.[7] ChildcareHe called Labor's policy of providing free childcare to all three-year-olds in Australia a conspiracy "to strengthen the role the state has in raising a child at the expense of parents".[33] Rennick's position is that "subject to financial considerations, if we can leave children at home with at least one parent, that's something worth striving for", but he suggested that "early childhood education is ... not the best way to invest in our future".[34] Foreign relationsIn September 2018 Rennick advocated closer ties with Russia because "they're part of the West; they drink, they're Christians, they play soccer, they're Caucasian". Rennick has called for de-escalating tensions with Vladimir Putin and Russia: "They are a genuine superpower and it's not in the world's interest to have antagonistic relations with superpowers ... There's a bigger picture here and it is world peace."[35] Rennick raised doubts that Russia was behind the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the United Kingdom.[34] Rennick is a non-interventionist and has spoken out against regime change wars.[7] ImmigrationRennick has compared Australia's immigration policy to farmers who "overstock [their] paddock", and has claimed that immigration was more damaging to Australia's environment than carbon pollution. He also wanted a reduction in the number of temporary visa holders in Australia, who numbered over 2 million.[36][37] Other positionsRennick has been a long-term advocate of reforming the federation, of the government building and retaining profit making infrastructure such as dams, ports and electricity power plants, of sustainable immigration to ensure quality of life for all Australians, for higher taxes on profits sent offshore, and for universities to underwrite the costs of education.[37] Rennick opposed the closing of maternity wards by the state government in regional Queensland and has called on the state government to improve maternity health outcomes.[38][failed verification][31] Rennick is opposed to the adoption of poker machines in the state of Queensland, and consequently accused the Labor state government of being "utterly incompetent and morally corrupt".[31] He has spoken about having a constitutional convention to clearly define and separate the responsibilities of the Federal and State Governments in the federation: "It is time for COAG to hold a constitutional convention to clearly define and separate these responsibilities with proposed changes put to a referendum."[39] Gerard Rennick People First
At the time of his resignation from the Liberal Party, Rennick announced that: "in order to get my name above the line on the Senate ticket I will have to set up a party which I hope to call People First".[3] He changed his parliamentary affiliation to "People First Party" on 10 September 2024.[9] As of December 2024[update], the party is not registered with the Australian Electoral Commission.[40] Rennick has stated that policies of People First would include creating a public bank for infrastructure funding, raising the tax-free threshold to $40,000 AUD, and making changes to childcare funding. He opposes increasing federal funding of childcare, saying it infects children with the "woke mind virus".[41][6][42] References
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