ONE Nation, created by Pauline Hanson, put forward Mark Carter as its candidate for the Parkes electorate in recent weeks, with his key campaign pillars focused on cutting down government spending.
Mr Carter, who works in transport, hails from Sydney originally but now lives in the township of Parkes, with government spending, Welcome to Country and cost of living key issues to the One Nation candidate.
“The first issue to address is to stop wasting government money,” Mr Carter said.
“Everybody who has a mortgage is just scraping by because the government puts too much money into the economy.
“They just keep on doing it – it’s like trying to put a fire out by adding fuel.”
Another issue Mr Carter is passionate about is the abolishment of Welcome to Country.
“I don’t expect to be welcomed to the country I was born in, that I’ve lived in all my life,” he said.
“There’s words going around that they (people who perform Welcome to Country) weren’t the actual Indigenous people.
“They’re not the Indigenous people; they’re just the ones that survived.
“Most of the people who do this Welcome to Country are the elites in Canberra because they know there’s cash behind it and that’s why they keep it.”
When asked how Indigenous communities can be supported by One Nation policies, since Parkes has townships with high Indigenous populations, Mr Carter said that too much money is being invested and not accounted for.
“We’re giving lots of money to this Indigenous program, but they don’t seem to be helping their own people,” he said.
“These people who get the money need to be accountable for what they’re doing to help people and have positive outcomes for the Indigenous population, which we’ve not seen, they’ve just been given money and other things.”
To fix this, Mr Carter said, if he’s elected, he will try to find out where the money is going and pinpoint which programs that are working and expand these.
Mr Carter said that more jobs are needed in regional areas to boost employment.
“We need more skills to bring them (Indigenous people) up to the normal level and then give them opportunities to expand on that,” he said.
