Santo Ferraro, One Nation Federal Candidate for Wide Bay

Name: Santo Ferraro
Age: 56
Occupation: Retired Manual Arts teacher, currently managing own property portfolio
Two grown up children: daughter -- teacher; son -- RAAF

My reason for being proactive in politics for the last 25 years is to demand from our parliamentarians that the economy is handled in a manner that benefits all Australians and the generations that follow. Because the two major parties are now the puppets of their large corporate donors, we have been burdened with a taxation system where the majority of our taxes are paid by working Australians and small businesses. The big end of town, often being offshore corporations, pay little or no tax for doing business and extracting large profits from Australia. They are able to claim back all GST and the consumers pick up the costs.

Similiarly, our immigration has blown out to 300,000 per year to provide cheaper labor to these same large corporate donors. Australia needs to return to a sustainable immigration of approximately 150,000 per year. The major parties have also committed Australia to numerous international conventions, which are hindering their efforts to stop illegal boat people trafficking into our northern waters. We need to find a firm and decisive way of stopping this.

As Australians, we have become more aware of the need to look after our environment. Most Australians are now proactive in reducing their carbon footprint. We do not need an emission trading scheme thrust upon us, where the taxpayer, through the major parties, will be compensating the largest polluters. As consumers, our electricity charges, water charges, and fuel charges have already increased enough. We certainly do not wish to be burdened by further major rises that would be imposed on us by an emission trading scheme.