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Gerard Rennick (born 5 November 1970) is an Australian politician who has been a Senator for Queensland since July 2019. He is a member of the Liberal National Party of Queensland and sits with the Liberal Party in federal parliament.

Early life

Gerard was born and raised on a property outside Chinchilla, on the Darling Downs. In his youth he worked as a farmhand, fruit picker, bartender and pump attendant.

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 FINSIA. He has 25 years experience in Finance both in Australia and overseas. He is married with three children.

Political career

Rennick was first a candidate for the LNP in the 2016 Federal election in the senate. At that election he failed to win a seat

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Rennick donated $35,000 to the Liberal National Party of Queensland in the year before winning the third slot on the party's senate ticket—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 preselection, and highlighted the fact that some of their members self funded their elections.

During a speech on the Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct Bill, he referred to Queensland Labor Senator Murray Watt as Labor's "chief yapping poodle."

On an interview on Sky News, 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 ."

Prior to the 2020 Queensland state election it was revealed that Rennick donated to an anti-abortion group who were conducting a high profile campaign that was called "misinformation" and "blatant lies".

Positions

Tax Reform

Rennick has used his background in finance to advocate for 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.

Climate

Rennick has been viewed as a "right wing climate denialist" by the ALP, and was singled out by ALP leader Anthony Albanese as someone "who thinks the Bureau of Meteorology is part of global conspiracy".. Groups that have expressed this opinion include the Greens, the media and some within the scientific community. Senator Murray Watt called Rennick's BOM allegations "nuts", adding that such allegations were sourced "from right-wing think tanks". Rennick said his view was based on his own experience in systems implementation.

He has repeatedly accused the Australian government's Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) of falsifying climate data, and tampering with climate data to "perpetuate global warming hysteria". He has also accused them of having a wider than acceptable margin of error on their thermometers. The BOM accepted this and agreed that they were working to improve their standards. A review found that the methodologies used by the Bureau were satisfactory, but Rennick, who is not a scientist, continued to accuse the BOM of not following proper procedures because Australian weather stations do not yet have 3 temperature gauges.

Rennick has questioned scientists in the media and at Senate estimates accusing them of ignoring scientific advice and destroying records, and suggested that the BOM showed a lack of commitment to scientific accuracy. In one particular exchange, Rennick based part of his argument on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

Rennick also believes that the Kyoto carryover carbon credits should be used to support Australia's 2030 emissions target, Australia was the only country in the world to attempt to use these credits and was widely criticised for attempting to do so.

Superannuation

On 13 November 2019 Rennick called superannuation a "cancer", stating in his speech; "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."

Childcare

He called Labor's policy of providing free childcare to all 3 year olds in Australia a conspiracy "to strengthen the role the state has in raising a child at the expense of parents." 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".

Foreign relations

Rennick has advocated for 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 deescalating 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."

Rennick raised doubts that Russia was behind the Skripal chemical weapons attack in the United Kingdom.

Rennick is a non-interventionist and has spoken out against regime change wars. He outlined his position clearly during his maiden speech.

Immigration

Rennick has compared Australia's immigration policy to farmers who "overstock paddock", and has claimed that immigration was more damaging to Australia's environment than carbon pollution. He also wants a reduction in the number of temporary visa holders in Australia which numbers over 2 million.

Other positions

Rennick has been a long term advocate for reforming the federation; government building and retaining profit making infrastructure such as dams, ports and electricity power plants; sustainable immigration to ensure quality of life for all Australians; higher taxes on profits sent offshore; and he has called on universities to underwrite the costs of education.

Rennick opposes the closing of maternity wards by the state government in regional Queensland, he moved a motion in support of reopening maternity wards which was voted against by Labor in the Senate.

Rennick is also opposed to the adoption of poker machines in the state of Queensland. He consequently has accused the Labor state government of being "utterly incompetent and morally corrupt".

He also spoke 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."

References

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• Liberal National Party of Queensland politicians
• Living people
• 1970 births
• People from the Darling Downs
• Members of the Australian Senate for Queensland
• University of Queensland alumni
• University of Sydney alumni