Pauline Hanson calls for full boycott on Chinese products this Christmas
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has once again called for a boycott on Chinese made products this Christmas, as relations between the two countries plunge to a new low.
“You might think it’s awfully hard, yes it is hard, I get it,” Hanson said in a Facebook video on Monday night. “We all have our part to play in this. Think about it when you buy that furniture, that toy, that food, whatever you buy, have a look where it comes from, and if it’s China, let it sit on the shelf.”
The Senator first proposed a boycott last week in response to “China’s recent economic attacks against Australia”, which included a 200 per cent tariff on Australian wine.
On Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian took to Twitter to post an image showing an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of an Afghan child, referencing the allegations in the Brereton war crimes report.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison blasted the image as “repugnant” and demanded an apology from the Chinese government.
“It is deeply offensive to every Australian, every Australian who has served in that uniform, every Australian who serves in that uniform today,” he said at a press conference.
In her Facebook video, Hanson said it “absolutely disgusts me”. “This is why I am so anti-China – they are a country that says they want to grow to a stage where they will control and that’s exactly what they’re doing,” she said.
She said 20 per cent of products Australia imports “we can’t buy from anywhere else but China”. “Our shelves are full of Chinese products because we’ve stopped our manufacturing industry,” she said.
“We used to produce 40 per cent of our products here in Australia through manufacturing. Guess what, it’s only 6 per cent now, because we have allowed this through consecutive governments, Liberal and Labor, to bring products into Australia from other countries which has destroyed our own manufacturing industries."
Hanson pleaded with Aussies to try to avoid products made in China “in every little way”.
“Whether it’s the wrapping paper – I know you can actually go and buy it online from an Australian manufacturing company here”.
She argued that would “put pressure on the Australian government” to support local manufacturing. “That’s the only way we can get out of this bloody mess, if not we’re going to allow China dictate to us every step of the way what we do because we’ve become so reliant on them,” she said.