Pauline Hanson has called for exporting baby formula to China to be made illegal, saying she doesn’t “give a damn” about the country and that the focus should be on Australian mothers and children.
The One Nation leader’s comments come after a Sydney woman was found to have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars by exporting stolen formula to China.
Lie Ke, 50, admitted to purchasing and shipping the formula after it had been stolen as part of a shoplifting ring across Sydney, the Central Coast and Newcastle in 2017 and 2018.
Appearing on Sky News, Hanson believes exporting baby formula overseas should be banned.
“Stop it at the boarders. Make it illegal for anyone to ship baby powder back to China or anywhere else,” she said.
“If it has to be shipped let the company themselves do a deal with China and ship it back to China. But we have to make sure we have enough to supply our own mothers and children in Australia.
“I don’t give a damn about China, I really don’t. I want to make sure that we have what we need in Australia.”
Hanson revealed that she met with mothers who were unable to get their hands on formula for their children because supermarket shelves were wiped clean.
She blasted the practice as “disgusting”.
The politician also spoke about the harsh tariffs China placed on Australian barley, with many assuming is a form of punishment for launching an investigation into the coronavirus pandemic.
“They have been putting their tentacles throughout Australia and their attitude is we’re in a great position in the world for the Chinese to actually have infiltrated Australia more and take over more of Australia and utilise our production of food here and ship it back to their own country,” Ms Hanson said.
“Their attitude was they thought they would actually scare us into threats about barley and about beef and there was talk about the wine, what’s next?
“Well they have had to back-pedal because Morrison didn’t back away from them, for which I am proud of him as prime minister of this country.”
“They can’t just throw their weight around and tell us what to do.”
This article originally appeared on Over60.