The main problem with our political system are the politicians.

Our political representatives are – for the most part – professionals in the field of politics. You could count on one hand those who have held down a real job.

Parliament is supposed to be representative of the population but instead it is filled with people who have spent their entire working lives within the system. Our politicians are the least representative group you could possibly imagine.

You know how it goes… They get a taste for skullduggery in university politics. Soon after they land a job as a political staffer where their political skills are tuned. Then, if they prove their loyalty and demonstrate their ability to toe the party line, they are rewarded with pre-selection.

After a couple of attempts, some are elected to Parliament where they work hard to honour those who put them there. They base their policies on polling rather than conviction or principle and cast their votes in Parliament according to how best to stay in the good graces of those who got them there.

Ask one of these individuals about running a small business or trying to make ends meet or about managing staff… They wouldn’t have a clue. Yet these are the politicians who are running our country.

That’s why people like me – who enter the Senate later in life after working in the real world and building a business – are so important in Canberra. We are not there to honour factional deals or repay political benefactors.

Yet people like me are maligned in the media and targeted by the bureaucracy. It’s not difficult to understand why. We haven’t marinated in the incestuous Canberra juice. We don’t behave in the predictable way the swamp requires to preserve the status quo.

I’ll say exactly what I’m thinking without regard for which political powerbroker it might offend. I am in Canberra to speak the truth, not seek another term or wait around until I qualify for a generous pension.

Disrupters have always been a danger to those who have played the system. Remember how the Deep State pursued President Donald Trump? The swamp abhors those who come from outside its grasp.

Trump has been maligned, defamed, sued, prosecuted, and shot at. All because he threatens to burst the bubble that a bunch of full-time sycophants have relied upon to enrich themselves while pretending to care about citizens.

This is why your support for my role in the Senate means so much to me. Australians must continue to demand that the Lower and Upper Houses are filled with people who have real life experience and who really care about voters rather than about factional mates and faceless powerbrokers.

I’m one of a very small group who bring to the Australian Parliament real world experience and a voice that is my own. The future of our country demands we get more people like me into Parliament. And with your continued help we will.

Thanks again for your generous support. It’s making a difference to the future of our country.

Senator Babet, United Australia Party