The increasing use of casuals and contractors in Bowen Basin mining industry workplace agreements is undermining safety.
Senator Roberts wrote a detailed submission for the Grosvenor Mine Board of Inquiry highlighting the issues of workplace intimidation, job security and the lack of representation for casual coal miners.
Senator Roberts said, “We know that the coal mining industry needs casuals, yet casual workers must retain a voice without fear of retribution when it comes to workplace safety.
“As a former underground coalface miner and manager, I know that nothing trumps safety, and to be informed that Bowen Basin casual coal miners risk losing their jobs if they raise safety concerns is deeply disturbing in today’s industrial relations landscape.”
Casualisation is increasing in the Bowen Basin with some mines operating at up to 90 per cent casuals or contractors.
Many mines have both production and safety targets that can push production ahead of safety and may reward non-reporting of incidents.
Yet previous professional experience in Australia and overseas has demonstrated to Senator Roberts that a genuine focus on safety reduces costs and increases productivity, employee retention and satisfaction.
“Safety is not the enemy of production, rather safety enables profit. Executives and miners who do not understand this merely talk about zero-harm, yet down the pit when push comes to shove, safety can be devalued and sidelined.
“Without security, casuals can be threatened and intimidated into silence and fear of being sacked for raising safety issues. The voice of the casual miner is being quashed and lives are at risk,” added Senator Roberts.
Currently the Queensland Coal Mining Safety and Health Advisory Committee has a majority of members representing mine owners / operators and unions that focus on the interests of the fulltime miner as a priority, not the casual miner.
In his submission to the Grosvenor Inquiry, Senator Roberts called for committee representation of casual miners to ensure they retain the ability to speak up freely.
Senator Roberts is deeply committed to fair and just employment arrangements for our coal miners. His 2019 Senate Estimates investigation into Coal Long Service Leave exposed errors in miners’ accruals.
“After putting lots of pressure on Coal LSL it finally admitted to inadequate governance resulting in labour-hire firms lodging incorrect hours on behalf of casual miners.
“Miners were being short-changed and I encourage all coal miners to audit their hours being reported to Coal LSL for the purposes of accumulating long service leave,” he said.
Senator Roberts’ close examination of coal mining work practices in the Hunter Valley has exposed severe safety hazards, unlawful non-reporting of injuries, non-payment of workers’ compensation and accident pay, underpayment of wages, loss of award entitlements including leave, workplace intimidation and inaccurate accruals of long service leave.
Senator Roberts said, “Listening to Central Queensland miners has shown practices are not as bad as we found in the Hunter, however the increased use of so-called casuals and contractors on long-term fixed rosters has confirmed some of these issues exist in our state and this must end.”
Senator Roberts is currently touring Queensland and will visit Emerald at the end of the week.
Around this time every week, we catch up with One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts. Malcolm, good morning to you.
[Malcolm Roberts]
Good morning, Marcus, you have got a hectic morning this morning, I hear.
[Marcus Paul]
Always busy, which is just how we like it, but look, I’ve got the next six, seven minutes to chat away with you, which I’m really looking forward to today. I know you’ve been doing a lot of travelling, haven’t you? You been…
[Malcolm Roberts]
Yeah, we’ve gone from Brisbane right through to Cairns. I’m actually sitting in a hotel room in Cairns, and we’ve been listening to people along the way. It’s been fabulous. A bit rushed, but very good.
[Marcus Paul]
Yeah, why are you doing this tour again?
[Malcolm Roberts]
Because we’re getting the word out on my exposing the fact that the CSIRO has never produced any evidence for our climate policies and renewable energy policies.
We’re just getting that word out through the media around Queensland.
[Marcus Paul]
And how has it been received? I mean, I know you’ve been from Brisbane to the Sunny Coast, Maryborough, Rocky, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns, Toowoomba.
I mean, you’re a lucky man, travelling through all these beautiful parts of Australia.
[Malcolm Roberts]
I am, indeed, and we look forward to New South Wales being us pretty soon once the borders are reopened again.
[Marcus Paul]
Yes.
[Malcolm Roberts]
But no it’s been very well received. People know in their guts that there’s never been any evidence, scientific evidence to these policies that are destroying our country, Marcus, and they’re just so pleased to see someone actually exposing this rubbish.
[Marcus Paul]
Now I’m gonna talk very soon with the New South Wales MP down in the Murray region, Helen Dalton. She is–
[Malcolm Roberts]
Oh yeah.
[Marcus Paul]
Helen is a regular on the programme, much like yourself. She’s been screaming out, screaming and really unfortunately not being had a lot of attention paid to her.
She’s copped a lot from politicians. They’ve tried every trick in the political book to silence her. She wants a water register.
In other words, she wants politicians and others like herself to have a register that’s openly publicly available where people can say exactly how much water interests they have and that should also include national companies, foreign multinationals and everybody.
She wants more accountability on water. And look, she’s had a hard time trying to get this thing through the Parliament. She’s gonna try again for a register this week. It’s very tough.
[Malcolm Roberts]
Yes and we’ve been calling for exactly the same thing for a couple of years now, Marcus. It’s definitely needed. Pauline has been calling for it as well.
We want full transparency, full openness so that people can see what’s happening to their water. And you know, what we’ve seen is in the last week, just at the end of last week, we saw the Water Minister, Mr. Pitt come out and big headlines were generated.
The biggest change, to the Murray-Darling basin in 10 years. And then we saw Bridget McKenzie, the leader of the Nationals in the Senate saying, “You cannot take any more water from our communities. The 450 gigalitres will not be coming from our farmers.
Enough is enough. You have taken enough.” And that’s very clear, Marcus. Yet the bloody report actually recommends quote, “work with the States to accelerate planning and delivery of the 450 gigalitres SDL water acquisition.”
This is insane. We’ve been along the same path for a couple of years now. But what the Nationals are doing is they’re responding to the pressure that we have put on them and they’ve come out now, initially they rubbished us, then they realised they couldn’t stop us because we have the data.
Then they went quiet and now they’re coming out to pretend they embrace what we’re saying, but they’re not doing it real–
[Marcus Paul]
All they–
[Malcolm Roberts]
they’re doing it in lies.
[Marcus Paul]
Yeah, they need to. I mean, it’s always- excuse me. I’m very sorry. It’s the first time
[Malcolm Roberts]
Bless you.
[Marcus Paul]
I’ve sneezed for ages, anyway. Hay fever, time of the year. Look at the end of the day, the problem’s always been, as you would know very well, Malcolm,
Since water has become scarce and we are a country where we do have droughts, there’s a light bulb moment that’s gone off somewhere and they thought, you know what, we can take advantage of this capitalism at its worst, and we’ll commodify water.
Well, ever since water became a commodity, something to be bought, sold and traded, that’s when the rot set in and you’re right, particularly for the Murray-Darling basin, in particular for my New South Wales listeners, we know it’s our country’s food bowl and the people of Australia deserve damn well better.
Look, I see too the Office of Scientific Integrity, you’ve spoken to Dr. Peter Ridd from James Cook University in Townsville about this issue. Is that right?
[Malcolm Roberts]
Yes we have, and Dr. Ridd has accompanied us on our travels from Brisbane right through to Cairns. Now he’s gonna join us again this morning.
Every one of the media conferences we’ve done with him. What he has been promoting for a while now is that we need a quality assurance system for the science.
That would then complete the scientific process. We’ve been arguing for an Office of Scientific Integrity.
There is so much dodgy science that’s not science, that’s killing agriculture in New South Wales and Queensland, Murray-Darling basin and its water allocations, international agreements that we’re supposed to be complying with, the so called vegetation protection legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act that’s used to strangle development climate change policies, electricity policies, energy policies, forestry policies, coastal land resumptions where they’re stealing land rights from people who own own their houses on the Coast.
In New South Wales and Queensland, farmers lost their rights to use their land. These have all been based on dodgy science and then it’s not science.
So what we want is a proper scientific process that has quality assurance around it because these policies are strangling our country, gutting our economy, and we want this to be done properly with real integrity on the science, Marcus.
[Marcus Paul]
All right, I just wanna move to another issue. Dan Andrews and the prime minister, Scott Morrison, you say, are using competitive welfarism to replace our constitution’s bedrock competitive federalism.
What exactly do you mean by that?
[Malcolm Roberts]
Well, competitive federalism is where you have the exchange between States. So for example, Joh Bjelke-Petersen removed death duties in Queensland, in the seventies.
And what happened then was people then moved to the Queensland, Gold Coast in order to have their final years there and eventually die there because they would leave more money to their descendants, their kids.
And so what happened then was the other States were losing their businesses, losing their wealthy, losing their retirees. And so they enacted policies as well to remove death duties.
So we had a better and more competitive taxation system because of competitive federalism, competing between the States. It’s not ruthless cut throat competition, it’s finding out the best ways of running the State.
And that was designed by our forefathers, the founders of our constitution. What we have now is sloppiness, and there are several examples of this, but you’ve picked on one right now with Dan Andrews.
He made a mess of his State, he fell over in doing his job.
[Marcus Paul]
Yeah.
[Malcolm Roberts]
He didn’t do his job, and as a result of that incompetence, Victoria is in a real mess. So what happens? The Prime Minister bails him out.
So the people of Queensland, the people of New South Wales, the people of South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory, ACT are paying for Dan Andrews’ lack of accountability and sloppiness and his dishonesty.
[Marcus Paul]
They’re doing that of course–
[Malcolm Roberts]
And that’s competitive welfarism.
[Marcus Paul]
Yeah, and that’s, that welfarism you refer to, the extension of job seeker payments, even though they’re being tiered now, but it just continues, and the longer that border closures remain in play, well, the longer the rest of the country is going to have to foot the bill for it.
What about Annastacia Palaszczuk up there? Has she be missing in action? What’s happening?
[Malcolm Roberts]
Yes, she has been missing in action. What people need to understand about Queensland, the Labor machine runs the state. It’s ruthless and it’s not democratic government, nor is it caring and accountable.
And the corruption is flourishing across our State and local government markets, and we’ll be having much more to say about that in coming weeks, but it’s not Annastacia Palaszczuk who runs this state, it is the Labor machine.
Now what they’ve done is they’re missing in action to some extent, because they’ve handed over to the Chief Health Officer who has one priority, people’s physical health.
Well, Marcus, what about mental health? What about economic health? Because as they’re destroying our economy up here, this Queensland Labor machine that is appealing to the media and try to play to people’s emotions and heartstrings, they’re actually destroying our State and they’re not doing this in a humane way.
We have so many examples. Now your programme has led the way in exposing these things, we’ve got so many issues that are treating people inhumanely.
We’ve got kids with broken legs in hospitals, their parents from New South Wales can’t even visit them in Queensland.
We’ve got cancer patients, we’ve got babies in wombs dying, et cetera, and cancer patients not being treated all because the machine wants to be seen to be protecting Queenslanders when the machine is destroying Queenslanders.
If they really cared about people, they would identify the hotspots and ban people from there.
[Marcus Paul]
I mean, look. The other issue of course is you’ve got a lot of hypocrisy going on. We helped a gentleman yesterday who was, who’d been stuck on the Tweed Coast.
His father is in Royal Brisbane hospital. He’s had a massive head trauma, he’s on life support. They’re about to turn it off. He desperately, desperately needed to get to see his father in his dying days along with his sister.
We had to intervene. We had to go cap in hand to Queensland Health and we also spoke to the New South Wales health department and also to the wonderful people in Pauline’s office at One Nation.
We got this bloke across the border, along with his sister and we shouldn’t have to be doing this, we shouldn’t, but at the end of the day, the reason we shouldn’t be having to intervene like this and to expedite these kinds of situations for people is, well, some are getting the red card treatment.
Look at the red carpet treatment, look at the AFL officials. They can come on in, they can frolic, they can have a pool party for God’s sake on the Gold Coast.
Tom Hanks can just rock up whenever he likes, it appears, without having to go into quarantine. There’ll be 30,000 people gathering for the AFL Grand Final and everyday Queenslanders cannot gather in groups of more than 10. I mean for goodness sake.
[Malcolm Roberts]
Yeah, you’ve hit the nail on the head and that’s what I’m talking about. It’s a ruthless Labor Party machine up here that does not care about people.
Annastacia, sorry, Annastacia Palaszczuk, one of her predecessors was Anna Bligh. Two weeks before a State election, the machine promised that they would not sell assets.
Within weeks of the election, just six weeks after their promise, they flogged off billions of dollars worth of core assets in this State. It is a Labor Party machine. It’s not Queensland, it is the Labor Party machine that is uncaring and inhuman–
[Marcus Paul]
Well, problem is–
[Malcolm Roberts]
And what the AFL Grand Final should be up here, but we need to treat Queenslanders with respect.
[Marcus Paul]
All right, well, our problem is, and we’ve got to call into Deb Frecklington’s office, I mean, she’s almost, what she’s back down really now because of populism, I guess, she’s supporting Annastacia Palaszczuk. I’ve run out of time, Malcolm.
[Malcolm Roberts]
See you, mate .
[Marcus Paul]
All right, buddy. Thank you so much. As always good to chat. We’ll talk to you next week, okay?
[Malcolm Roberts]
Thanks, Marcus.
[Marcus Paul]
One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts, as always speaking a good deal of sense on the programme.
Queensland is plagued with poor policies that are undermining our economic prosperity and productive capacity. Whether it be our cattle industry, reef tourism, sugar farming or our coal mines, policy is being determined on the whims of the current political party and Queenslanders are suffering.
Channel 7 have reported on our press conference where cane sugarcane farmer Geoffrey Bradshaw claims that reef regulations are crippling his industry. Dr Peter Ridd has been studying sediment run-off on the GBR for 30 years and is certain that if policy was based on robust scientific evidence, the reef regulations would be scrapped.
Our proposed Office of Scientific Integrity would ensure that all policy is based on the best available science.
Transcript
[Laura]
It’s the big claim from a scientist and a One Nation Senator, that if true, could shatter the base of reef relations.
[Dr Peter Ridd]
I think you’d find that most of the latest regulations would be found to be completely unwarranted. There is no pesticides out on the Great Barrier Reef.
[Senator Roberts]
I’ve had a gut full of why things operate in the Senate or don’t operate. We’ve had politicians that make policies based on emotions, fears, exaggerations, and sometimes outright lies.
[Laura]
One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts has proposed an office of scientific integrity be formed.
[Senator Roberts]
So that we can restore honesty in science again.
[Dr Peter Ridd]
Well we’ve got to make sure that the science is absolutely robust and well tested.
[Laura]
Dr. Peter Ridd says the office would look at the science behind all policies, not just reef regulations. Senator Roberts says he’s confident that if implemented it would debunk some of the science that forms policies across multiple industries.
[Senator Roberts]
It’s affecting cattle, it’s affecting the reef tourism, it’s affecting cane, and it’s affecting coal.
[Laura]
Cane farmers say the regulations have crippled their industry.
[Mr Jeffrey Bradshaw]
We’re awash, we’re awash with regulations.
[Senator Roberts]
The Palaszczuk Government in particular has criminalised farmers.
Last week the Nationals claimed to have significantly changed the Murray Darling Basin plan for farmers. I want to be blunt. THEY LIED.They are wilting under the pressure One Nation has put them under through our use of facts and in response instead of doing good are trying to look good.
Take a listen to what the Nationals claimed the report said and what the report ACTUALLY says.
Transcript
Hi, I’m Senator Malcolm Roberts and I’m on the road from Rocky to Mackay in Central Queensland. I wanna make a statement about the and ask some questions about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan notice that came out of the government last week.
And I wanna ask a few basic questions after Friday’s media headlines. And I’m gonna read these questions, because I wanna make sure it’s accurate. Sky News called this the biggest change to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in 10 years, oh really? The Australian announced buybacks axed in Murray overhaul.
So I asked Minister Pitt for a copy of this supposed landmark report. And this is it, 10 pages, that’s all. The recommendations are two pages and a bit, that’s it. Does it really represent any change in the current policy? No, it does not. It doesn’t say any such thing and yet the Nationals Party and the government has been saying that.
One major issue and this is the first topic. One major issue with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is the last 450 gigalitres of water acquisitions called SDLs. Which is to be taken off farmers and given to the environment in South Australia. Since the plan started 2100 gigalitres of water has been taken from farmers.
That’s forced many farmers off the land and reduced our agricultural output by more than $10 billion. This is money that our economy needs especially when we try to recover from COVID. This is food that has been taken from the world’s hungry.
Now Senator Bridget McKenzie, who is leader of the National’s Party in the senate made this statement just a week ago. Quote, “You cannot take any more water from our communities. The 450 gigalitres will not be coming from our farmers. Enough is enough, you have taken enough.”
Well, that was clear, wasn’t it? But what does the reports really say? Let me read the recommendations. Quote, this is what the report says. “Work with the states to accelerate planning and delivery of the 450 gigalitre SDL acquisitions. Not stop the acquisition accelerate the acquisition.”
What of the promise to not take water off farmers? Perhaps Senator McKenzie is talking about this line. Quote, from the report, “Shift the focus away from on-farm acquisition to off-farm infrastructure.” What sort of a promise is shift the focus? These are with weasel words Minister Pitt.
450 gigalitres through fixing leaky pipes and burying irrigation channels, not possible. And for the record irrigation channels are lifelines for native Australian birds, animals and reptiles in a drought. Those canals are an entire ecosystem full of fish, turtles and crustaceans that die when you bury them underground.
This idea is literally killing our environment to save it. Secondly, as for splitting the Murray-Darling Basin authority into two, not so much. This is recommendation six, which establishes an Inspector General of Water Compliance. Now is this a new post?
No, they are simply renaming the Inspector General of Murray-Darling Basin Water Resources. When he was appointed, the existing Inspector Mick Keelty was called the tough cop on the block. What happened to that? This is nothing more than a re-branding exercise.
And the media has slapped it up the media has fallen for it. Does the media check anything anymore? Or do they just parrot what this government tells them? Thirdly, as for punitive powers, the Inspector General does not have any. Those powers vest with the State’s New South Wales in particular.
Where the most water rorting is going on. Has not even given the Murray-Darling Basin any punitive powers at all. If big Corporate Agriculture builds a new floodplain harvesting dam in the Northern Basin, the Inspector General has no powers to order that demolished nor even issue a fine.
The New South Wales State Agriculture Minister, Nationals Leader New South Wales, Nationals MP John Barilaro, has to make those orders and the government damn well knows it. Minister Pitt I have three questions. Who wrote this misleading press release?
Secondly, show me where in this report it actually says there will be no more buybacks from farmers? Thirdly, how does re-branding one position without any extra powers suddenly become splitting the Murray-Darling Basin authority into two? It doesn’t, does it?
I’ve heard the Nationals talk a lot of rubbish lately. But this takes the cake. These are lies they speak to distract. Under the Nationals, farmers will lose their water and rural communities will be destroyed. The only winner will be the Nationals Corporate Agriculture Mates.
When will the Nationals for a change? Join us in one Nation in putting Australia first.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Annotation-2020-09-08-135629-002.jpg?fit=1198%2C675&ssl=16751198Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2020-09-09 10:05:092020-09-09 10:05:31Nationals lied about changes to Murray Darling Basin plan
Re: Repeal of Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Regulations 2019
Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef is an immense treasure and multi-dimensional asset belonging to the people of Queensland.
Our beautiful reef is a spiritual asset connecting people with nature’s universal awe and wonder, an ecological asset and an enormous economic asset with vast unrealised potential value in tourism, fishing, research, healthcare, recreation and other activities. It is a living part of Queensland, a renewable asset for generations to come.
I hope you agree that it is the duty of elected officials to work for the benefit of all citizens within their jurisdiction and that in our country governments have a duty to listen to, understand, work for, and serve the people.
On Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 July 2020 I took part in the Senate’s Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport (RRAT) inquiry into the identification of leading practices in ensuring evidence-based regulation of farm practices that impact water quality outcomes in the Great Barrier Reef, held here in Brisbane. I was amazed yet not surprised with the answers to fundamental questions that senators asked on behalf of all Queenslanders. Among many facts the academics presented to us about the reef, we learned that what some groups say about the reef is incorrect. Specifically, that:
“Cloudy water” affects only the inner reefs being three per cent of the reef and is natural. Indeed, the portion adjacent to farm runoff is only half that, being 1.5 per cent with the other 1.5 per cent being off Cape York whose coastline is largely agriculturally undeveloped. The cloudy water effect is natural with no effect from modern farming methods.
Targets for pesticides near the reef and on the reef are not being exceeded and results shows there is no need for your Labor government’s most recent reef regulations.
Middle and outer reefs are pristine and show no impact from farming.
There is no direct evidence that dissolved nitrogen is having any effect on inshore coral reefs and certainly no effect on the middle and outer reefs;
There have been no measurements of coral growth rate since 2005. That’s fifteen years with no data and the question this raises is – what is the basis for the Labor government’s regulations?
Over recent decades farmers have made massive changes to farming practice, yet academics say there has been no impact from these changes and that leads logically to the conclusion that farming is having no discernible impact on the reef. Thus, there is no need for the Queensland Labor government’s reef regulations.
The cost of the Queensland Labor government’s regulations to each farmer is or will be tens of thousands of dollars per family farm. There is no benefit to the reef, and it will increase the price of the food we buy.
Secondly, it became clear during the inquiry that the Labor government is not meeting farmers’ needs to be heard and that agriculture seems to be a dirty word to your government. Neither is your government meeting farmers’ and communities’ needs to be treated with respect and consideration. Farmers are understandably frustrated and angry and have lost confidence in your government because they have never been presented with the empirical scientific evidence needed to justify the changes your Labor government is imposing.
Thirdly, farmers today are environmentalists and not criminals. Farmers know that their main asset is their farm soil and they protect it. Farmers today know that the future productivity and value of their farm depends on the quality of the surrounding natural environment. Farmers know that productive farming and the natural environment have a mutually beneficial relationship, not as you portray, as being mutually exclusive. Productive farming depends on a healthy natural environment and in turn the natural environment depends on healthy, economically productive farming communities.
These days farming must be internationally competitive, and farmers cannot afford to waste money applying fertilisers if those fertilisers run-off their farm. Technology today places fertilisers where they are needed and no more.
In giving evidence under questioning, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, AIMS, admitted:
“There is lots we don’t know about the Great Barrier Reef”;
The term “Consensus Statement” may be misleading;
“Climate change is not connected to farming”.
Your Labor government and senior public service bureaucrats seem to operate under the spell of ideologically driven activists including the notorious WWF, who are pushing their agenda to destroy Queenslanders’ rights to use their land and to destroy basic freedoms. These few activists and your government pandering to people who lack understanding of the source of their food are demonising farmers, farming and food production. You and they are doing so in contradiction of the science and in conflict with common sense.
The inquiry was told that the 30 per cent nitrogen reduction target has been modelled to cost $110 million annually for sugar cane farmers and sugar millers. Yet the science shows that this is and will be for no environmental benefit. That means that all this pain is for no gain.
I hope that you will support my recent call for an Office of Scientific Integrity to ensure the validity of science in making policies that are claimed to be based on science.
I enclose a copy of my report titled Restoring Scientific Integrity, together with a copy of Dr Alan Moran’s report titled The Hidden Cost of Climate Policies and Renewables. These show that your government’s destructive energy policies are costly mistakes for which the people of Queensland are paying heavily and for which you have no justifiable scientific basis.
I request that you reconsider your farming, climate and renewable energy policies. Your Labor government’s reef regulations will destroy east coast farming and your energy policies will smash all industries across the state, destroy livelihoods, export jobs and place a frightful burden on all families and on people’s cost of living.
I look forward to your reply and request that your government holds an independent inquiry into the unfounded “science” underpinning its reef regulations, repeals the legislation and apologies to farmers across the state.
The timber industry in Queensland is being decimated by regulations that are not based on robust science. The Queensland Labor party has been captured by the Greens who have an ideological opposition to logging.
Even sustainable logging.In Maryborough, layer upon layer of red tape is choking the sustainable harvesting of timber leading to timber being sourced from overseas. The proposed Office of Scientific Integrity would ensure that policy development would be based on independent, empirically based scientific evidence rather than the loopy Greens.
Transcript
[Rosie]
A senator, a businessman, and a scientist claim this report will unearth lies about Australia’s climate change and renewable energy.
[Senator Roberts]
So over the last four years I’ve investigated the CSIRO, in fact, I’ve cross-examined them. I’ve asked them to present me with the evidence that we’re doing something with climate and we need to stop it.
[Rosie]
Senator Malcolm Roberts says common concepts that carbon dioxide from human activity is a danger to the climate and that today’s temperatures are unprecedented, were fabricated for political gain.
[Senator Roberts]
That’s shoddy. So as a result of that, we’ve been recognising that the corruption of science is right across the country.
[Rosie]
According to Tiaro local Curly Tatnell, the impacts of corrupt science is huge for the timber industry.
[Mr Curly Tatnell]
Country that we should normally be able to harvest and things like that being locked up, which means that we’ve got to produce smaller timber.
[Rosie]
He says farmers are harvesting their properties prematurely because of misinformation. It’s led the men to call for the establishment of an office of scientific integrity.
[Dr Peter Ridd]
To check the science that’s being used for making major public policy decisions, whether they’re state or federal.
[Rosie]
The state government is aware of the groups calls. Rosie O’Brien, 7 News.
When policy development is at the mercy of the political whims of which ever party is in government, it cripples industry and Australia’s future economic prosperity.
Instead of reputable evidence, policy makers defer to political beliefs and vested interests, resulting in a policy failure that wastes an eye-watering amount of taxpayers’ money.
Senator Roberts said, “We must have an Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI) to scrutinise science, protect scientists from politicisation, and give all industry players the confidence that the policy is warranted and just.”
Politicians often ignore the vast uncertainties in many areas of science used for policy development, and true scientific oversight will enhance public debate and transparency.
“Australia’s climate policies are a stunning example of policy determining the scientific “evidence”, rather than science informing policy,” added Senator Roberts.
The diminishing trust in government’s use of data for policy development is being felt across a range of industries.
In the area of science governing Queensland’s reef regulations and farming, Dr Peter Ridd says, “It’s not until we can get our scientific institutions to be trustworthy that we will finally be able to trust science again.
Evidence-based policy making is not a new concept, though it needs more prominence in Australian political debate. The design of good policy depends on a solid foundation of reputable science.
“I am committed to more transparency in justifying policy, and welcome contributions to the development of an oversight body, such as the Office of Scientific Integrity,” concluded Senator Roberts.
This week Senator Malcolm Roberts revealed CSIRO’s complete lack of scientific justification for climate policies and CSIRO’s only response was to state their world ranking.
Senator Roberts said, “CSIRO’s response to my findings came before my report was even released, which reinforces the academic arrogance that comes from believing they are above questioning.
“We all know CSIRO is an iconic and esteemed Australian institution in many areas of research, which is why its track record on climate science is so worrying; it’s not up to standard.”
Three levels of government base expensive and far reaching climate policies on CSIRO’s advice, which largely comes from inadequate and unvalidated climate models.
“Rather than address the obvious flaws in their climate research, CSIRO chose instead to deflect to a lame appeal to authority, instead of citing credible science.”
The absence of a scientific response from CSIRO can only mean that they stand by the discredited and contradictory papers they cited and later withdrew, because the papers failed to prove their claim.
“Let me make this very clear, all politicians need to be seriously questioning the science that they glibly use to make climate policies, and Parliament must scrutinise the quality of this science.
“The CSIRO’s flawed climate models have not been validated, they contradict real world measurements and should not be used as the basis for spending billions of dollars of taxpayers money on damaging policies,” added Senator Roberts.
A team of 17 acclaimed climate scientists reviewed CSIRO’s evidence and were sadly disappointed with CSIRO’S lack of scientific rigour.
Senator Roberts will travel to Queensland’s major regional centres next week listening to people across many industries that poor science and damaging policy have ravaged.
“We must have an Office of Scientific Integrity that will scrutinise the science, protect scientists from politicisation and give all industry players the confidence that the policy is warranted and just,” concluded Senator Roberts.
Today, Australia officially entered into the “COVID19 recession” with the economy contracting by 7% in the second quarter of 2020. This recession was avoidable if the Australian government, States and Territories had use the best available data and experience from around the world rather than reacting to models that predicted an armageddon.
In this speech to the Senate I discuss Taiwan which has dealt with the COVID19 heath issues properly because they maintained their economy. While Taiwan has a similar population to Australia, they have only had 7 deaths. I first talked about Taiwan in March, including writing to the Prime Minister asking him to look at the data from Taiwan and consider changing course.
He refused. And now we are in a recession with over 1 million people out of work.
Willie Soon claims CSIRO committed scientific malpractice. Willie Soon is an astrophysicist and Geoscientist and researcher at the Solar and Stellar Physics (SSP) Division of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
I spoke with Willie Soon about the CSIRO’s reliance on a paper called Marcott el al (2013) to prove that the Earth’s temperature today is unprecedented.
Willie Soon was scathing in his assessment of CSIRO’s use of Marcott (2013) by saying “Two weeks after publication this paper was completely destroyed and yet, someone as high up as CSIRO trying to say this paper is legitimate and can be used as a supporting scientific evidence, is scientific malpractice”.
It’s hard to fathom that the CSIRO presented a paper that has been discredited and discarded by the scientific community and yet are relying on their supposed stellar reputation as a defence. This is shameful, and I call am calling on the CSIRO Chief Executive, Dr Larry Marshall, and executive Dr Peter Mayfield, to resign.
Both have been complicit in the economically destructive policies based on CSIRO’s misplaced climate research.
Willie Soon is an astrophysicist, a geoscientist and aerospace engineer and researcher at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard Smithsonian Centre for astrophysics based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He has co-authored the Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection with Steven Yaskell. He contends that most global warming is caused by solar variation and not human activity. Professor Soon is outspoken and clear. We’re going to have some fun and we’re going to have some really strong points raised, I’m sure of that.
[Willie Soon]
Yes. I have read your report and in it, I think you mentioned something that really puzzles me of course, in the sense that when you look for, you ask for evidence, they actually were trying to essentially, I will say it out loud and be fair, they were actually trying to bully you by let’s say, offering the evidence from a paper published in science magazine, supposedly prestigious journal.
And authored by a person named Sean Marcott with four or five authors, I mean the senior author’s a distinguished professor of course at Oregon State University in America. But Sean Marcott, well, during that time was actually doing his PhD thesis. And I was very, very shocked in the sense that you were talking to them during the time period of 2016 to 2017.
And this paper by Sean Marcott was published in 2013 roughly March. And if the average citizen do not know about some of these facts, I think they can be excused, but more so the professional scientists, knew that this piece of work who attempted to claim that over 10,000 years, okay, you have basically temperature from high warming from 10,000 years ago to roughly about 6,000 years, very, very warm.
This is called the mid Holocene warm optimum, and then cool a little bit down to let’s say, 20th century, and then they have this one line that they patch, what do you call the indirect data, hit the instrumental thermometer data to look like there’s a sharp hockey stick jumping up. Okay? And that is scientific malpractice.
There was no such thing in the actual paper, there was no such thing in Sean Marcott’s PhD thesis, in fact, the paper was completely fallen apart. Thanks to science and technology. Thanks to internet. It was completely fallen apart, two weeks after the publication. Because the authors, two of the senior authors, okay? Right?
One of the person is Shakun, Jeremy Shakun was at the Harvard postdoc at that time, and then Marcott was still a student. They both came out and said, “oh no, no, no. Our people didn’t say that, oh, our time resolution of our Holocene that was 300 years at best, which mean we dunno anything from every 300 years. So how can you talk about 100 years attaching to this, to show this crazy warming?”
What I’m trying to say is that it is a form of bullying because two weeks after publication, this whole paper was completely destroyed. And yet you have somebody as high as CSIRO and chief scientists of Australia, trying to say that this paper is legitimate and can be used as a supporting scientific evidence, by the way that paper was cited. They came out in March.
They were somehow mentioned in the fifth assessment report-
[Malcolm Roberts]
On the United nations.
[Willie Soon]
which came out Yeah, United Nations report. The last report which… And used that to support that, an even more famous hockey stick, which is done by professor Michael Mann for the last 1000 years.
And this is the kind of a scientific malpractice that I felt very sorry for them because I do not know what gave them the audacity, but these are the facts. And then I felt very sorry for the average Australian, especially the taxpayer. Why are you paying for this kind of nonsense? It’s actually nonsense.
And these people just because they have some PhD degree under their name, it doesn’t mean that they are very sensible. In my humble opinion, these people are highly misguided and they are very, very wrong in doing that. They should not ought to be doing that. And I really thank you enormously because I have met many politicians myself, I mean, most of them do not have the courage or conviction.
In fact, I think they’re a bit lazy because they don’t want to learn science, science seems to be a bit too hard sometimes. People are all scared of science, but for us, science is a wonderful tool, is one of those tools to enhance and improve our knowledge, to find that kind of understanding about our natural world and our human world. It’s a wonderful thing.
