Happy Easter ✝️

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As we stand on the brink of unprecedented challenges, it’s essential to reflect on the message of Easter.

The world may be in turmoil, but we must continue to strive towards a future of peace, prosperity and community. The farewell discourse from the Last Supper, though criticized by some, leaves us with an open ending and invites us to ponder our role in shaping a future as yet unwritten.

This Easter, I hope everyone can enjoy a well-deserved break with their families. Let’s use this ‘pause’ to strengthen our focus and objectivity, ensuring our story contributions are filled with peace, prosperity, and unity.

Transcript

In this week before Easter, I’m reminded of an old joke: Pontius Pilate said to Joseph, ‘I don’t understand, Joseph; you are a wealthy man and you have spent a fortune building a tomb for yourself and now you have given it to this pauper named Jesus,’ and Joseph replied, ‘It is only for the weekend.’ Easter weekend is upon us and the act of kindness from Joseph has endured for more than a weekend—for 2,000 years. Easter carries a message of rebirth, of starting over in the spirit of a God that forgives our transgressions while asking us through our actions to do better and to be better. John 14:27 records  

Jesus’s words at the Last Supper, the farewell discourse, as being: ‘Peace I leave with you, and the peace I give isn’t fragile like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid.’ All I can say is that Jesus got everything else correct; so I know he will again be right. Yet the world is on the brink of tribulations I have not lived through before and had hoped I never would experience. Some biblical scholars have criticised the farewell discourse as having been written too late after the event, leaving the ending of the discourse open. One would think that was the point. What is the ending? Will it be community and prosperity as we have enjoyed in this beautiful country for hundreds of years or will it be another Dark Ages, this time with the stain and stench of neo-feudalism, violence and immoral relativism, which is really just nihilism repackaged as woke agenda. Will those who think they are too smart for religion succeed in destroying real religions? That is the ending that was not made clear. How could it be? The ending has not been written and we can add just one part of it. 

I hope this Easter everyone has a nice break and, in the real world, with our families to strengthen our focus and objectivity, ensuring our contribution to the unwritten ending is peace, prosperity, family and community.  

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The Digital ID Will Change the Lives of Every Australian – For the Worse

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As much as the Government attempts to downplay the importance of introducing a single central digital identifier for all Australians, the truth is that this legislation is the most significant I’ve encountered during my time in the Senate.

t’s the glue that holds together the digital control agenda by which every Australian will be controlled, corralled, exploited and then gagged when they speak or act in opposition.

The government knows Digital ID will be compulsory by the device of preventing access to government services, banking services, air travel and major purchases for any Australian who does not have a Digital ID.

The Digital ID will, in effect, create a live data file of your movements, purchases, accounts and associates containing reference to every piece of data being held in the private and government sector as a first step in a wider agenda. Tech giants have been building huge data files on every Australian for years.

Those huge data files that contain every website you visited, every post you made on their social media, everything you have ever bought online. Keywords scanned from conversations overheard by Siri and Alexa in your home are now unmasked.

Until now, that data was anonymised using a unique identifier rather than name and address, which has always been there as well. However, tech companies were not allowed to use it or share data with others that included the person’s name and address. Until Now.

Look for the tech giants to ask for your Digital ID as a requirement of using their service. The point of that exercise is to ensure they put the right name on the right data treasure trove.

This is why the Liberal Party have moved amendments to the Digital ID Bill to bring private corporations into this roll out earlier. All those treasure troves of data worth billions, trillions, that have been accumulated for years illegally, by retailers, tech and data companies – all that unrealised profit just sitting there has been too much of a temptation for the Liberal Nationals to resist and is now joined with Labor in pushing Digital ID.

There will be no escape from the digital ID.

Australians now have a digital version of “papers please” and Australians will never be the same.

Transcript

Life is about to change for every Australian. As much as Senator Gallagher seeks to downplay the significance of introducing one central digital identifier for each and every Australian, the reality is that this is the most significant legislation I’ve seen in my time in the Senate. It’s the glue that holds together the digital control agenda by which every Australian will be controlled, corralled, exploited and then gagged when they speak or act in opposition.

The Digital ID Bill will be misused because this bill is written to be misused. The government knows that digital ID will be compulsory by the device of preventing access to government services, banking services, air travel and major purchases for any Australian who does not have a digital ID. The digital ID will, in effect, create a live data file of your movements, purchases, accounts and associates, containing reference to every piece of data being held in the private and government sector as the first step in a wider agenda. Google, Facebook and other tech giants have been building huge data files on every Australian for years. Those huge data files contain every website you’ve visited, every post you made on their social media and everything you have ever bought online, and the keyword scan from conversations overheard by Siri and Alexa in your home are now unmasked.

Until now, that data was anonymised using a unique identifier, rather than name and address, which has always been there as well. However, tech companies were not allowed to use it or to share data with others that included a person’s name and address—until now. Look for the tech giants to ask for your digital ID as a requirement of using their service. The point of that exercise is to ensure they put the right name on the right data treasure trove. It’s not just the tech giants heading into the data gold rush. Those reward cards you scan at the checkout have included terms and conditions to allow Coles and Woolies to make a record of every purchase you have made for years. This is why the Liberal Party has moved amendments to the Digital ID Bill to bring private corporations into this rollout earlier. All those treasure troves of data worth billions or trillions have accumulated for years illegally, and all that unrealised profit just sitting there has been too much of a temptation for the Liberals and Nationals to resist, and they have now joined with Labor in pushing digital ID.

Those listening at home may be wondering how an individual could avoid being drawn into this net of data trading and surveillance. The simple answer is: you can’t. This Labor government has already passed the Identity Verification Services Bill, which makes it legal for every Australian’s photo or video likeness to be used to verify that person against the database containing their biometric data. Biometric data simply means a digital representation of your face that allows for instantaneous electronic matching. Just days after that bill passed, the first thing the government did was to send an email to people with a myGov ID to update their myGov record by providing a facial scan on their phone. Yes, that really happened. This is what these people are doing to you. This is not voluntary.

Ten million Australians have a myGov ID. Most of those were forced into it to access Centrelink benefits. It’s cruel. There are another two million Australians who were forced to get a myGov ID to register as a company director, despite the director identity enabling legislation not even mentioning myGov. The government did it anyway! The database the government is using for data surveillance is the national driver’s licence database which has 17 million records—everyone who has, or has had, a driver’s licence. This government doesn’t need an excuse to further digital control for everyday Australians. Socialists love control. Socialism needs control. For socialism to exist, there must be control. The government knows control will be used by government to identify people who say mean things on social media to speed up enforcement of our new laws against saying home truths to crazy or dishonest people. No hiding behind anonymous accounts or false addresses; you can expect a knock on your door at home, work or school, as we’re seeing happening in other countries with digital identity already in place. Only by being able to keep tabs on citizens 24/7 can the government possibly hope to introduce the wealth heist they have planned.

Anyone viewing this topic for the first time can see the detail of what I’m talking about on my website. The committee report on the digital ID bill was a travesty. The committee made a recommendation to pass the bill which was simply not supported by the evidence they received during the inquiry. Witness after witness testified that this rancid evil bill failed to protect privacy, failed to establish that the ID would be voluntary, failed on human rights grounds and failed on technical grounds. One blackout, and the whole thing comes crashing down. Yet all these valid criticisms from leading organisations who, unlike the government, know what they’re talking about were simply ignored.

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Climate: The Movie

This Martin Durkin movie deserves your attention. Durkin also made ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ 17 years ago and faced significant backlash. Since then, there hasn’t been a major production that questions the “climate science” or our approach to climate change.

Regardless of your stance on “catastrophic” climate change, this movie raises important questions about democracy, free speech and the “science”.

Interestingly, the film has been shadow-banned on YouTube, which highlights the censorship and control over discussions on climate change.

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Investigating the mRNA Mutant Crime Scene

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I called on the Senate to support the inquiry into the federal COVID-19 Vaccine Injury Claims Scheme and restated my demand for the people of Australia to have their Royal Commission in COVID.

Australians are dying at a far higher rate than normal. Surely even the pharma industry lobby in the Senate can see that there’s a high probability that the cause, the one thing that has changed in the last 4 years coinciding with the increased mortality, is the jabs that everyday Australians were coerced and bullied into taking.

Why is the Labor Government so afraid of uncovering the truth? If they’re confident it’s not the cause, then shouldn’t they be prepared to have an inquiry into it?

This is an issue of life or death for the Australian people and it needs to be above suspicion. We need honest debate and proper scrutiny to understand why over 30,000 people more than normal have died so far.

In this speech, I go further into messenger RNA “vaccines”, the technology used to protect them and the actual mechanism by which these jabs could be causing the harm we are seeing.

I also talk about the “bait and switch” that was used during clinical trials, which saw trials conducted using the long-established method of using albumin to grow the vaccine. After testing, this was switched out for a new and untested method using a derivative of E. coli bacteria, which multiples much faster but contaminates the vaccine in the process.

During an interview on the ABC, Greg Hunt, the Health Minister at the time, admitted that “The world is engaged in the largest clinical trial, the largest global vaccination trial ever, and we will have enormous amounts of data”.

Where is that data now and what does it really say about our COVID response? The answer will only come from an inquiry. Clearly the Albanese Government and the Opposition do not want you to know.

Transcript

There have been more than 25,000 deaths. That’s more than 25,000 homicides. At Senate estimates hearings last November I produced an independent analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data. It showed the unexplained increase in deaths for the period 2022-23—population adjusted, excluding COVID and respiratory deaths—was 13 per cent. The Australian Bureau of Statistics provided data using a different methodology, which agreed closely with my figure. An increase of 13 per cent above baseline on 195,000 deaths in 2022-23 means 25,000 more Australians died than expected. 

Did the novel COVID injections cause all of these deaths? While highly likely, it’s possible they did not. Were enough of these deaths caused by the injections to be of serious concern and to support an inquiry? Definitely yes. A common argument against having an inquiry is the issue that increases in mortality are due to many different causes—cancer, dementia, cardiac conditions and diabetes—so there can’t possibly be a single cause. An inquiry would need to explain this. In the absence of an inquiry, I’ll advance a theory from many credible medical authorities. I’ll do that in a minute. 

The COVID products are not vaccines because they don’t stop people getting COVID. They don’t stop people passing it on to someone else. I call them injections or jabs. The jabs include a segment of messenger RNA, which has the purpose of splicing a new segment into our DNA, which produces a protein to create an antibody to COVID-19. This raises the possibility that disease can be prevented, using mRNA techniques to get our bodies producing antibodies to stop cancer and disease in their tracks. This opportunity to play God has proven so intoxicating that many in our health industry have fallen for it; mRNA jabs are being defended with religious fervour. As with any religious zealotry, those who ask difficult questions like, ‘Why are so many people suddenly dying?’ are being treated in a way that is an afront to parliamentary process and civil government. This issue is life or death. It needs to be above honest debate and scrutiny. 

One potential explanation for increased mortality rates across a wide range of conditions is a scandal known as ‘plasmidgate’. This is technical, so I’ll use plain language and apologise to any specialist vaccinologists listening. Messenger RNA is too fragile to use in a vaccine. To protect the RNA sequence from damage, these COVID jabs use a new technique, wrapping each one in a protective coating called a lipid nanoparticle. This keeps the RNA intact on its journey from your arm to the nucleus of every cell in your body, where the coating helps the RNA enter the cell and bind with your existing DNA. Remember, there are billions of mRNA particles in every jab. 

The manufacturing process is not clean. Fragments of DNA are being picked up in the manufacturing process and getting coated in that protective layer as well, a coating that stops your body expelling the fragment. These fragments are coming from the E. coli bacteria, a derivative being used to grow on the mRNA. Yes, they’re using modified E. coli bacteria as the growing medium for the mRNA in these jabs. 

The clinical trials for this product were conducted using the previous growing method, albumen from eggs. That’s the clinical trials. Yet that was far too slow for Pfizer, claiming the so-called speed of science. So, after the clinical trials were tested, with a conventionally propagated product, Pfizer switched it out for one grown using the much faster E. coli bacteria method. Has E. coli ever been used before as a medium to grow on a vaccine? No, it hasn’t. No, it has not. Was any safety testing done? Well, that would be every person that has had done the jab. That’s where the testing was done, if you’ve had the jab. Now people are dying, and the mRNA vaccine zealots are ignoring the outcome. The crime of the century is that the Australian public have been injected with DNA from E. coli bacteria that was wrapped up in a protective coating and delivered into the nucleus of every cell in your body. 

It gets worse. The latest peer reviewed published data on this shows that, in a third of cases, the cell will not produce the antibody intended against COVID and instead will produce some other antibody—in a third of cases. It’s a process called frame shifting, which means the mRNA does not present itself to your DNA strand correctly and accordingly combines with your DNA in an unintended way before producing an unintended protein antibody. This is going on in people’s bodies right now. What does that mutant protein do to your system? Nobody knows. Here’s the final crime. These mutant proteins are not created in one-third of people; they’re created in one-third of cells, meaning that everyone who was injected with a COVID product has a third of their cells now producing mutant proteins. We don’t know what harm that will cause. The harm varies from person to person. 

Are these proteins now resting in our brain? Are they? We know it can cross the blood-brain barrier into our brains. Are these proteins resting in our hearts, in our livers, in female ovaries, in male testes? Is it turning off our body’s natural cancer defence, resulting in turbo cancers? Highly likely. These are questions, not statements. When some of the most highly qualified medical professionals on this topic are asking questions, there is no excuse not to be investigating when those questions are being asked. It’s time to treat the zealots of the religion of mRNA as the maniacs they are. They played God and they harmed people. They killed tens of thousands of people. They committed homicide—homicidal maniacs. 

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I support this motion from Senator Rennick, which will find out how bad the damage is, and, once again, I call on the Senate to demand a royal commission into the crime of the century. 

The PRESIDENT: The question is that the motion moved by Senator Rennick be agreed to. 

The Senate divided. [12:18]  

(The President—Senator Lines)  

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Give Australians a Say on Immigration

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Australians have never been asked what they think is a fair amount of immigration. The Lib-Lab parties both advocate for high immigration and as there are many different issues that go towards deciding the party to vote for on polling day, elections simply don’t provide a way for the public to express their opinion on migration.

The Plebiscite (Future Migration Level) Bill 2018 aims to give Australians a say on immigration levels through a plebiscite. Senator Hanson argues that high immigration is causing a per capita recession and is detrimental to Australians’ standard of living.

Current immigration policies favouring high numbers of immigrants are driving up housing costs, leading to catastrophic homelessness among Australians. The Morrison government and now the Albanese government have failed to address this issue.

Australians deserve to have a voice on immigration levels that are impacting their security, lifestyle and their ability to provide for their future.

Transcript

The Plebiscite (Future Migration Level) Bill 2018 is simply saying, ‘Give Australians a say.’ That’s all we want. We want to listen to the people and let the people decide. Give the people a say—a ‘voice’, if you like. Senator Hanson is driven to do what’s in the national interest. That means protecting Australians and protecting Australians’ lifestyle. This is simply a voice—give Australians a say. 

Make no mistake; the figures show that we are in a per capita recession. I’ve said that in the past in the Senate and I continue to say it. Labor lies and policies are hiding that because you, as a government, do not want to be blamed for putting the place in recession. This is something that’s been carried through from the Morrison government to the Albanese government. Australia is in a per capita recession, and you’re hiding it with high immigration numbers. They raise artificially the GDP, making sure that we don’t have two quarters with negative growth.  

Without high immigration, this country would be in recession. You are doing the people a disservice and you are hiding the fact that we are in recession. You’re doing the people a disservice because they’re now sleeping in cars, under bridges, in tents and in caravans. They’re being moved to showgrounds—moved along from parks—in Bundaberg, Gladstone, Townsville, Cairns, Logan, Ipswich and Brisbane. I can step out of the CBD in Brisbane and within minutes of walking I can find people living in tents. Through the chair: Senator Watt and Senator Ciccone, are you aware that in our state, which is so fundamentally wealthy, we have thousands of people living on the streets? They are being moved on daily because they can’t be kept in one place any more than three days. Some of these people have got jobs—and that’s where they live! We’re creating and exporting our wealth to the world—5½ million Queenslanders are creating wealth for the world and our own Queenslanders are living in tents and living in cars. Some of them are being picked on by rangers, and as they’re moved on their kids are confiscated. These are working people.  

The key issue here is trust. We cannot trust the Albanese Labor government, just like we could not trust the Morrison Liberal-National government. Another key issue is serving the people. Senator Hanson mentioned it. I mentioned it. As servants to the people of Queensland and Australia, we are raising this issue because it is fundamental to Australians’ lifestyle, security and productivity.  

Senator Hanson raised immigration many years ago. She’s famous for it. Three of her four grandparents were immigrants. She’s not against immigration; she’s against overimmigration. She’s making sure that the quality of migrants is suitable for our culture, our laws and our values. This, though, has nothing to do with Senator Hanson. It’s simply a plebiscite to give people a say. You wanted it for gay marriage, homosexual marriage, and now you won’t let the people have a say in something even more fundamental. Senator Hanson has a very simple approach to politics. She hasn’t an elaborate political philosophy. She has a simple approach: do what’s right for the national interest—that’s it. That means doing what’s right for the standard of living.  

Senator Hanson and I are proud to support this bill because it is about propping up and restoring our standard of living. I raised immigration, particularly in connection with housing, starting a couple of years ago and I’ve been bashing it ever since. Have a look at my Facebook page, my Instagram page and my Twitter page. This has been a sincere and genuine concern of mine for years now. We have, as I said, people living in cars, tents and caravans and getting moved around in showgrounds. We had in January, just two months ago, record immigration. We had 125,000 new arrivals in January alone. I haven’t done the maths, but that’s around about 1½ million a year. After removing the number of people who left Australia that left 55,375 net migration into our country in one month. That was 40 per cent above the previous record for January way back in 2009. We have returned to the days of very high immigration, but we have gone way beyond that. We have 2.3 million people on working visas in this country, meaning 2.3 million beds and 2.3 million roofs over beds are needed. We have 600,000 students. We only have beds for 100,000 university students. So the university students we are bringing in to give us income are taking beds off Australians who need beds. 

Politicians in this country, the Liberal-Nationals and the Labor-Greens, follow a ‘big Australia’ policy—a ‘massive Australia’ policy. The people do not. The people want a ‘fair Australia’ policy. Trust, as I raised a minute ago, has been languishing in this place, and trust in the Albanese government has plummeted. Trust is made up of two components basically: integrity or honesty and competence. The Albanese Labor government is showing neither. 

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, let me tell you about a phone call I had just yesterday. I had a New South Wales truckie call me. This man was looking for a job. He admires the way our office runs and he wanted a job. He’s a truckie. I’ve met him in the past. He’s a wonderful man with a wonderful family. He’s on the Central Coast of New South Wales. He helped out during the fires. It cost him a lot of money to help out during the fires of 2019. He stood up to the COVID injection mandates in 2021. He’s a really decent person, who was making sure that he stood up because the COVID injections killed his aunty. This is a man who’s got the same genetics as his aunty, and he knew that the COVID injections would kill him. As a result of the COVID mandates which Scott Morrison’s government put in place and drove, and as a result of the economic policies that Anthony Albanese’s government is driving, he lost his business, a vibrant business employing seven people. 

Let’s look at housing. As I’ve talked about many times in the Senate and outside, we have a critical shortage of houses in this country. How do you respond as a government? You jack up the bureaucracy. You call it a $10 billion investment in housing when we know that that is just the fund and it’s only the returns from that fund which will be invested in housing—a few hundred million dollars a year. But you’ve added three new bureaucracies. They build bugger-all. What we need to do in this country is to stop the castration of property rights and to free up land. We need to free up tradies from overregulation and get on with the job of letting our tradies build the houses. People can’t find rental homes at the moment. The vacancy rate is 0.7 per cent—a record low. There are no bloody houses. And there are foreigners who own a lot of our houses and lock them up. But, no, you don’t want to do anything about that either. You turn a blind eye to that. 

My mother was born in this country. My grandparents were born overseas. They were immigrants. My father was an immigrant. So I’m half immigrant and I’m proud of that. I’m proud of being Australian, but I’m ashamed that the people in this chamber and the people in this parliamentary building want Australians to suffer. When you’re in Queensland, one of the wealthiest places in the world, and you cannot get a house, so you sleep in a tent or in a car with your family, and you do it because they’re covering up a per capita recession, that is cruel and that is inhuman. It’s not just un-Australian. It is inhuman—the bureaucracy; the regulations; the United Nations World Economic Forum alliance; policies restricting land; big immigration policy; energy; inflation caused by the people in this chamber, the previous Morrison government and now the Anthony Albanese government; and energy prices. Our country is the largest exporter of hydrocarbon fuels in the world. When you add up our coal and our gas, we are the largest exporters of energy, but we can’t use it here. We drive up inflation. We drive up energy prices. We drive up housing costs, and then we see people living in the streets in tents in Queensland. 

We see that the Liberals and Nationals are waking up to this issue. Senator David Sharma last night mentioned housing and immigration. We’ve been talking about it for several years now. He also mentioned that we need to do something about bracket creep. Recently, the Liberals and Nationals had a perfect opportunity to vote for my amendment on tax changes that would have ended bracket creep. You said no. Instead, you’re going to help the Labor Party steal $38 billion in the next four years from Australians because of bracket creep. You both want bracket creep. That’s the truth. You say that you don’t want it but, when the time comes to have a vote, you don’t vote for ending bracket creep. You vote for bracket creep because that’s how you steal more money from Australians, just like you’re stealing their livelihoods and their accommodation. 

I proudly speak about people’s wants and needs. Australians have very simple wants and needs. They want security, they want a good Aussie lifestyle and they want a fair government that looks after them—not one that steals from them. They want people in this place and in the House of Representatives to put the national interest first —not to bring in 2,000 Gazan immigrants with just one hour of processing. 

Only One Nation wants to give Australians a say. Under Senator Hanson as our leader—we’re the only party with a female leader, I might add, and proudly so—we’ve had a policy of a citizen initiated referendum for 10 or so years or perhaps even more, because One Nation is about giving the people a voice. One Nation is about holding Labor-Greens coalitions and Liberal-National coalitions accountable. A plebiscite is very, very simple. There’s only one question in it: should we reduce immigration? What are you afraid of? Should we reduce immigration? Let’s hear from the people: yes or no. That’s all we want. We want to put the people first in this country. That’s what we’ve been doing and that’s what we will continue to do. That’s why we have our energy policies and our immigration policies. We want to stop the mess that is unfolding in this country. 

Australia used to have the highest per capita income in the world; that was 120 years ago. We’re now slipping below many other countries. We’re heading for 20th. Yet, according to the United Nations, we have the richest resources in the world. You and you are squandering those resources. You’re stealing from the Australian people and now you’re making sure that they don’t get a house and that they don’t get a rental. They’ll keep sleeping in parks. All Senator Hanson and I want is to put the people first, to serve the people and to give the people a say. Should we reduce immigration? It’s over to the people of Australia. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Allman-Payne): The question is that the bill be read a second time. 

The Senate divided. [10:03]  

(The Acting Deputy President—Senator Allman-Payne)  

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Explicit Children’s Books Do Not Belong in Public Libraries

Every Australian child deserves to be protected from inappropriate reading material in taxpayer funded, public libraries. You have every right to have a say about what books are appropriate for your children, grandchildren, and students. 

Sign and share the petition below – closing date is 17 April – and help to make libraries safer places for our children. 

A thorough audit of libraries for “Submittable Publications” is recommended by the petitioners. Any explicit material meeting the criteria should be sent for classification review. The petition calls for a proactive approach and consistency of classification to protect children from explicit content.

It has become a growing trend in public libraries, including their online catalogues, to display books that are quite frankly designed to groom children about sex. We have the right to say this is not acceptable!

The ‘woke brigade’ are calling it book-burning. It’s not about erasing knowledge — it’s about decency and protecting children’s innocence by letting them have their childhood.

Leave our kids alone!

PETITION EN5982
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Senate Hearing Into Bank Closures in Regional Australia

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for attending today. My questions initially go to the Reserve Bank and, if there’s time, to the ACCC. To the Reserve Bank, cash is legal tender. Isn’t it part of a bank’s social licence and a
duty of a bank to provide access to legal tender?

Ms McPhee: The banks obviously do provide cash services. They’re services that they provide to their customers in their own business models. The Reserve Bank doesn’t have any mandate to legislate or to regulate
access to cash services, so that’s really a matter for the banks, as is providing those services to their customers. Banks will usually provide the services their customers are looking to access, and, as long as customers want to access cash services, banks should provide them.

Senator ROBERTS: I’m not experienced in your area, but I would’ve imagined that, as part of being a bank, it would’ve been a requirement to be able to provide legal tender, such as cash. Is that not correct?

Ms McPhee: There’s no obligation to provide legal tender services that I’m aware of for the banks, but I’m not an expert in that space. But, certainly, the position that we see is that many members of the Australian public still want to use cash as a means of payment, and they access that cash from their banks. Consumers still want to use cash, although a much smaller proportion of consumers wish to use cash. But there are still consumers who do use it and need to use it, so that is a product that the banks need to provide to their consumers because the consumers demand access to it.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. I would’ve thought it was a responsibility, almost a condition, of having a banking licence, but let’s continue. In your submission, you state:

  • The cash share of payments by consumers in regional areas fell from 35 per cent in 2019 to 14 per cent in 2022 …

What is the measure you used for cash share, please? The Reserve Bank isn’t notified when someone buys a cup of coffee at a cafe with cash, for instance. How did you arrive at these figures?

Ms McPhee: I might hand that to my colleague.

Mr Fisher: I believe the numbers that you’re talking about most likely come from our Consumer Payments Survey, which is something that the Reserve Bank does every three years where it asks people to essentially fill in a diary of every payment that they make over the course of a week. So we have quite detailed information spread across different demographics and different locations of how people are making their payments. I don’t have those precise figures in front of me, but, when we’re talking about the cash share of payments, then most often we’re referring to the results of that Consumer Payments Survey.

Senator ROBERTS: Could we get those figures on notice, please?

Mr Fisher: Yes, of course. The numbers I do have in front of me are that the cash share of payments in 2022 was a little under 10 per cent for people living in regional and remote areas. Actually the 2022 survey showed that that wasn’t all that different from people living in the major cities, but that’s not to say that some people don’t use cash much more intensively, including in those regional and remote areas.

Senator ROBERTS: And it doesn’t show the severity of not being able to access cash. For some people it is crucial, because they do everything in cash.

Mr Fisher: That’s right, and one thing we do from the Consumer Payments Survey is that you can classify people into how intensively they use cash. What that shows is that something like one in 20 people during that
survey week use cash for all their in-person payments, and it does show that certain demographic groups tend to use cash a lot more intensively than others, even though those shares have been declining over time.

Senator ROBERTS: The evidence is clear, from previous hearings of this committee, that banks are trying to drive down the use of cash, destroy the use of cash. That’s quite clear. Cash could be circulating more than you state, without your knowledge. Does this figure provide air cover for the banks’ war on cash, without having a solid basis in fact, apart from a survey?

Mr Fisher: I can’t comment on the issue of whether it’s providing cover for the banks. What I can say is that the survey is designed to be very comprehensive. It’s the best measure of cash use that we have. It surveys a
significant number of people, and a lot of effort by the survey firm goes into making sure that it is representative of the Australian population so we have a reasonably good picture, a good snapshot, at a particular point in time, of how people are using cash across the economy.

Senator ROBERTS: I understand, just as a side point, that the Reserve Bank of Australia has done work on establishing a digital currency. That’s correct, right?

Ms McPhee: Like many central banks around the world, we are doing some experiments and some analysis of a digital currency, but we are still working through that, and there are no direct plans to establish a digital
currency.

Senator ROBERTS: Let’s go back to the cash figures. A merchant who can’t deposit cash in their bank because the bank has been closed, and who can’t deposit in an ATM because their ATM has been ripped out, is
not going to accept cash they can’t bank, can’t use to pay suppliers, insurance, advertising and rent. Isn’t it true that regional merchants are no longer accepting cash because they can’t use that cash in their businesses?

Mr Fisher: What I might speak to there is the analysis that we do, some of which I believe might have been in our previous submission. Our overall assessment is that access to cash, in terms of the distance that people have to travel for withdrawal and deposit services, hasn’t changed a great deal in recent years. The nature of those services may have changed, though. If a bank branch has closed, people may have to either travel a little bit further to access full branch-style services or switch to an alternative source of cash access. I think it is reasonable to say that the elements of what you can call the cash cycle are interrelated. Cash use, cash access and cash acceptance are all, I guess, pieces of the total cash-use puzzle.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s a very important point you’ve made. If the banks want to drive people off cash so they can get fees and greater income from handling digital transactions then they can use what you just said.
Mr Fisher: I can’t really speak to the motivations of the banks, but I think it’s reasonable to suggest that there are different elements of the cash-use cycle that are related. We’ve published some analysis on the different
elements of the cash-use cycle in one of our bulletin articles, which I’d be happy to provide to the committee if that’s of interest.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Let’s get back to the alternative sources of cash to banks in some towns. Isn’t it true that post offices have a role to play in providing cash? But they are not banks. They do not have after-hours ATMs, when most people take out money.

Mr Fisher: In the analysis that I referred to a moment ago talking about the distance to cash access points, one of the reasons that the distance most people have to travel on average—we say ‘on average’, but it’s different the further remote you go—hasn’t changed a great deal in recent years is the strong geographic coverage of alternatives like Bank@Post outlets. I think it is a relevant question as to whether those offer full branch services. I definitely think that’s a relevant question. Those alternative means of accessing cash that I mentioned a moment ago might not be perfect substitutes for full banking services, for example.

Senator ROBERTS: So there is a need for potentially a post office or a people’s bank to have a greater role than they do right now to provide full banking services.

Program-250324Download
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Labor Abandons its Roots

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The Labor Party’s famed light on the hill is now nothing more than the sun reflecting off solar panels, which we know are expensive, short lived and an environmental disaster – just like the Albanese Labour government. In a recent article in The Australian, Jenny George AO delivered a scathing assessment of the modern Labor Party, stating that “Labor today is not the party it once was. It has lost its moral direction.”Members of the Labor Party like Jenny George have not left the party – the party left them. Continuing in her own words – “The party that was formed to give political expression to the needs of working people has allowed the light on the hill to dim.” 

The duopoly of Labor and the Liberal-National Party, that Australians wearily switch between every few years, is no longer built on the foundations of what Labor and the LNP originally stood for. These establishment parties continue to take from working Australians to line the pockets of their billionaire mates at the World Economic Forum. 

One Nation is the only party that still stands for working Australians and will support all who’ve come to this country to lift themselves up through their own hard work and enterprise.

Transcript

On the weekend, former ACTU president and former Labor member of parliament Jennie George AO published an article in the Australian newspaper. It’s compulsory reading. Jennie clearly holds Labor’s light on the hill in her heart, and her words echo the sadness and grief of many Labor true believers. She said: ‘The party that was formed to give political expression to the needs of working people has allowed the light on the hill to dim.’ In a recent speech I remarked that in 2024 Labor’s famed light on the hill is now nothing more than the sun reflecting off solar panels, which we know are expensive, short-lived and an environmental disaster—just like the Albanese Labor government. 

Jennie George’s judgement of the modern ALP is savage. She says: ‘Labor today is not the party it was; it has lost its moral compass.’ Ouch! Labor Party members like Jennie have not left the party; the party left them. The Overton window is a metaphor for the acceptable range of ideas and policies in which many politicians think they can act. Through it, such politicians see the middle ground of Australian politics. Under successive Labor-Greens and Liberals-Nationals governments, the Overton window has moved so far to the left and to the autocratic—that it no longer provides for everyday Australians. We’re losing wealth, spending power, access to housing, democracy and enjoyment of the riches our country has to offer. Establishment parties continue to take from working Australians to line the pockets of their millionaire and billionaire mates at the World Economic Forum. 

One Nation is the only party that still stands for working Australians and for all who have come here to lift themselves up through their own hard work and enterprise. Our One Nation policies will make the lives of working Australians easier. Jennie George’s words embolden old Labor to take back their party and excise from its ranks those who wear the mark of the World Economic Forum. Restore the ascendancy of our parliament, and return power to the people we are supposed to serve. 

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Media Release: 3G Shutdown Inquiry Debated by Senate

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The Senate will debate and vote on establishing an inquiry into the shutdown of the 3G mobile network on Tuesday, 26 March 2024. 

The 3G network is an essential service for millions of Australians. 3 million 3G-reliant devices are estimated to be affected by the looming shutdown, including 200,000 medical alarms. 

Farmers across the country rely on 3G wherever there is no 4G coverage, as well as using equipment that doesn’t operate on 4G.

740,000 4G customers will be unable to dial Triple Zero in an emergency.

Media Release

Media ReleaseDownload

Notice of Motion 

Motion-to-establish-InquiryDownload
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The Chaos of Lockdowns Impacting Australian Industry

There’s a long tail to the COVID response that’s affecting a lot of things. There are many changes to the way we work — working from home for example — and the way in which we interact with employees that are a direct impact of the changes made during COVID. The Australian Industry (AI) Group clearly showed in their submission the anxiety levels and the mental health impact on their members and the everyday Australians who work for them. The mixed messaging, the lack of consistent and clear communication made a challenging situation almost impossible to tolerate.

The AI Group made this statement: If we don’t come to grips with the consequences of the sometimes damaging and divisive actions of states to lock down everything from buildings and suburbs to entire states, we ignore the impacts across the community. Their testimony on the disruption to state borders, not just in border communities but to national businesses, makes clear that it was extraordinary. State and territory border closures were so disruptive they should only ever be used as a last resort. Many businesses were impacted also by localised communications and differing ‘rules’ between states which caused chaos.

The Albanese Government’s limited COVID inquiry excludes state governments from its scope. The AI Group feels this is a big exclusion given the fact that state and territory governments were responsible for implementing a lot of the measures which were contradictory and often capricious. The AI Group supports a Royal Commission into COVID with broad terms of reference.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Ms McGrath, thank you for your submission and also for appearing in person. It’s so much better to have people here in person, when possible. Your submission states: 

If we don’t come to grips with the consequences of the sometimes damaging and divisive actions of states to lock down everything from buildings and suburbs to entire states, we ignore the impacts across the community. 

What are some of the damaging outcomes that support your call for lockdowns to be included as a term of reference? 

Ms McGrath: That was the element that really had the most impact on our members. Our members, of course, are people and, as was the rest of Australian society, they were dealing with the challenges of the pandemic and worrying about their own health. I think we’ve clearly shown in the submission the anxiety levels and the mental health impact on our members and their workforces. The complexity of the shutdowns, the mixed messaging and the lack of consistent and clear communication made a challenging situation almost impossible to bear. 

Senator Roberts: Basically, what you’re saying is that there are enormous economic impacts that possibly could have been avoided—and I think many of them could have been. Those economic impacts led to anxiety and increased mental health problems, as well as economic impacts on employers. Also, you mentioned contradictions. Something that has been said repeatedly across the whole community by individuals and businesses is that each state had different science. 

Ms McGrath: They did. That’s why I referenced the bushfire response. If we think about the language that we use around bushfires, such as ‘prepare to leave’, and even just how we classify, from mild to catastrophic, the nature of a bushfire, we had none of that nomenclature when it came to the COVID pandemic. It meant that whoever was in front of the camera often used terms loosely, such as ‘essential workers’ or ‘authorised workers’. These all had different terms; often they were used interchangeably. It created great confusion amongst our members, who were trying to manage a very stressed workforce. 

Senator Roberts: I will mention that we have here the Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza, which was released in August 2019. This is a thick document, so it was comprehensively done, yet it was tossed out of the window and wasn’t even referred to. I think that led to some of the contradictions. Would you like to comment on that? 

Ms McGrath: I’m not aware of that document; I’m sorry. 

Senator Roberts: Let’s move on to another question. The High Court’s decision on the Western Australian border closures, the section 92 judgement, was instrumental in perpetuating border closures and certainly relied on health advice that closures were justified by the health dangers of COVID. Are you familiar with that decision? 

Ms McGrath: Not particularly, but I am aware of the impact of the state border closures. 

Senator Roberts: Basically, it says that border closures are within a state’s constitutional powers, providing that the state’s response is proportionate to the threat. The High Court decided that, based on the medical authorities’ advice, COVID was a serious threat, yet the health authorities at the time knew it was not. In fact, they gave me, in writing, their conclusion that showed that COVID was of low to moderate severity. If you think about the vulnerable that are a very small subset and you remove that, COVID was less severe than many past flus. Those health dangers have now been proven to be overstated, as I said, which really shows that the High Court made an interpretation of section 92 that was, in hindsight, not only not supported by the facts but also contrary to the facts; the High Court was misled. I note that your submission goes to the section 92 judgement, but it doesn’t offer a better way of doing closures. Can you expand on your thoughts around state border closures, please? 

Ms McGrath: As I said in my opening statement, they really should be of last resort. The disruption to state borders, not just in border communities but to national businesses, was extraordinary. The communication often was very localised. Victoria would talk about what was happening in Victoria, not understanding that there perhaps were companies in Queensland that had trucks that needed to come to Victoria; therefore, the message was never conveyed directly to them. The role that the Ai Group played in COVID was to try to gather all these instructions and directives, translate them into easily accessible language and make sure that all our members had access to them, regardless of where they were located. 

Senator Roberts: Do you consider that the responses to COVID were excessively politically motivated? Maybe that was intentional or maybe it was in ignorance. Some states ran focus groups to determine what the people thought was necessary, and yet we, the people, aren’t health authorities. It seemed to be driven by political purposes or political ends in some states, and that might have contributed to the contradictions. 

Ms McGrath: I’m not in a position to comment on that. I think there are many reasons for the contradictions. One is that the people making the directives were very stressed in their own right and so perhaps were not cognitively prepared for that sort of communication. As I’ve said, everyone was making very many decisions on the run. 

Senator Roberts: Your submission notes that JobKeeper benefits were paid to some companies that didn’t need the money; they made excessive profits during COVID and then refused to pay the money back. Is the answer clawbacks to recoup JobKeeper money or is the answer much tougher criteria for JobKeeper, including targeting small and medium businesses over large businesses? 

Ms McGrath: When it comes to JobKeeper, as we said, carefully calibrated support is best. The challenge with JobKeeper is that it was made very quickly and was quite broad based. When it comes to public policy, as you would know, that sometimes has unfortunate consequences. 

Senator Roberts: Your submission mentions mandatory COVID vaccination policies, yet it doesn’t say what about them should be investigated. Where does Ai stand on mandatory injections? 

Ms McGrath: We don’t have a position on mandatory injections; our position is to support members adhering to whatever regulation applies to them. What we found challenging was, again, a mix of communication styles and a mix of messages that came out, which caused a lot of stress in understanding what their obligations were. 

Senator Roberts: Just as a statement, your submission talks about the need for local manufacturing of personal protective equipment and related equipment to remove the need for stockpiling materials that degrade over time. One Nation fully supports that; we cannot be reliant on foreign countries for such products. Has Ai come up with any policy with regard to ensuring that we have the security of our own manufacturing? 

Ms McGrath: Not particularly. We work with ICN in each state and with a number of different local manufacturers in sovereign manufacturing. 

Senator Roberts: One of the responses to COVID from the previous government was to hand out a lot of money. We were warning at the time that this would lead to inflation and, sure enough, it has. We’re still living with the consequences of the COVID response; would you agree? 

Ms McGrath: There’s a long tail to COVID that’s affecting a lot of things. 

Senator Roberts: A long tail to COVID or to the COVID response? 

Ms McGrath: I’m sorry; to the COVID response. There are all sorts of things—as you say, inflation, which is happening globally, but also work from home policies—and changes to the way that we work and the way that we interact with employees that are a direct impact of many of the rules that came through COVID. 

Senator Roberts: On the second page of your submission you state: The existing Commonwealth Government COVID-19 Response Inquiry does include in its terms of reference a review of the responsibilities of state and territory governments and national governance mechanisms, such as National Cabinet. However, it includes the specific exclusion from the scope of the inquiry of ‘actions taken unilaterally by state and territory governments’. Given the fact that the state and territory governments were responsible for implementing a lot of the measures that were contradictory and often capricious, that would seem to be a very big exclusion. 

Ms McGrath: We agree. 

Transcript

Chair: Senator Roberts. 

Senator Roberts: The COVID injections or vaccines raise many questions. The TGA admitted to me in Senate Estimates that it did not test them here in this country but relied on the FDA in America. The FDA in America had already admitted previously that it didn’t test them but relied on Pfizer; and Pfizer’s trials were shut down early because of the number of deaths that they had. So, when you haven’t got something consistent, it puts people under a lot of pressure, not only employees but also employers. That puts you in a difficult position, because not all supermarkets forced their employees to get injected; I think IGA didn’t. But I can imagine a Coles or Woolies employee thinking, ‘I can’t go in the back door to the supermarket, because I’m an employee and must get injected; but I can go in the front door any time I want to and stay for as long as I like as a customer.’ How do you make sense of that? 

Ms McGrath: As I’ve illustrated, there are many complexities, particularly in communication and rules, that really added to the stress of the whole situation, and employers and employees were all coping with the same challenges. 

Senator Roberts: And customers. 

Ms McGrath: And customers. 

Senator Roberts: And sometimes they were in all three roles. Your final comment on page 6 of the January submission says, ‘A root and branch review is required to ensure that governments work cohesively and respond holistically during the next inevitable pandemic, and Ai Group supports any moves towards consideration of appointing a COVID Royal Commission.’ A ‘root and branch review’ is pretty serious stuff; it would be very detailed and comprehensive and would cover everything. 

Ms McGrath: Yes. 

Senator Roberts: Is that because it was so variable and there were so many contradictions and inconsistencies that it just didn’t make sense to many people? 

Ms McGrath: Yes, it didn’t make sense. Sometimes, there would be a minister or health officer making an announcement and we’d wait for the actual orders, and they would not be consistent with what had been announced. We would have to try to find a way to convey that to the government and ask them which directive we should listen to, and then they would try to reverse it. But it was just incredible, I think. 

Senator Roberts: I can empathise with you. I remember watching Yvette D’Ath, the Queensland state health minister, laying out the law in January 2022 or 2023, saying, ‘People in cars must wear masks.’ Someone asked, ‘What about if the driver is by himself?’ and she hummed and said, ‘Yes’. There was no science behind that: sitting alone in a car, with windows up, wearing a mask. These things were not driven by science. 

Chair: Is that a question, Senator Roberts? 

Senator Roberts: It is a statement, backing up Ai Group’s concerns. 

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