COVID-19 Commission of Inquiry Blocked!

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Recently, I co-sponsored a Bill to establish a Senate Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 and the government’s response. A Senate Commission of Inquiry is similar to a Royal Commission.

It’s extraordinary that Australia’s most costly and far reaching government response since WWII has not been subjected to an inquiry. This is more than likely because of the serious mistakes made, including poor judgments and instances of cronyism in both the government and the health industry.

I spoke in favour of the Bill, but it was voted down by globalist Liberals and, unsurprisingly, the corporate lackies in the Labor Party. The Greens chose to abstain.

One Nation remains committed to securing a thorough Commission of Inquiry into both the disastrous government response and the origins of COVID-19 itself.

How They Voted

Transcript

One Nation strongly supports the COVID-19 Response Commission of Inquiry Bill 2024, which I’ve proudly co-sponsored. To use the words of a former prime minister, ‘It’s time.’ It’s time to accept our duty is to the Australian people, not to ourselves and our colleagues. It’s time for courage and for truth.  

My Senate office held the first inquiry into COVID and response measures, called COVID Under Question, on 23 March 2022; a second was held on 17 August of the same year. Witnesses included Australian and international experts on health and the relatives of people that the COVID vaccine injections killed or maimed. All aspects of Australia’s COVID response were questioned. Several political parties participated, making it a truly non-partisan, cross-party inquiry. Because of the two full days of testimony at these hearings my decision-making has been better informed ever since. And that’s what senators must do: inform ourselves. 

The increasing interest from mainstream media in reporting the harm our COVID measures have caused indicates time is running out for those engaging in a cover-up. The public remains deeply dissatisfied and gravely concerned about state and federal governments’ COVID response. The people have many questions to be answered before trust can be restored in federal and state governments, politicians, health departments and agencies, medical professionals, medical professions, the media and pharmaceutical companies. 

I find it surprising our health bureaucrats and politicians oppose a judicial inquiry into COVID. After listening to their responses in Senate estimates hearings over the last four years, it’s clear they do not want to admit to a single mistake. In fact, their answers suggest they consider their performance exemplary, worthy of medals and parades. The United Kingdom even called upon the whole country to stand every Thursday evening on their front doorsteps and applaud their health professionals. Can you believe that? The inventor of the Moderna vaccine was given a stage-managed standing ovation at Wimbledon. Certainly, big pharma thought so highly of the head of our TGA, Therapeutic Goods Administration, Professor Skerritt, that they offered him a thankyou job on the board of Medicines Australia, which, despite the grandiose name, is the main pharmaceutical industry lobby group—heady days, indeed. Those days are over. That’s it! To those in this place fighting a rearguard action against the tidal wave of knowledge and accountability, it must now be clear to you that the battle is lost. Public anger is not going away; it’s here to stay until you restore trust. Trust in the medical profession is lower than at any time I can recall, and I fear where that will lead if not corrected. 

Every new unexplained death and every new heartbreak increases public realisation of what was done to our people in Australia. Despite the statistical sleight of hand, excess deaths are not falling. The genetic timebomb of mRNA vaccines is still ticking. More people are dying and more will die. The failure of our regulatory authorities to protect us is a crime. Approving a novel vaccine that killed people is a crime—homicide. Banning existing products that had proven efficacy and safety in order to drive sales of the so-called vaccine is a crime. Finally, covering up this corrupt process is a crime. 

Those who approved the vaccine knew, or rightly should have known, it was a gene therapy of a type which has failed a generation of safety testing. Five United States states—Texas, Utah, Kansas, Mississippi and Louisiana—are currently suing Pfizer for knowingly concealing vaccine caused myocarditis, pericarditis, failed pregnancies and deaths. The complaints allege Pfizer falsely claimed that its vaccine retained high efficacy against variants, despite knowing the reverse to be true—that is, protection dropped quickly over time, and the vaccine did not protect against new variants. Marketing the vaccine as safe and effective, despite its known risks, is a violation of consumer law in these five states. 

The lawsuit alleges that Pfizer engaged in censorship with social media companies to silence people criticising its safety and efficacy claims, proof of which has been public knowledge since Elon Musk released the Twitter files in December 2022. The lawsuit charges civil conspiracy between Pfizer, the US Department of Health and Human Services and others ‘to wilfully conceal, suppress or omit material facts relating to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.’ Under America’s PREP Act, Pfizer has indemnity for injuries. That indemnity is invalidated through making false and misleading claims. 

The reason this relates to Australia and to Australians is our contract with Pfizer, which provided indemnity against injury, can be negated through Pfizer’s misconduct, and misconduct there was, as I’m sure this commission of inquiry will discover. To taxpayers wondering why the expense of this inquiry is needed, here’s a thought: if we have a chance to move the cost of vaccine harm from the taxpayer to the perpetrator, we must take that opportunity. The guilty should pay; taxpayers should not pay. 

The grand jury evidence gathered to prepare the United States court case from the five states that I mentioned earlier applies to Australia as well. It makes for horrifying reading. First, Pfizer’s chairman and CEO, Dr Bourla, a veterinarian, not a doctor, declined government funding in order to prevent the government’s ability to oversee the vaccine development, testing and manufacture. That’s not something one does with a safe and properly made product. Second, Pfizer’s independence from Operation Warp Speed allowed it to demand a ‘tailor-made contract’ that did not include the normal clauses protecting taxpayers’ interests. Third, the investigation found Pfizer wilfully concealed, suppressed and omitted safety and efficacy data relating to its COVID-19 vaccine and kept them hidden through confidentiality agreements. Fourth, Pfizer had a written agreement with the United States government that Pfizer had to approve any messaging around the vaccine. I suspect the inquiry will find the same arrangement applied in Australia. In effect, Pfizer told our regulators what to say about their product. 

Fifth, Pfizer used an extended study timeline to conceal critical data relating to the safety and effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine. The study timeline was repeatedly pushed out to avoid revealing the results of the clinical trials until after billions of doses had been given. I’ll say that again: they avoided revealing the results of the clinical trials until after billions of doses had been given. Sixth, instead, Pfizer submitted a Hollywood version of the safety trials, which showed efficacy and safety that their real trials did not have—and our state and federal health authorities bought it. 

Seventh, we’re three years into COVID and scientists still can’t review Pfizer’s COVID-19 raw trial data. Eighth, so, when Professor Skerritt said in Senate estimates hearings that the TGA, the Therapeutic Goods Administration—his Therapeutic Goods Administration—had analysed all of the trial data, that was a lie. They used Pfizer’s special data. 

Ninth, Pfizer kept its COVID-19 vaccine’s true effects hidden through destroying the trial control group, invalidating the whole study. This was not gold standard research; this was dangerous and fraudulent behaviour. Tenth, Pfizer rigged the trial through excluding individuals who had been diagnosed with COVID-19, who were immunocompromised, pregnant or breastfeeding, or who were simply unwell. Why did the TGA claim the vaccine was safe for these very people when the vaccine was not tested on these people? Eleventh, the statement that the vaccine worked even if you already had COVID is therefore a lie, and yet that lie was used to expand the market and make more money. 

Twelfth, Pfizer maintained its own secret adverse events database, which was obtained in court process, and showed in the first three months of the rollout 158,893 adverse events resulted, including 1,223 deaths. Thirteenth, Pfizer was receiving so many adverse event reports that it had to hire 600 additional, full-time staff. It hired 600 extra people to monitor the adverse event reports. 

And, finally, while Pfizer tested its COVID-19 vaccine on healthy individuals in 2020, Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, quietly tested its COVID-19 vaccine on pregnant rats. Test rats produced foetuses with severe soft tissue and skeletal malformations, failed to become pregnant and failed to implant embryos at more than double the control group rate. That’s amongst other side effects. Some rats lost their entire litter. Pfizer did not issue a press release announcing the rat fertility study’s findings. And when they were asked, they lied about the outcome. I can’t help but think about women, humans, suffering as a result of this. We know that. 

The United States is achieving what Australia is not—rigorous inquiry and testing of the law. What are you afraid of? In Australia, this is behaviour which, under normal circumstances, would already have resulted in a commission of inquiry. Our delay in calling that inquiry damns us. Other nations are now ahead of us. South Korea has produced a study which analysed 4.3 million individuals—4.3 million!—comparing the rates of various new medical conditions in vaccinated versus unvaccinated groups over three months. The study revealed that the vaccinated experienced a 138 per cent increase in mild cognitive impairment, a 93 per cent increase in sleep disorders, a 23 per cent rise in Alzheimer’s disease, a 44 per cent rise in anxiety and related disorders and a 68 per cent rise in depression. 

In Australia, following my questions to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare at the inquiry into excess mortality in Australia, evidence was presented that the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare could have done this same research. It chose not to. Our health authorities are not conducting this research because they don’t want to know the answer. They want to hide from the truth, hide from the homicide that’s been caused in this country. I ask the Senate to pass this bill so we can get the answers ourselves, which is, as senators, our sworn duty.  

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Predatory Billionaires Are Corrupting Free Enterprise

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One Nation is the party of free enterprise, which has lifted the Western world out of poverty, providing high standards of living within peaceful societies.

In recent years, predatory billionaires—who already possess more than their fair share—have used their wealth to compromise industry, media, and politics. Their reason is simple: for these individuals, no amount is ever enough. They covet every cent you have and every freedom you enjoy.

The end result is not free enterprise but crony capitalism—a corruption of true free enterprise. This corrupted system serves only to enrich the elite while enslaving everyday citizens in a debt trap and more recently, a digital prison designed to ensure their transfer of wealth is protected.

Transcript

Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson recently declared that no new airlines could survive in Australia; that was about Bonza. We’ve since seen Rex’s demise, leaving two companies running three major airlines in a market worth $20 billion a year. 

One Nation believes free enterprise competition delivers the highest quality product for the lowest price to the most people. Competition best meets people’s needs. In Australia, we do not have free enterprise competition; we have crony capitalism. Those are not the same thing; they’re enemies. 

Crony capitalism occurs when a cabal of companies acts together to capture production, manufacturing and delivery, to provide the lowest quality product at the highest possible price. That arranged market domination inevitably lowers wages and transfers wealth from working Australians to crony capitalists. 

Anyone who shops in foreign-owned-and-controlled Coles or Woolies will have noticed that everything is smaller, cheaper and doesn’t work like it used to. That’s crony capitalism at work. The world’s largest wealth funds have bought out Australia and turned our once-loved companies into weapons of mass exploitation. Our corporate sector no longer serves us. Instead, we serve the corporate sector, including by the forced purchase of fake medical products during COVID. 

One Nation believes government regulation—including of airlines, banking and the medical field—does not protect the public against corporations; it protects the corporations against new competition and, therefore, against the people. High levels of regulation are barriers to entry to new players, allowing large corporations to thrive while small local players like Rex are strangled and wiped out. Masses of regulations protect corporations with expensive lawyers against court cases. 

If you believe it’s time to reduce regulation, to reduce the presence of foreign corporations and governments in our economy; if you believe it’s time to unleash real competition, to solve the cost-of-living crisis and provide better choices, then welcome to the light. Welcome to One Nation. 

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Labor’s Union Ties and Cover-ups

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Anthony Albanese and his Labor government have lost the people’s trust and support. Labor is tied to the CFMEU because of the union’s massive donations. They are also hiding the largest wage theft in Australia’s history, especially among miners in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley, who are owed significant back pay. 

Recent actions by Labor, such as the late submission of bills, suggest a cover-up to avoid scrutiny. Unions like the CFMEU have lost their way, evident during the COVID-19 lockdowns when members rebelled against their union’s lack of care. Labor abolished the ABCC despite criminal issues within the unions. Labor’s relationship with the CFMEU is a problem and is driven by donations.

As a former union member, I value true unions like the Miners Federation. Today, many union bosses prioritise personal gain, neglecting their members, as seen with the CFMEU and Mining and Energy Union. Workers are forced into monopolistic unions without choice, but alternatives like Queensland’s Red Union exist.  Protecting union monopolies will further their demise and lower wages. Choice is crucial. 

Look at this: Chandler Macleod Group, part of Recruit Holdings, the world’s largest labour hire company, works with the CFMEU and Mining and Energy Union in Hunter and Central Queensland.  The federal government spends billions on labour hire – and the Fair Work Commission has approved these questionable arrangements. BHP, with union help, forced workers from permanent jobs to lower-paying Tesla labour hire, then to Chandler Macleod with another big pay cut.

We need open scrutiny and an inquiry, not just window dressing. The Bill should go to committee, or at least be heard on Friday.  We want to amend the Bill to enable challenges to the Minister’s regulations.  We are committed to seeing criminal charges laid against union crooks, reinstating the watchdog and pushing for comprehensive industrial relations reform.

Transcript

Trust has been lost. Anthony Albanese and his Labor government have lost the people’s trust, lost the people’s confidence, lost the people’s support. Labor supports the CFMEU because the CFMEU gives it massive donations—millions and millions of cash for election campaigns. Labor is wedded to the CFMEU. Labor is dependent on the CFMEU. 

Labor is hiding the biggest wage theft in Australia’s history. Five years I’ve spent exposing the scam. We have an excellent independent report, Coal miners wage theft, done in February this year. It vindicates what I’ve been pushing for five years. Some miners in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley are owed $41,000 per annum in wage theft. The Independent Workers Union, a new, fair-dinkum union operating in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley, has lodged complaints for many miners because the CFMEU and the Mining and Energy Union have not bothered to do so. They won’t go after the back pay of the wage theft. 

I’m aware of a complaint lodged just recently, in the last couple of days, to the Fair Work Ombudsman by the Independent Workers Union, seeking, for one person alone, $211,000 in back pay—$211,000 in wage theft that this Labor government condones and hides. The CFMEU drove the theft of wages from Central Queensland and Hunter miners. The workers’ former protectors in the CFMEU are now their exploiters. They’re hurting workers. I wonder: will Labor’s administrator allocate the CFMEU funds to make good the miners’ wages? For one person it’s $211,000; there are over 5,000 miners losing up to or around $41,000 per year of service. 

Labor MPs are complicit because there has been a protection racket for their mates in the CFMEU. Labor MPs in the Hunter denied and then ignored my claims—my claims put to them in writing. I hand-delivered, to Dan Repacholi’s office here in parliament, my letter to him explaining this. Not a peep! Instead, we got lies from Mr Repacholi in the Hunter, and similar from Joel Fitzgibbon. Minister Watt in the Senate has denigrated, ridiculed and dismissed more than 5,000 miners’ legal improvement entitlements. And I have been proven correct. 

Let’s return to Monday and Minister Gallagher’s word, ‘urgent’. ‘This is urgent,’ she said, as to the administrator for the CFMEU. I add two words: ‘cover up’. It’s a cover-up. Minister Gallagher says Labor’s administrator is ‘urgent’, yet Minister Watt dropped this bill on us late on Monday night. What gives? Do you expect us to believe that it was drafted on Sunday—that they did an all-nighter in the department on Sunday with lots of coffee? Why did Labor drop it on us without giving it to us earlier? Is it to avoid scrutiny? Yes—I can see some senators agreeing. When did the Greens and the teal Senator Pocock get copies? We’ve had instances in the past where they have got copies of new bills two weeks before we have and they’ve been dropped on us at the last minute. 

Then Senator Gallagher sought exemption from the normal bills process. Speaking of exemption, Senator Gallagher said, ‘The Albanese government says it’s a clear path.’ Yet the bill is littered with the word ‘may’. It’s a very unclear bill. It needs the word ‘will’. Secondly, she said, ‘The people of Australia are expecting a clear response.’ With an unclear bill? I echo Senator O’Sullivan’s call for a hearing. Then Senator Gallagher said, ‘We will give you a firm view at the end of the week.’ You will only get a firm view with a hearing. We need a firm view and scrutiny of this legislation. We need ‘may’ to be replaced by ‘will’ quite often. We need an opportunity for bipartisan input. 

I’m a former member of three unions. I know genuine unions are necessary. The genuine union movement has a long and proud history, going back to Wales and the lodge system in the Miners Federation, which I was a proud member and participant of. Yet today so many union bosses have forgot their workers and members. Why? Today workers’ protections are enshrined in law—as they should be—including safety, wages, conditions, security, retirement, health and many other provisions. Now the union bosses erode and steal these for personal gain, as the CFMEU and the Mining and Energy Union have done in Central Queensland and the Hunter. Personal gain and power, that’s what it’s about now, not looking after members. Why? Because they’re an untouchable monopoly. Workers need choice. Workers don’t have choice. They must join the union in their industry. That’s it. There’s no choice. The Red Union in Queensland and around Australia and in New Zealand is giving workers choice. 

Thirdly, the Fair Work Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman have failed to protect miners and workers. The Fair Work Commission has overseen and approved the theft of wages from casual coalminers in the Hunter Valley. As a boy, I lived in Central Queensland and the Hunter coalfields. My dad was in coalmining. I graduated with a mining engineers degree, an honours degree, and then decided I’d better go and learn something, so I worked at the coalface.  

I came across Bill Chapman, the legendary president of the Northern District Miners Federation. He was a wonderful man. I sided with him in an open-air meeting when I worked at Westfalen’s No. 2 mine when I worked on the night shift there. My dad was complimented, highly, by Bill Chapman at my father’s retirement. My dad and Bill used to argue a lot, but they respected each other, because Bill was genuinely concerned about workers. I knew Mattie Best before he died. I worked with him. I played football with him. He was my football coach in Central Queensland when I played rugby league. He was a genuine union delegate who had respect from workers and management and fellow union bosses. He called out safety issues when they were abused. 

I am proud to support real unions that work in workers’ interests. I worked as a mine manager with the CFMEU union bosses. We developed a landmark award that I instigated, and I instigated many previously undreamt-of provisions because they were to the benefit of the workers and productivity. I worked with the union. 

The rank and file in the CFMEU in Victoria during the COVID mismanagement erupted in a mutiny against vaccine mandates and lockdowns. The members realised their union bosses did not care, and they revolted. Labor then abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Senator Watt said, ‘Australians expected parliament to deal with criminal allegations inside the recalcitrant union promptly.’ How, looking at this vague bill? Where is the trust? It’s been smashed. Labor supports the CFMEU because of donations; Labor is wedded to the CFMEU because it’s dependent on donations.  

Yesterday we heard Senator Pocock, a teal senator, say: ‘We need to be cleaning up the union.’ Has he forgotten that he supported the abolition of the ABCC? The CFMEU has assisted in theft from miners, as I’ve explained. They’re now exploiting miners. The Labor Party has been complicit. Both Joel Fitzgibbon and Dan Repacholi reportedly get campaign donations from the CFMEU. Then we get Labor’s fabrication. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Allman-Payne): Minister McAllister? 

Senator McAllister: I wonder if Senator Roberts could be asked to refer to people by their proper titles.  

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator.  

Senator ROBERTS: Labor fabricated an imaginary loophole, which the miners in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley told me was a fabrication, and I worked out it is. Then they pretended to close the loophole with their closing loopholes bill. All it needed was enforcement of the Fair Work Act and the Black Coal Mining Industry Award. Minister Watt and Minister Burke, his predecessor, and Mr Fitzgibbon and Mr Repacholi are complicit in this way theft, the largest in Australia. Labor enabled casuals— 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator, please resume your seat. Minister? 

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts is reflecting very directly on a range of people, including ministers who represent the government in this chamber, and he should withdraw. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: It would assist the chamber. You were certainly straying into impugning members of the parliament. 

Senator ROBERTS: To assist the chamber, and for that reason, I will withdraw. But Labor enabled casuals in coalmining. The Black Coal Mining Industry Award prohibited casuals on production; it still does. Labor, under Prime Minister Gillard, changed the coal long service leave provisions legislation to include casuals. I’m told that Anthony Albanese read the bill into parliament early in 2011. That’s what enabled this wage theft. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator— 

Senator ROBERTS: Sorry—Mr Albanese, the Prime Minister. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: This is happening reasonably regularly throughout your contribution. Could you please make sure that you refer to everyone to whom you are referring using their correct titles. 

Senator ROBERTS: Certainly. Labor has forgotten workers. It’s actually helping union bosses—union bosses from the CFMEU—to exploit workers. Minister Watt knows of the wage theft, because he advised us of the Mining and Energy Union’s application for a new enterprise agreement. We advised him the application confirms our work. And yet there has been no Mining and Energy Union application for back pay. Why? Because when they were part of the CFMEU they deliberately conjured up illegal enterprise agreements. We’ve had no word from Minister Watt regarding the investigation into wage theft that the Senate required thanks to my amendment to a bill earlier this year. We do not believe that Minister Watt is fit to oversee the CFMEU administrator. It’s a furphy. 

Look at the other unions, the health and safety unions, stealing from the lowest-paid workers in Australia, and SDA union bosses corrupt. The Fair Work Act covers union bosses’ greed, theft and abuse. Look at Craig Thomson. We’re tired of the cover-ups. 

Let’s get on to the root cause. It was publicly revealed in the Australian Financial Review on 12 April this year. Their journalist David Marin-Guzman wrote an article headlined ‘CFMEU push to take control of the Labor Party’. I quote: 

John Setka is planning to use the militant construction union’s hundreds of delegates and members to boost the CFMEU’s influence on internal Labor politics in the Victorian and federal parliaments. 

Another quote: 

Such a large membership drive could give the CFMEU significant control over Labor preselections and party conferences, which elect the party executive and vote on policy— 

even the Premier in Victoria. That’s what’s going on here; it’s a power play. 

Then we see Labor Premier Steven Miles in Queensland accused of silencing the Crime and Corruption Commission. Mark Le Grand, who spent 10 years as chief investigator at the then Criminal Justice Commission in the wake of the 1989 Fitzgerald inquiry, told the Australian there would have been no point in having the royal commission if Fitzgerald could not report on its investigation. Labor want to shut down the reporting. I could go on with more quotes. 

We then have Robert Gottliebsen telling us of the dire predicament of Australia’s productivity decline. Falling productivity—yeah, that’s the key to wage rises! The CFMEU is guilty of destroying productivity. When productivity falls it kills industry, kills the future and kills jobs. Add that to the energy prices, the industrial relations policies, the inflation, the productivity decline. It’s killing the economy, killing national security and killing the standard of living. 

This is about more than just the CFMEU administrator; this is about trust. We see in Queensland that the Labor Party and the union movement are not two separate entities; they are one entity. Minister Grace Grace, when she lost her seat and Campbell Newman took over a decade ago, went straight into a job at $180,000 a year at the Queensland Teachers Union. Then, when Labor got back into power, she slid straight back into working directly with the Labor Party. The whole time she worked with the Labor Party. We’ve seen the Labor government in Queensland outlaw the Red Union because it’s competition for the Queensland Teachers Union and the Queensland nurses union. There’s a monopoly in industrial relations and no accountability. Then we have provisions. I draw people’s attention to provisions such as to 323B in the new act, clause 1, clause 2, which I do not have time to go into at the moment. These are things we are focusing on. Section 323C clause 2, section 323D clause 1—so loose, so vague, so open. We need accountability. We need competition amongst unions with better service to members. We need higher sustained wages now and into the future, because an industry that is healthy will pay higher wages. That is a proven fact. 

Protecting union monopolies will continue union demise and lead to lower wages. Choice is essential. Look at the players in this: Chandler McLeod Group, part of Recruit Holdings, the world’s largest labour hire company working with the CFMEU and the Mining and Energy Union in the Hunter and Central Queensland. Federal government itself uses billions of dollars of labour hire. The Fair Work Commission has approved these awards. BHP forced people to change from being BHP people with permanent employment to Tesla labour hire with a big pay cut, thanks to the union, and then forced to go to Chandler Macleod with another big pay cut. 

We need open scrutiny, we need a hearing, not window-dressing. It needs to be sent to committee, or at least get a hearing on Friday. We are thinking of an amendment requesting the administrator investigate coalmining wage theft as per one union report and organise for the CFMEU finances to cover that—but it is not part of the bill, so we won’t be doing that. We want to amend the bill to allow disallowance of the minister’s regulations. We want to see criminal charges. We want to see the watchdog brought back and comprehensive reform to industrial relations. 

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Albanese Government’s Sham Celebration

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Unbelievable! The Albanese Labor government is celebrating a measly 0.8% wage increase for the quarter, while inflation has gone up by 1%. Do the math, and it’s clear—we’re all going backwards by 0.2%! 😡 Yet, the Treasurer and Prime Minister have the audacity to tell us to celebrate. Meanwhile, everyday Aussies are suffering through the worst cost-of-living crisis in modern history. Our GDP is barely avoiding a recession, propped up only by a massive influx of one million new migrants in just two years. Let’s be real: we’re in the middle of the worst per capita recession since the Great Depression!

The Liberal-Labor Uniparty is shipping off our natural resources, obeying unelected foreign bodies like the WEF, and allowing predatory investment funds to own our critical industries. Additionally, they’ve also let our housing crisis spiral out of control by bringing in more people than we can house.

Only One Nation will put a stop to this madness and fight for the Australian people. It’s time to end these anti-Australian decisions that are dragging us backwards.

Transcript

Well, I couldn’t believe my ears last week. The Albanese Labor government burst out of the gates to tell Australians to celebrate and rejoice: wages had gone up 0.8 per cent for the quarter. The Treasurer and Prime Minister tell us: ‘Pop the champagne bottles! Just ignore the fact that inflation has gone up one per cent for the same quarter.’ That means everyone has gone backwards an average of 0.2 per cent. Can you believe the Treasurer and Prime Minister can bring themselves to front up to the cameras to address this parliament and put such a ridiculous spin on the latest round of bad news? How do they do it? How does the Labor Party keep telling Australians we’ve never had it better, while Australians struggle through the worst cost-of-living crisis in modern history? The GDP is treading water; it’s barely staying out of technical recession. How is it staying out? Thanks to one million fresh migrant arrivals in just two years, boosting official gross domestic product, GDP, to just barely over the recession threshold. 

Meanwhile, let’s look at how everyday Australians are faring. We’re in the middle of the worst per capita recession since the Great Depression. Australians have not gone backwards on average this badly since the 1930s—almost a century. What is the Liberal-Labor uniparty’s answer to this? The uniparty will continue to send our natural resources overseas for China to use in building solar panels that China sells back to us. The uniparty will continue to obey what unelected foreign organisations like the World Economic Forum say. The uniparty will keep letting foreign predatory investment funds like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, and banks like JP Morgan, own our critical industries and get away with economic murder. The uniparty will continue to let too many new arrivals into our country before we have the necessary housing and services, prolonging the housing crisis that the uniparty created over recent decades. The housing crisis did not occur overnight; it’s been cultivated. Only One Nation will stop this madness and put an end to anti-Australia decisions that are sending our people backwards. (Time expired) 

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Education, not Indoctrination!

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The State Governments constantly come begging to the Commonwealth for money for schools which are State Government responsibility. This money inevitably ends up going towards ‘woke’ agendas, such as those promoted by Queensland Premier Steven Miles.

Drag queen story times, welcome to country and gender affirmation in schools is ridiculous and taxpayers shouldn’t be funding such programs.

I have long called for education to be about the basics: Education NOT Indoctrination!

Transcript

The schooling resource standard, or SRS, estimates the amount of public funding that schools need to meet their students’ educational needs. As of 2024, the Commonwealth is responsible for providing 20 per cent of public schools funding and, in line with this arrangement, states are required to take on 75 per cent, leaving a five per cent gap. The Commonwealth wears extra loadings for medium and small schools, which is estimated to cost the federal government $600 million in 2024 alone, as well as other student based loadings. 

This scheme was agreed upon between the federal, state and territory governments under the National School Reform Agreement. Australia is a federation of states, and education is a state responsibility. Not only are the states failing to meet their 75 per cent target; they’re demanding that the federal government tip in more money for an additional five per cent. It is hypocrisy for the Victorian education minister, Ben Carroll, to suggest that the federal government should cut its funding to non-government schools to make up for it. The Commonwealth is already paying its fair share and meeting its target as outlined in the schooling resource standard, and the states are not paying their fair share—their agreed share. The states have even declined the offer of the federal government taking on an additional 2.5 per cent to help in closing the gap. They are asking for the full five per cent. How can the states ask for anything when they’re not even meeting their own target? 

It’s worth noting that, in Australia, states and territories are responsible for the majority of public school funding, to which in 2024 alone the Commonwealth government is contributing $11.2 billion. Contrary to union bosses’ claims, the federal government over the past decade has taken on a greater share of the responsibility of funding schools. In fact, in 2013-14, states were responsible for 87 per cent of public school funding. Today that share is 12 per cent lower. It’s not the Commonwealth’s job to make up for the states’ fiscal illiteracy and mismanagement or the states’ pursuit of woke agenda. Look at Steven Miles, the Premier of Queensland. He is driving an agenda that includes gender bending and kiddies talk. 

Senator Allman-Payne interjecting— 

Senator ROBERTS: Senator Allman-Payne was talking about human relations. This is bending our children. That’s what we’re paying for. We should not be paying for that. Reading kids drag queens’ story times in schools—ridiculous! It’s left to the parent to defend their children and come in and stop it. One Nation stands on the fundamental idea that education is a state responsibility. We support Senator Tyrrell’s matter of public importance, and we thank her for it. 

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Spectator Article: Far-Right or Just Right About Everything

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The political world is full of baseless slurs uttered by historically and politically illiterate shock-jocks. The current favourite is ‘far-right’. Pretty much any crime against Woke will see you saddled with this slur. From querying Labor’s ‘Big Australia’ dream, to partaking in capitalism, to defending free speech… You’re ‘far-right’. You’re dangerous. Dangerous to left-wing politics, maybe.

When it comes to the definition of ‘far-right’, the pillars of Western Civilisation serve as scaffolding while common sense and merit pad-out the walls.

Read more here: https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/08/far-right-or-just-right-about-everything/

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Global Health Emergency or Corporate Payday?

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared Monkeypox a global public health emergency, triggering emergency powers to drive vaccine sales that benefit big pharmaceutical companies with ties to the organisation. This decision serves corporate interests rather than public health. Regulatory agencies that are meant to protect the public fall under undue influence from the industries they regulate. The WHO is a corrupt organisation that is designed to funnel taxpayer money to its billionaire donors. Australian taxpayers gave $30 million to the WHO last year, likely as a show of loyalty.

Transparency is lacking. Major donors include Gavi, a vaccine alliance funded by corporations tied to predatory giants like BlackRock and Vanguard, who also own large shares in pharmaceutical companies. The WHO’s Monkeypox emergency, declared solely by its director-general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, highlights the unchecked power of the position. This decision created a market for four already-approved vaccines linked to companies backed by BlackRock and Vanguard, ensuring massive profits for their shareholders. A new Monkeypox vaccine is expected soon, likely fast-tracked by compromised regulators like Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

The WHO previously tried to raise alarm over Monkeypox but found little public concern, so they rebranded it as “Mpox” to push vaccine sales. This benefits the predatory billionaires who control vaccine companies, funnel money to Gavi and the WHO, and fund political parties, including Australia’s Liberal and Labor parties. Recent revelations show Anthony Fauci concealed plans to engineer a more deadly and highly transmissible Mpox virus. This “gain-of-function” research has pandemic potential and should be stopped immediately. It’s troubling that Australia’s CSIRO was involved in gain-of-function research for COVID-19, yet faces no consequences.

The WHO and the TGA have failed in their regulatory duties, serving political agendas rather than public interest. During COVID, the TGA prioritised government control over public health, and there are concerns the same will happen again with Mpox. Every Monkeypox case should be verified through public lab tests, especially as redacted data was used to justify COVID measures that harmed public health.

The time of blind trust in the WHO’s narrative is over; it’s now the age of ‘prove it’.

Transcript

The UN’s World Health Organization, the WHO, has declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern. This triggers WHO emergency powers to drive vaccine sales to financially benefit big pharmaceutical companies that donate to the WHO through their other commercial and ownership interests. The first thing a house of review like our Senate should do is ask, ‘Is this a legitimate decision?’ The answer is: it is not, no. The UN WHO has succumbed to regulatory capture—a troubling development in governance. That may plunge Western society into serfdom under large corporations. 

Regulatory capture occurs where a regulatory agency mandated to oversee and enforce rules to protect the public interest ends up under undue influence from companies with vested interests such as the entities it’s meant to regulate or special interest groups. This can result in the agency making decisions that prioritise the interests of these parties over the broader public interest. The New South Wales government lists six areas for regulatory capture: adherence to public interest principles; organisational culture; structure; processes; transparency; and staff experience. The WHO fails all six. 

I’ve often spoken about the corruption, cronyism and illegal behaviour of the World Health Organization; some of my WHO speeches are on my website. The WHO fails to hold staff accountable for misbehaviour, including rape and sexual assault. Its own investigators conclude the WHO is ‘rotten with rapists’—their words. It is a failure of organisational culture and of staffing quality. The WHO is a corrupt organisation whose decisions benefit its billionaire sponsors with substantial health interests. The scam is simple: take a disease that’s around for generations—firstly the flu, and more recently bird flu and now monkeypox; plant scary stories in a media desperate for clickbait articles; use the media driven fear to declare a pandemic; and then—payday!—mandate vaccines financially benefiting the billionaires that funded the media scare. This betrays the public interest. 

The WHO is a con, a fraud and a criminal enterprise designed to transfer wealth from taxpayers into the pockets of their billionaire donors and owners. It is an organisation to which Australian taxpayers gave $30 million last year despite them having $8 billion in financial assets; that donation was likely more about fealty than financing. Identifying the WHO’s donors is difficult since its annual accounts show 32 per cent of donations as ‘other’—another failure of transparency. One of the WHO’s major donors is Gavi, the globalist vaccine alliance of international academics, bureaucrats and pharmaceutical companies funded through corporate donations from companies whose share registers feature investment funds like BlackRock and Vanguard. They feature on big pharma share registries; they own big pharma. If Australia had racketeering laws this arrangement would be illegal. This is a failure in structure. 

The monkeypox declaration came from the WHO director-general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, acting alone. The process for making such an important decision is not meaningfully regulated and gives Ghebreyesus too much power to direct a worldwide health response. This is a failure of process, and it’s deliberate. The proclamation is designed to create an international market for new monkeypox vaccines. The WHO already have four approved vaccines for monkeypox: cidofovir, distributed through Pfizer; brincidofovir, manufactured and distributed through Chimerix, whose controlling shareholders include Vanguard and predatory wealth fund cronies; TPOXX, from Siga Pharmaceuticals, with shareholders BlackRock and Vanguard; and ACAM2000 from Emergent Biosolutions, whose largest shareholders are—wait for it—BlackRock and Vanguard. With these drugs the world’s predatory billionaires have decided it’s time for another fundraiser. All four drugs are off-label use—so, any day now, expect a killer new vaccine for monkeypox to be given the hosanna palm frond parade through our disgraced regulators like Canberra’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA. 

The WHO tested this scam a few years ago with a minor media fear campaign that discovered the public didn’t take something called monkeypox seriously. So they rebranded it as mpox. Amusingly, they claimed the name monkeypox was insulting to monkeys; monkeys have feelings too, you know! So mpox is monkeypox rebranded to sell more vaccines from vaccine companies who funnel the profits to the world’s predatory billionaires—those same billionaires who own the corporations that donate to Gavi and the WHO as well as fill the coffers of political parties around the world, including massive donations to both cheeks of the Liberal-Labor uniparty in this country. 

Last Tuesday, American congressional investigators revealed that, for nearly nine years, Anthony Fauci concealed plans to engineer a pandemic-capable mpox virus with high transmissibility and a case fatality rate of up to 15 per cent. That’s homicide. The gain-of-function project proposed through NIAID in America from virologist Bernard Moss was to splice genes conferring high pathogenicity from the clade I virus into the more transmissible clade II virus. The new chimeric virus or combined virus could have retained up to a 15 per cent fatality rate and a 2.4 reproductive rate—a measure of transmissibility—meaning, on average, every sick person could infect up to 2.4 other people, giving it pandemic potential. It’s marvellous, what it’s designed to do! 

We know gain-of-function research produced the COVID-19 virus. Is this monkeypox outbreak also man-made? 

Gain-of-function research serves no useful purpose and should be terminated immediately. It’s deeply troubling that Australia’s CSIRO admitted and bragged about its involvement in gain-of-function research that produced COVID-19. And now an online meme simply says: ‘They’re doing it again because you didn’t punish them last time.’ That’s truth indeed. 

The WHO fails all six elements of regulatory capture and so does Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA. The TGA is not acting in public interest, which former New South Wales deputy ombudsman Chris Wheeler considers fundamental to representative democratic government. The TGA may claim that, during COVID, it was caught between the parliament, its direct employer, and the wider public. It chose to serve the government’s need for air cover for controls decided on political, not medical, grounds. The TGA should have read the findings of the 1990 WA Inc royal commission, which found: 

The institutions of government and the officials and agencies of government exist for the public, to serve the interests of the public. 

That’s clear. Yet, during COVID, the TGA chose a different path: to support their own agency, to the detriment of the public. What will the TGA do this time, with monkeypox? 

Monkeypox is transmitted through direct contact from sexual activity or intravenous drug use. A Philpot scientific study found 98.7 per cent of infections resulted from gay male sexual transmission. Transmission can occur through direct personal contact of the infected site. Infected animals can spread the disease. Asymptomatic spread, though, is, like COVID, an assertion with no evidence. The clade Ia variant of monkeypox can affect children. The clades currently circulating, though, clade Ib and II, have not been proven to infect children. 

Australia has two monkeypox vaccines approved for over-18s. Both are off-label repurposed drugs approved for smallpox. JYNNEOS from Bavarian Nordic uses cidofovir, which I mentioned earlier, as the active ingredient. Bavarian Nordic have an application in to America’s Food and Drug Administration to give this vaccine to children aged 12 to 18 and are in early testing to support their application to extend use to children aged two and above—two and above! Why does a child need a vaccine against a disease that’s predominately only transmitted through sexual contact or intravenous drug use? The case for a monkeypox vaccination program must be a very high bar for any person who does not engage in risky sexual activity. 

TGA’s website data from the 2022 monkeypox round of vaccinations in Australia shows 3,163 adverse events per 100,000 vaccinations—a staggeringly high three per cent. I note a study published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, with authors from the University of New South Wales, entitled ‘Autoimmune blistering skin diseases triggered by COVID-19 vaccinations: an Australian case series’. This report found that COVID-19 vaccination either caused the recipient to develop autoimmune blistering disease or made the recipient’s existing condition worse. The cases are extremely rare, and, for once, I can agree with the TGA. I alert Australia to the chance that these outbreaks of a related disease could be mistaken for monkeypox. I note that autoimmune diseases and shingles—that is, herpes zoster—can intersect, and both are side effects of the COVID vaccines. If the Senate is going to be called on to support a monkeypox response, then it’s essential every case is verified through publicly disclosed laboratory testing. 

Page after page of redacted data was used to support COVID measures and the damage to public health is undeniable. It’s homicide. ‘Safe and effective’ was not one lie; it was two. People are not believing the UN World Health Organization mpox narrative. The time for blind trust is over. We’re now in the age of ‘prove it’. 

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$1 Billion Exploitation of Workers Backed by Labor

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The CFMEU has stolen over a billion dollars in Australia’s largest wage theft case, exploiting the very workers it was meant to protect. CFMEU union bosses colluded in this theft, as confirmed by an independent report I commissioned called Coalminers’ Wage Theft. An analysis of five enterprise agreements in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley shows wage theft ranging from $21,000 to $41,000 per person, per year.  

The Independent Workers Union of Australia has lodged multiple complaints with the Fair Work Ombudsman, including one for $211,000 owed to a single worker. Despite the Mining and Energy Union splitting from the CFMEU, it has recently applied to negotiate a new enterprise agreement, but won’t seek back pay for miners, as they know this would expose them.  The Independent Workers Union now represents miners in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley, charging union dues less than half of the Mining and Energy Union because they don’t donate millions to the Labor Party. The same is true for other sectors, like teaching and nursing, where new unions have much lower dues. We must end monopoly unions and introduce competition, which will allow members to hold unions accountable. 

Labor Ministers, departments and agencies are colluding to enable wage theft, especially in the Hunter Valley electorate, where Labor MPs are complicit. Despite a Senate investigation being ordered months ago, nothing has happened — Labor is turning a blind eye, likely because they rely on millions in donations from the CFMEU. Minister Watt’s push for “no disallowance” is about maintaining control, with the party entangled in a power struggle with the CFMEU. 

The CFMEU, tied to criminal bikie gangs, shows no concern for its members’ health, wages, or retirement. Union bosses, sitting on agency boards meant to protect workers, are either stealing from members or allowing it to happen. The conflicts of interest, particularly with CFMEU members holding positions on superannuation boards, are enormous.  Labor won’t fix this, and their collusion with the CFMEU puts them above the law. 

Transcript

The CFMEU stole more than a billion dollars from members it was supposedly protecting in Australia’s largest ever case of wage theft. The key to this theft was CFMEU union bosses appointed as directors to oversight agencies supposedly protecting workers. They colluded and enabled that theft from their own members. This is verified. The figures are verified in an independent report that I commissioned called Coalminers’ Wage Theft, printed earlier in the year. 

We have seen an analysis of five enterprise agreements in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley with the wage theft varying from $41,000 per person, per year to $21,000 per person, per year. The Independent Workers Union of Australia, now getting members in the mining sector in the Hunter Valley and Central Queensland, has just lodged a number of complaints with the Fair Work Ombudsman. One of the complaints is for $211,000 in money owed due to wage theft for one person. 

The CFMEU drove that theft of wages, so what we can see is the former protector of miners has been their exploiter, with collusion of the regulator, the Fair Work Commission. It’s been verified independently because the Mining and Energy Union, which split off from the CFMEU—it couldn’t handle the CFMEU—and which looks after miners recently applied to the Fair Work Commission to negotiate a new enterprise agreement. The uptick in wages has been around $50,000. It’s been verified they’ve been underpaid. What has not happened is that same union, the Mining and Energy Union, which used to be part of the CFMEU, will not go back and seek back pay, because they know that will expose them. There is no back pay. They will let these miners lose $211,000. They will let these miners lose $41,000 per person, per year. 

So now we have the Independent Workers’ Union of Australia making inroads in the mining industry in the coalmines of Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley. Their union dues are less than half of the Mining and Energy Union. Why? That’s because they don’t pay millions of dollars in donations to the Labor Party. It is the same with the Queensland Teachers’ Union. The new Red Union’s dues are less than half of the Queensland Teachers Union. It is the same with the nursing union, where the dues of the new Red Union and the Nurses’ Professional Association of Queensland are less than half of the Queensland Nursing Union. What we need to do in the union side of things is end monopoly unions and make sure unions have competition. That will fix it. Members can scrutinise when there is competition. 

Let’s move to what I said earlier in my opening statement. The directors in the coalmining agencies that oversaw this theft from coalminers, the directors of Coal Mines Insurance, ignored the plight of miners. We even know of miners who failed to get their Coal Mines Insurance that they were entitled to, scrimping and saving and sleeping on their parents’ garage floor in the Hunter Valley. That’s what the CFMEU directors have done. They turned a blind eye to their duty to look after miners. 

Coal Mines Insurance is a statutory agency with the CFMEU providing half the directors. AUSCOAL Superannuation, another one supposed to look after super, has provided admin services to coal long service leave, another government entity. So AUSCOAL Superannuation, which has directors from the CFMEU, provided the administrative services for coal long service leave and that enabled the hiding of the wage theft, because the CFMEU directors were 50 per cent of Coal Mines Insurance, AUSCOAL Superannuation and Coal Services, which looks after basic things like health checks, medical checks. AUSCOAL, by the way, has been renamed Mine Wealth + Wellbeing—that’s a cute little phrase!—and now Mine Super. These directors have prevented many of the benefits that they should have been overseeing going to miners. They stole the rights and entitlements of their own members. 

By the way, the Labor Party under Julia Gillard changed the coal long service leave legislation in 2011 to enable the use of casuals, because casuals are not allowed in the black coalmining industry award. They wouldn’t have been able to get their super. So the Labor Party, to enable this scam, changed the coal long service leave legislation in 2011. The next thing: we can’t rely upon the normal back stop, which is the Labor ministers, departments and agencies. I’ve just explained how the agencies are colluding, the departments are colluding and the Labor ministers are colluding. This wage theft would not have occurred without the deliberate collusion of Labor Party MPs in the Hunter electorate, who just hid this atrocious theft. The Senate ordered an investigation a couple of months ago into this. Two ministers since then, Minister Burke and Minister Watt—they’ve done nothing. They had not even reported back to the Senate—they’ve done nothing. That’s the Labor Party. So much for looking after the workers! 

I wonder if it’s because the Labor Party relies on millions of dollars of donations from the CFMEU? Would that be the answer? Would it? 

Senator Hanson: Yes. 

The Labor Party is wedded to donations from the CFMEU, the crooked CFMEU. Minister Watt, in section 323B(2) of his legislation, to which we have an amendment, wants an absence of a disallowable regulation. He wants no disallowance, so that he can control the whole show. Then we see the Labor Party also being tainted by John Setka. In a report in the Australian Financial Review, on 12 April this year, David Marin-Guzman, a journalist with the Australian Financial Review, said that ‘the core issue here is that John Setka stood up and said he will take over the Labor Party and move members of the CFMEU into branches and then preselect various candidates, and also the Premier’. That’s what we see going on here—the Labor Party in a massive cover-up and massive wrestle with the CFMEU. By the way—I think Senator Hanson mentioned it—the size of the funds in question is just short, $1 billion short, of $100 billion in funds. That is twice the Australian defence budget. That’s more money than Belgium makes in a year. And we want to take it away from parliamentary scrutiny? Like hell. That’s why we need this reference to the committee. 

Then we see more tainting, with the CFMEU being connected with bikie gangs, criminal bikie gangs. Then we see Senator Hanson’s terms of reference. I must commend Senator Hanson for introducing this motion. The first term of reference that I want to highlight—I’ll read it for the reference committee: 

  • … the broader impact of public allegations of misconduct within the CFMEU on the governance and trust management practices of industry superannuation funds … 

That’s basic. These people have shown that they don’t care about their members—their members’ lives, their members’ health, their members’ workers compensation, their workers’ livelihoods, their workers’ wages or their workers’ retirement. They don’t care. They bypassed the retirement provisions. The next one I want to read out is term of reference (a): 

  • … the implications of CFMEU members holding board positions on these superannuation funds, and the potential conflicts of interest that may arise … 

The potential conflicts of interest are enormous. We can’t rely on the Labor Party to clean it up, nor on departments and agencies from the Labor government. We see them tightly knit together. The second of Senator Hanson’s six terms of reference is: 

the adequacy of the independent expert review mandated by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) in relation to trustees’ compliance with their duty to act in the best financial interests of beneficiaries of the funds; 

This is absolutely essential. The CFMEU union bosses who are directors of agencies—statutory bodies charged with the responsibility to protect members—are stealing from the members or enabling their agencies to steal from members. This lot are above the law. Senator Hanson read out the note from the person from Cross River Rail who is not a member of the CFMEU. They are ‘intimidated’, ‘frightened’ and ‘scared to work’—in our country, they are scared to work. We have now a proven record of the CFMEU stealing from members and workers. Wouldn’t it be going on in the $100 billion of super funds they manage? I support the referral of this matter to committee, to protect members so that they can retire with security and dignity. 

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Australian Houses for Australians – Ban Foreign Ownership!

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The government says less than 1% of houses are bought by foreigners. I don’t believe them. State governments say it’s at least double that, real estate agents say it’s 10%!

I have been asking for detailed data on how they get to that number for 9 months now without answers. 

The government is hiding the true extent of foreign ownership from Australians while we’re in the middle of a housing crisis.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Gallagher. Overwhelmingly, Australians don’t believe foreigners should be allowed to own residential property in our country. I first asked at Senate estimates in November last year how many potential foreign buyers the ATO is detecting through its data-matching program? The government failed to answer. In February, Senator Bragg asked and was given no answer. In June estimates, I asked again and did not get an answer. Answers to my questions on notice for how many potential foreign buyers are detected are now overdue, again. Minister, why is your government hiding from the Australian people the data on potential foreign buyers of residential property? And when will you actually answer the question I’ve been asking for nine months?

Senator GALLAGHER: I recall you asking these questions, Senator Roberts, and I understood they were answered at the time by officials when I was sitting at the desk. If there have been follow-up questions you have asked notice that have not been answered, I can certainly follow that up. I think the evidence we gave during Senate estimates was that foreign investment plays an important role in bolstering Australia’s housing stock and creating additional jobs in the construction industry. But it is monitored very closely for good reason. It is tightly regulated, with foreign persons generally requiring foreign investment approval before acquiring an interest in residential land, regardless of its value, with a few exceptions. Foreign investors make up a very small proportion of the total Australian residential property market, accounting for approximately 0.93 per cent of new and established dwelling purchase transactions in 2022-23. Out of 479,257 transactions, based on ATO data from 2022-23 only 4,463 transactions were by foreign investors. It is a very small component—less than one per cent—of new and established dwelling purchase transactions in the 2022-23 financial year. I think senators have raised this through estimates as something they are interested in—raising concerns about foreign investors squeezing out local residents from being able to purchase housing. But the evidence would show that it’s a very small component of the residential property market in the transactions that are being monitored, as was explained in estimates by the ATO. (Time expired)

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: The New South Wales state government reported more than twice the number of overseas purchases of property that the Foreign Investment Review Board recorded in 2021. The board claims foreigners buy less than one per cent of residential property—and you just confirmed that. Yet in the first quarter NAB property survey, real estate agents say they’re selling 10 per cent of Australian housing to foreigners. Minister, if you have confidence in the Foreign Investment Review Board, why won’t you hand over the data?

Senator GALLAGHER: Again, I’m not sure which part of the data hasn’t been answered. I was sitting at estimates when you were given figures, Senator Roberts, so I’m not sure which data is the data you’re seeking. The ATO data I just read out—and I can provide this in writing to you—shows that it is 0.93 per cent for the 2022-23 financial year, and that it has come down, as I understand it, from a peak in 2015-16. The ATO do residential real estate compliance investigations—so they follow this up and check that people are compliant with the requirements of foreign ownership of residential property. They identified 428 properties for compliance, they did 410 investigations and found 145 properties in breach, and 55 of those resulted in— (Time expired)

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, you want foreign investment, yet foreign ownership is against Australians’ interests. Minister, this country is in a housing crisis. When will you ban foreign ownership of residential real estate and put Australians in Australian houses first?

Senator GALLAGHER: We’re not going to do that, Senator Roberts. The numbers show we need good strong rules around it, and there are strong rules around it. We need compliance with those rules, and there are good compliance processes. It’s less than one per cent, and this country has benefited from foreign investment. We benefit in terms of our economy and in terms of jobs—

Senator Whish-Wilson interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: Senator Whish-Wilson, order! Please continue, Minister.

Senator GALLAGHER: So it isn’t something we are seeking to ban. It would help if some of our housing programs, which are currently stalled in the Senate, were given approval by the Senate because then we could build more supply, which is the actual issue. I know there wants to be a lot of distractions about who’s to blame, and it’s easy to blame foreign ownership. The statistics don’t support that. I say to the Senate that there are a couple of bills that are stuck in this chamber that would help people into home-ownership and help increase the supply of housing in this country, and I say: let’s get on with that job

Questions on notice from 17 June 2024. Still unanswered and overdue as of 21 August 2024

Q0214_Economics_2024-25Budgetestimates_TreasuryDownload
Q0212_Economics_2024-25Budgetestimates_TreasuryDownload
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Babies Born Alive Left to Die!

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I strongly support the Senate Urgency Motion in favour of saving the lives of babies born alive after a failed abortion. For the past six years, I have spoken in the Senate while wearing a lapel pin that depicts the tiny feet of a 10-week-old infant, a symbol of the innocent lives at stake. In Queensland, 328 babies were born alive and left to die over the last 10 years. Under the Queensland Criminal Code, this is clearly a crime.

While there are legal protections for medical practitioners who induce stillbirths, those protections end when a child is born alive. Yesterday, during a hearing in the Queensland Parliament, brave maternity nurse Louise Adsett gave heartbreaking details of the tragic fate awaiting many beautiful newborn Australians in Queensland maternity wards. These babies are left to cry until they die.

Louise shared the story of nurses who, with compassion, held these babies as they took their last breaths, surrounding them with love in their final moments rather than leaving them alone in a cold and hard stainless steel environment. There is no legal grey area here—allowing a child born alive to die in Queensland is a crime, and that crime is murder.  I thank Senator Babet for introducing this Motion.

To the Queensland Police, my message is simple: “Do your bloody job!” 

These babies deserve better; they deserve the same fundamental right to life that all human beings have.

Transcript

I strongly support this motion from Senator Babet in favour of saving the lives of babies born alive. For 6 years I’ve spoken in the Senate while wearing a lapel pin which depicts an infant’s feet at 10 weeks of age. 

My opposition to abortion comes from my humanity and my role as a father and grandfather. 

Sadly Queensland’s Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018 allows for unrestricted access to abortion up to 22 weeks. After that point two doctors must be convinced the abortion is in the mother’s best interests. Doctors who make their living signing off on abortions. 

As Rhodes Scholar and leading researcher Professor Joanna Howe has found, between 2010 and 2020, 4,929 babies were killed after 20 weeks, and until birth. In Queensland, of these babies, 328 were born alive and left to die. 

Last week I was pleased to attend a protest on the Federation Lawn that was a memorial to the 5,000 babies born alive when aborted around Australia. The memorial was 5000 pairs of baby’s booties in the shape of a cross. Babies who were thrown aside and left on a cold stainless steel slab to die. Alone. Nearly 50% of these were perfectly healthy. Nothing wrong with them. Why were they induced and delivered stillborn instead of alive and placed for adoption? 

Under the QLD Criminal Code the current law is clear. This is a crime. Section 292 provides that a child becomes a human being after being born and proceeds in a living state from the body of its mother, whether it has breathed or not, and whether it has had independent circulation or not. 

Section 302 defines murder as by someone who: intends to cause death, which is the case with these 328 babies; or causes death by an act, omission or reckless indifference to human life; 

Currently the penalty for murder in Queensland is life. How ironic. There are protections for medical practitioners who induce the still birth of a child. That protection stops when the child is born alive. 

Queensland MP Bobbie Katter has introduced a bill to ensure the rights of babies born alive. Under the bill, the duty of a registered health practitioner to provide medical care and treatment to a person born as a result of a termination would be “no different” from their duty to anybody else. This means babies would be given care allowing them to survive where possible, while babies unable to survive would instead be given palliative care. 

In yesterday’s hearing into this bill courageous maternity nurse Louise Adsett described in heartbreaking detail the fate that has awaited so many beautiful young Australians in QLD maternity wards. Babies left to cry themselves to death. Alone. Louise described nurses holding babies that have been marked for death until they drew their last breath, a breath surrounded with love, not cold, hard stainless steel. 

There’s no legal grey area here, allowing a child born alive to die in Queensland is a crime, and that crime is murder. 

To the QLD Police I have this simple message: DO YOUR BLOODY JOB. 

Failure to prosecute the first murder has led to 327 more human beings losing their lives and that’s on you. 

The preamble of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) explicitly recognizes the unborn’s right to life. This is a matter that can be legislated federally and if the States will not police their own laws then the Federal Government must intervene. 

I have yet to hear an abortionist successfully explain at what point in the development of a child it ceases to be a collection of cells and becomes a baby. Until you can show a physiological point before which the child is just a bunch of cells, and after which the child is a living being, I will continue to defend every life and oppose abortion. Except abortion when the mother’s life is in danger. If these practitioners were proud of their actions, they would not be changing the name of their trade from abortion to reproductive care. There’s no reproduction and there’s no care for the child. As least be honest with yourselves, this is not care. This is designed to dehumanise mothers and fathers, dehumanise society and harden the hearts of our community. Neither can this be described as women’s health, the health of the mother is the same no matter if the baby is put up for adoption or murdered. Woman’s health does not apparently include the health of one-half of these aborted babies who themselves will grow into women. 

My office has received over 1000 emails and calls today from Queenslanders who are horrified at this practice. So much so I feel the need to remind everyone that while God loves everyone, God punishes killing. 

These human babies deserve better. Babies deserve to have the same rights as have all human beings. And foremost amongst these is the right to life. 

How They Voted

The Motion

Matter of UrgencyDownload
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