As the cost of living pinches Australian households, the Morrison-Joyce government favours foolish net zero targets, rather than investing in a new power station for Australia’s energy affordability and security.

Shine Energy’s coal-fired Collinsville power station in North Queensland is a community-led project dedicated to providing affordable energy using Australia’s clean coal reserves and can be a vital part of Australia’s national energy and industry security.

Senator Roberts said, “An election campaign brings out the duplicitous politicking from our politicians, when they choose their words of support so carefully that the back door is always open for reneging.

“Barnaby Joyce’s lame private statements of support for the business case of Collinsville power station is no green light for the power station to go ahead.”

The Morrison-Joyce government and Labor share and continue a deceitful and dishonest stance on coal. 

Senator Roberts added, “When spruiking to city voters, it’s all about net zero and “dirty” coal, then they clean up their act in the regional areas and spruik clean coal, jobs and energy security.

“Australian voters have listened to these politicians speak with forked tongues over coal for years now, while they continue to pander to globalist agendas and put our national energy security and people’s jobs and livelihoods at risk.”

One Nation alone provides voters with a consistent and strong message about the value of Australia’s coal-fired and technologically advanced power stations for energy security, jobs and reducing our cost of living.

One Nation is the only party of energy security. One Nation is the only party of energy affordability.

I had a chance to sit down with Damien from Against the Grain Media to have a long chat about a lot of important things. The old mainstream media never gives people this kind of opportunity to fully spell out their ideas which is one of the reasons independent media is growing so quickly.

Transcript (click here to read)

Damien:

We’ve been joined by Senator Malcolm Roberts from One Nation. It’s a real pleasure to have you on the show.

Malcolm Roberts:

It’s a pleasure being here. Thank you for the invitation, Damien.

Damien:

No worries. It’s great to have you. And I hear there was a little bit of trouble. We were having lunch when you rolled up, and you were in the courier mail offices and you tried to get in. Is that right? And I wouldn’t let you in. Can you tell us about that?

Malcolm Roberts:

I answered yes to every question except the first one, am I injected? And so I answered no there and they said they couldn’t let me in. But I get the feeling that they’re a little bit flexible on that.

Damien:

Okay. They let you in eventually.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, they didn’t let me in there, but Michelle came and rescued me and brought me here, because you’re not in their building officially.

Damien:

No, right. Did you think they didn’t know who you were? They didn’t know your stance.

Malcolm Roberts:

No, I think it was completely accidental. It wasn’t deliberate. It wasn’t planned. The lady behind the counter said, “Who am I dealing with,” in a conversation to one of her producers. And I said, “Senator Malcolm Roberts.” And she said, “Okay.” Then it seemed to be they were embarrassed, but it’s not their fault.

Damien:

Yeah. But you were allowed in suddenly. You had a senatorial privilege, did you? Because you don’t have to be vaccinated to be in the Senate, do you?

Malcolm Roberts:

No. And therein tells you something really strong. If it’s good enough for the senators and the MPs to not be vaccinated, why the hell can’t everyday Aussies be unvaccinated?

Damien:

Well, that goes to the heart.

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s the exact issue.

Damien:

That’s why we’re doing this show.

Malcolm Roberts:

Good on you, by the way.

Damien:

[crosstalk 00:01:30]. No, but I talked to Craig Kelly, and he was saying because he didn’t have to be vaccinated to sit in the parliament. But then he came down to Victoria to speak at a rally we did in Ballarat, and he couldn’t hire a car. He got to Victoria, couldn’t hire a car because of his status. But he could represent us in parliament.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. And people say, “What the hell is it with parliamentarians who are given an exemption to do that?” And I said, “No, that’s not the issue. The issue is Australians are being forced to do it.” It should be exactly the same as for us. We’re not required to be forced to do it, they shouldn’t be required to do it.

Damien:

What’s behind that? Why weren’t you forced to do it? Why the exemption [crosstalk 00:02:05]-

Malcolm Roberts:

I’m guessing it would be interfering with the role of an elected MP, which would be right against the Constitution.

Damien:

But why wouldn’t it be interfering with the role of a McDonald’s worker?

Malcolm Roberts:

Exactly, exactly. And I’ve interviewed Professor David Flint a couple times on my TNT Radio.live show.

Damien:

Yeah, I’ve heard it.

Malcolm Roberts:

And he’s very good. He’s very sound. He’s won international awards for work, his expertise. He’s very highly regarded in this country on the Constitution, but he’s not one of these people who lives in an ivory tower.

Malcolm Roberts:

He’s on the ground, he’ll march in protests. Wonderful speaker. He’s so crisp and clear. And he’s saying, “I don’t know how they’re getting away with it.”

Malcolm Roberts:

Because what they’ve done, Damien, is the Liberal Party and the Nationals have locked together with the labor Party. And they have stitched it up federal and state.

Malcolm Roberts:

The federal can’t do this on its own. The state can’t do it on its own. Together, they can do it. That’s what’s wrong. This has been collusion. It’s been deliberate to try and put us in a stampede of fear. The virus of fear, really. And to bring in controls. There’s no doubt about that.

Damien:

Why? And why would the conservative parties be complicit with that agenda?

Malcolm Roberts:

It’s very simple. The World Economic Forum is driving this. The UN and World Economic Forum collude. They’re pushing a global agenda. The World Health Organisation, as you know, is part of the UN.

Malcolm Roberts:

They’re now trying to stitch up… I’m getting my staff to go and do research on the details. I’m speaking very broadly in an uninformed way, just relying on newspaper headlines, so forgive me.

Damien:

They can be in accurate, the newspaper headlines.

Malcolm Roberts:

Just sometimes.

Damien:

Just a little bit. They’re part of the same globalist agenda, aren’t they?

Malcolm Roberts:

Of course. Well, the globalists own the major media.

Damien:

BlackRock and Vanguard. Sorry, I’m interrupting.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah, exactly.

Damien:

You follow the money. Go back and follow the money.

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct. Yeah. And I’ve been doing that since I first started chasing this climate scam in 2008. Anyway, we can come back to that, but the globalists are pushing an agenda for control.

Malcolm Roberts:

And what the World Health Organisation wants is the ability to force people in individual countries at their order… Forget the government, to comply with various restrictions. Mandates, et cetera. Forced injections of people for future injections.

Malcolm Roberts:

That is global governance. All these people that said that United Nations are not about global governance are talking rubbish, because the United Nations was formed to implement global governance.

Malcolm Roberts:

Unelected. What is it now? Unelected socialist global governance. Words of Maurice Strong, number two in the UN at one time, and secretary general for the environment, I think he was.

Malcolm Roberts:

He said that, and the others have said pretty much the same thing. There’s a global agenda going on here. Their Rio Declaration summit in 1992, which Keating signed him after the labor Party.

Malcolm Roberts:

Which the Liberal Party has implemented and the National party has implemented, through John Howard and every prime minister since. That is a global governance document. It is to control people globally. And that’s what they want, global control.

Damien:

But on a personal level, it’s good for you, isn’t it, that the Liberals shadow labor like that. Because it means you can have this voice and be elected to parliament to be this voice. Is that right?

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. It’s a funny story. A very, very good friend of mine, been a friend for about 50 years. He’s now close to 80. Very highly regarded in this country. I think the world of him.

Malcolm Roberts:

Doesn’t take anything face value. Doesn’t trust anyone, researches himself. Anyway, and he never gives advice. It’s up to you. He only called me once, gave me advice when I entered the Senate and said, “Don’t talk about Agenda 21.”

Malcolm Roberts:

Because the conspiracy theory tag will come out and another tag will come out. Even though I respect him so much, I said, “No, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to come out and tell the truth.”

Malcolm Roberts:

And now, people are waking up to the Agenda 21 and they’re waking up to the UN and the World Economic Forum. And this virus has destroyed many people’s lives, not through the virus but the mismanagement of the government’s response. But it’s helped people awaken. People can now see this is driven globally when Macron and Trudeau and-

Damien:

Ardern.

Malcolm Roberts:

Boris Johnson and Biden. And they all stick to the same… Ardern. Yeah, nasty piece of work. They all stick to the same words. Build back better. What’s the other one?

Damien:

Two weeks to flatten the curve.

Malcolm Roberts:

Two weeks. There’s another big one, the great reset.

Damien:

Yes, that’s correct.

Malcolm Roberts:

These things are all coming out at the same time from different mouths around the world. They’re all connected.

Damien:

Well, how come you see it, Malcolm? And then other people would just think, like you say, “I think you’re nuts. You’re a conspiracist?”

Malcolm Roberts:

Because I want to explore what I see. As a mining engineer, I was taught the science of the atmosphere, and atmospheric gases in particular. And so I know that the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is around 0.04%. Around four 100ths of a percent. It’s nothing. It’s called a trace gas because there’s bugger all of it.

Damien:

It’s essential to human life. Feeds plants.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. Exactly, it’s plant food. It’s fertiliser. It’s essential for all life on earth. We were taught that when men and women are alive underground, we have to have fans that suck the air down the mine and through, and clear gases and so on.

Malcolm Roberts:

And so we learned about the atmosphere. When I first started hearing about this global warming nonsense, I thought, “This is rubbish.” But then what we tend to do is go, “Who’s little old me to contradict thousands of scientists and hundreds of politicians?”

Malcolm Roberts:

There’s just something in me restless when it comes to that kind of thing, so I dug down to the science and I realised it’s complete crap. And so then I thought, “Well, what’s driving it?”

Malcolm Roberts:

Then I found the UN and then I thought, “What’s driving that? Who’s controlling that? Why was it formed?” I found the globalists and that’s where it went.

Malcolm Roberts:

The answer to your question is most politicians in parliament are members of the tired old parties. The labor Party, the Liberal Nationals, and increasingly to some extent, the Greens. They’re increasingly tired.

Malcolm Roberts:

But the point is that they don’t want to look. Because if they pick up a rock, find a scorpion, they’ve got to deal with the scorpion. They don’t want to do it.

Damien:

They don’t want to fall foul of the bureaucracy, ultimately.

Malcolm Roberts:

They don’t want to fall foul of their party power brokers. I can speak in the Senate and exposing the climate scam. I can walk outside, Damien, and they’ll pat me on the back, the Nationals. And the Liberals will pat me on the back and the labor Party will pat me in the back.

Malcolm Roberts:

Some of them say, “Keep going, keep going.” Because they don’t believe it, but they’re not going to speak up about it. They’re not representing their people. That’s a fundamental flaw in our system.

Damien:

How do we change that then?

Malcolm Roberts:

Vote. Because the people who are responsible for what’s going on in parliament are the people of the country, the voters. We’re a constitutional monarchy. The supreme entity of our… If that’s the right word.

Malcolm Roberts:

The supreme document of our country is the Constitution. Now, the queen is a part of that constitution, but she has to comply with the Constitution. She’s not an absolute monarch. She’s wonderful. In my opinion, the role is wonderful.

Damien:

A lot of people now say that queen’s role has been defunct, because we became a corporation in 2004.

Malcolm Roberts:

No, nonsense.

Damien:

No, it’s nonsense.

Malcolm Roberts:

That corporation is only so we can trade and enter into contracts. Government has to buy things. The Constitution can only be changed by an absolute majority of the people of Australia, and a majority of the people in each of the voters in each state.

Malcolm Roberts:

A majority of the states have a majority… That’s right. That means the queen can’t change the constitution, the parliament can’t change the constitution.

Damien:

A referendum can.

Malcolm Roberts:

Only you and I can through a referendum, the voters. The voters are the sovereigns. Now, the voters are charged with electing people into parliament, and the voters for too long have gone, “I don’t like labor now so I’ll vote Liberal. I don’t like Liberal now, 10 years later I’ll vote labor.”

Malcolm Roberts:

What they should be saying is, “They’re both the same. We’ll vote for someone else who’ll actually do their job.” And that’s increasingly what’s starting to happen. This virus has woken people up and they’re saying, “God, this doesn’t matter what we have, labor or Liberal. Bugger the lot of them.”

Damien:

You think it might be the broom that sweeps clean the two party preferred system that’s oppressing all of us.

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s what a lot of people are saying.

Damien:

Yeah. Are you finding that in your polling?

Malcolm Roberts:

Yes, definitely.

Damien:

You’re finding your figures are improving. Are you up for the Senate?

Malcolm Roberts:

No, Pauline is up this time. She’s up in a couple of months and I’ve got another three years after that.

Damien:

Yeah. Pauline is interesting, isn’t it? Because I don’t know where you were in 1998. I’ll just tell bit of my personal history here for a second. I grew up in a really staunch labor household. My grandfather ruled the roost on that. “One day, there would only be the labor Party.” That sort of household, you know what I mean? And anyway, in 1998-

Malcolm Roberts:

And then 50% grew up in a Liberal household, “There’s only Liberals.”

Damien:

Exactly. Right. I understand that. In 1998, it was one of the last he actually did before he passed away. He voted Pauline Hanson and no one could believe it. Everyone was like, “Oh, my God.” You know what I mean?

Damien:

He was from south Australia and he was voting for this Queensland. It was meant to be a redneck and all that sort of stuff. You know the rhetoric, you’ve heard it all before.

Damien:

But now, I look back and one thing you can’t help but admire, Pauline’s tenacity. She went to jail, what seemed under very dubious circumstances. Something I’d love to talk to her about. Obviously, not to talk to you about it.

Damien:

But she was almost in front of Trump in recognising things that were wrong and sick in the culture, and things that were not allowed to be talked about. Because that’s the problem, isn’t it?

Damien:

Even with this thing about climate, you say everyone pats you on the back outside of the chamber. Inside the chamber, they all draw a different line. The problem is we’re not allowed to speak.

Damien:

Our freedom of expression is being encroached upon by political correctness. And I think Pauline identified that. What did you think of that in 1998, when you were sitting back? You weren’t in politics at that point in time.

Malcolm Roberts:

I didn’t pay much attention to it back then. I was too busy working. I always get focused on what I’m doing. Very much so. In 2016, Pauline approached me because she heard me speak in places.

Malcolm Roberts:

And she said she’d like me to stand beside her on the Senate floor. She needed someone strong to speak with her. And I said, “I’ll ask my wife.” I asked my wife and she said, “Yes, go for it.”

Malcolm Roberts:

Then I said to Pauline, “Okay. Now, I can have a talk with you. We need to get together and have a really good chat, because I’ve got some questions for you.” We started at 10:00 in the morning at her place and we finished at 9:30 at night. It was 11 hours, something like that.

Damien:

It was real meeting of minds, was it?

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, what was going on was that I wanted to know why all the smearing and all the rest of it, and how she’d been… She’d had freeloaders attack her and make use of her.

Damien:

Was that David Oldfield?

Malcolm Roberts:

There were several people in the mix, Damien. But what I realised was that she was relatively young for a politician. She was only about 40 something I think, early 40s. That’d be about right.

Malcolm Roberts:

And then she was inexperienced. But what I saw was that the growth in her, because of her honesty, people identified with her and they loved what she was doing. And it just shot through the roof. BD in Queensland and Howard in federal were just terrified.

Damien:

Particularly Howard, I’d say. Well, she stole both sides of that. That’s the thing. She stole both sides to her cause, didn’t she?

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s right. I wanted to find out what happened. And what I came to realise very quickly in our discussion, was that no one could have managed that situation. And then when you have freeloaders hanging on, criminals hanging on, they took advantage of this. She’s not naive, but she didn’t have the experience she’s got now.

Damien:

She didn’t have the political acumen, did she?

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct. But boy, she’s got it now. And then I could tell a very good friend of mine who’s known her for decades, told me she’s very honest.

Damien:

Is Pauline still honest or has she been corrupted by the political process?

Malcolm Roberts:

Completely honest. The honesty is what drives her. People say that she loves a fight. She doesn’t. You can see her get nervous before a fight. And so she doesn’t like a fight, but she knows that it’s dishonest to avoid it. She won’t run away.

Malcolm Roberts:

And so you watch her as she gets into it, she knows that she’s got to do it. She doesn’t like it. And then when she’s in the swing of things, she’s wonderful.

Malcolm Roberts:

People think that she’s absolutely determined, and she is. But she’s got wonderful listening skills. And so what she’ll do in a party meeting, she’ll say, “I think we should do this.” And sometimes with a lot of conviction and emphasis on it. “That’s what we’re going to do,” sort of thing.

Damien:

What’s a party meeting involve? Because there’s only two of you in the Senate. Do you know what I mean? How does that work?

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, we have our staff there and advisors, because we can’t possibly go through every bill in detail.

Damien:

But you got Mark Latham, too, in New South Wales.

Malcolm Roberts:

No, no. He’s New South Wales.

Damien:

Yeah. New South Wales.

Malcolm Roberts:

[crosstalk 00:14:47] Steve Andrew up here in Queensland. You have Andrew.

Damien:

Okay. Is there ever a point where the four of you get together?

Malcolm Roberts:

No, no. And Rod Roberts and Mark in New South Wales run their own show. Pauline is very much into devolution of responsibility. “Away you go.” She can say at a party meeting, “I think we should do this.”

Malcolm Roberts:

And I’ll say, “Hang on a minute. I disagree.” “Well, why?” “Because of this, this, and this.” “That’s a good point. I never thought of that. We’ll go with what you’re saying, Malcolm.”

Malcolm Roberts:

She’ll completely churn because she’s got a new slant of looking at it. She’ll usually be well organised and thorough in her approach, but sometimes she might not be, in which case she’ll change.

Damien:

You wouldn’t want it to go to a vote though, would you? Because she’d probably have the casting vote.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah, the leader has the casting vote. No. With Pauline, she also has a lot of [inaudible 00:15:33], a lot of political instinct. Someone who doesn’t know their way around parliament said that she’s the best since Joh Bjelke-Petersen for understanding what people think. But quite frankly, that’s just about listening.

Damien:

Are you just giving us an insight into political allegiance there when you mention [crosstalk 00:15:51]-

Malcolm Roberts:

No, no. Well, Bjelke-Petersen did what was in Queensland’s interest. Now, he’s been tainted by having people like Russ Hinze around him. I don’t think he was that corrupt, but he was passionate about Queensland.

Malcolm Roberts:

It didn’t matter whether he was fighting Whitlam in the labor Party in federal parliament, or Fraser who replaced him in the Liberal Party as the prime minister. Bjelke-Petersen put Queensland first and he was wonderful for Queensland. Pauline Hanson puts Australia first and she’s wonderful for Australia.

Damien:

He’s another Queensland maverick though, isn’t he? There’s quite a few Queensland mavericks.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah, he is. Yeah, he is.

Damien:

We talk about Bob Katter up in Kennedy, and Paul Lane, of course. But Joh ran for PM, too, in 1987. He was going to have a tilt at the top job. Can you remember that?

Malcolm Roberts:

I can, but I didn’t know a lot about it. Coming back to Pauline, I didn’t know a lot about her in 1998. I knew it was a media beat up, so I didn’t pay much attention.

Malcolm Roberts:

But having worked with her, she’s wonderful. She’s absolutely wonderful. A lot of labor and Liberal people love her. And in parliament, they know because both sides will deal with her, will work with her.

Malcolm Roberts:

Because they know that if she says something, that’s it. She’s going to do it. And if they come back with more information and they can convince her, then she’ll take it on board. And she’s very good at listening and she’s got a very good heart. Very warm and generous.

Damien:

In 1998, she tapped into something in the Australian psyche because she won 11% of votes.

Malcolm Roberts:

No, she got 11 MPS in Queensland, she won 23% of the votes.

Damien:

23% of the votes.

Malcolm Roberts:

That terrified Howard.

Damien:

That would terrify anybody. Yeah. What did she tap into? What was it? Is it just the honesty you’re talking about, or were there things that were being left unsaid in Australian politics and she was happy to say them? She had an unassuming style?

Malcolm Roberts:

We’ve got to understand, Damien. I’m not trying to give you a lesson here, but the MPS in Canberra in particular, and to a lesser extent in Brisbane, are slaves to foreign interests.

Malcolm Roberts:

You can look at our tax system, our industrial relations system, the regulations we have in this country. Foreign multinationals are favoured. Japan has 2.5% or had 2.5% of its major corporations are foreign owned. America and Britain around 12.5%.

Malcolm Roberts:

Australia, 90%. They’re not my figures, they’re from the deputy commissioner of taxation, who retired some time ago. And so we’re destroying our country and giving a free ride to these foreign own multinationals.

Malcolm Roberts:

And what happens is the prime ministers, whether they’re labor or Liberal, will appease them. They get donations from them. Big pharma donated last federal election, $400,000 to the labor Party, $500,000 to the Liberal Party. And now, we’re seeing the biggest transfer of wealth ever in our country’s history, from your pocket and my pocket and everyone’s pocket, into big pharma for nothing.

Damien:

Can you believe what you’ve seen over the last two years in Australia? What’s happened as a result of the coronavirus.

Malcolm Roberts:

It’s difficult for anyone to believe. It’s incredible. But the thing is having had the background researching where the climate scam came from, it’s not surprising at all.

Malcolm Roberts:

It’s just a manifestation. Now, what is really scary, it’s not surprising, is that our staff in my office have done the research on the Digital Identity Bill. And that is truly horrific. The COVID restrictions.

Damien:

I saw you grilling people in the Senate-

Malcolm Roberts:

Sorry?

Damien:

I saw you grilling people in the Senate Estimate Committee the other day. It was actually the Reserve Bank you were grilling.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah, the Reserve Bank. They’re usually one of the better ones in Senate Estimates. They actually come clean and pretty straightforward. But the Digital Identity bill has been not introduced into parliament, because there’s a process for that.

Malcolm Roberts:

But they’ve introduced it into the overall mix, and they’ve given us copies of the bill. That bill, significant portions of it are copied and virtually pasted from the World Economic Forum strategy for digital identity around the world. Digital transformation.

Malcolm Roberts:

They want complete control. The things that we’ve got with, what do they call them, QR codes, the vaccine mandates, injection mandates,.that’s the basis of their identity.

Malcolm Roberts:

And what they want, they’ll set up a system where they’ll remove cash, then you’ve got no alternative. That’s underway. You can see the lines in the bill, they don’t say that, but that’s what’s coming.

Damien:

You fought against that only a couple of years ago, before.

Malcolm Roberts:

Cash ban.

Damien:

Yeah. There was a $10,000 cash ban. You weren’t allowed to give any more than $10,000 to someone in payment, and that was imposed by a so-called conservative government as well. You stood up for that.

Malcolm Roberts:

It wasn’t imposed because we beat it. We got wind of that and we went to the labor Party and we went to the cross benches, and they all went, “We’re with you.” And then we went to the labor Party in the lower house, Steven Jones, and said, “How can you possibly support this? Your voters would be up in arms.”

Malcolm Roberts:

And they passed it in the lower house. But we got enough into the labor Party and embarrassed them enough that when it came to the Senate, they consigned it to a committee.

Malcolm Roberts:

But the significant thing there was not that we did that, but there were people in the Liberal Party who joined us and said… Not as a party, but they joined us in our fight against the cash ban bill.

Malcolm Roberts:

And there were a number of people and grassroots and parties in Victoria, party branches in Victoria, who really hit the roof about it. And they really pushed their Liberal MPS.

Malcolm Roberts:

And so after a while, it was bubbling around in the committee. And we just moved a motion saying, “Let’s get rid of it off the list for the Senate.” And it went.

Damien:

I get a bit confused though, Malcolm. They talk about vaccines and QR codes being important to bring about the Digital Identity Bill. It seems to me it doesn’t even matter. It’s almost a smokescreen.

Damien:

While we’re fighting against the mandates, the Digital Identity Bill is being introduced anyway. And I reckon there was likely deterrents. “You know what? We’ll let the mandates go,” because they’re going to get what they want through the Digital Identity Bill that’s being passed as we speak.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, don’t count on it because we’ve been very effective. The bill has not even been introduced into the lower house as part of the parliamentary process.

Malcolm Roberts:

We’ve already smashed it. We’ve raised people’s interest and awareness of it. When I go to a rally, sometimes I just say, “How many of you heard of the Digital Identity Bill?”

Malcolm Roberts:

20% put their hands up, and it’s increasing. We’ve put out a series of eight videos, seven videos on that. I’ve spoken in Senate on it, done a number of other things, raised it at rallies. We’ve got a lot of awareness out there, and the government would be crazy to even try it now because they’ll get smashed.

Malcolm Roberts:

And the other good thing. Sorry to interrupt. The other good thing is, but I asked questions of the digital transformation energy in Senate Estimates a couple of weeks ago. Bloody hopeless.

Damien:

What’s that, please? What is that?

Malcolm Roberts:

You know of Errol Flynn?

Damien:

Yeah.

Malcolm Roberts:

Everything he touched, he screwed. It’s the same with these guys, but they wrecked the things. They’ve had so many major programmes costing billions of dollars, and they’ve wrecked everything they’ve touched. They’re in charge of putting in the digital transformation, so we’re in good shape there because then they can’t do it.

Damien:

But when you talk about these things, I’ve been involved with the freedom movement in Melbourne a lot, in response to the lockdowns, the restrictions that have been placed on the culture.

Malcolm Roberts:

Good job, too. Good job.

Damien:

Yeah, absolutely. But if you depart from ending the mandates, which is clearly important. It’s something to focus on. It unites the team. If you depart from it, start to talk about some of these greater issues and the World Economic Forum, et cetera, and UN. All those involvements. The WHO.

Damien:

People can get very agitated and it splinters very, very, very quickly, particularly around identity politics. It’s hard to have the broader conversation. It’s very clever by the globalists, even if they [inaudible 00:23:17] accidental. But it makes it very hard to talk about these things, doesn’t it?

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, I disagree with you because what happens. If you talk about too much of this, then you’re correct, it diffuses from the focus. The focus is on ending the mandates. The focus is on bringing freedoms back, ending the restrictions, stopping kids getting vaccinated.

Malcolm Roberts:

But people need to know what’s driving that. Why are they suddenly wanting to inject kids? Why are they suddenly wanting mandates? As you said a little while ago, you wouldn’t have believed this two years ago. You wouldn’t have believed some of this stuff six months ago.

Damien:

The police are firing rubber bullets on the peaceful Victorian protesters.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. We have to understand that first of all, what’s the background to this? Give people the context, then they’re more likely to continue. And then the second thing is we have to give them the information of what it’s really about, so they really fight it.

Malcolm Roberts:

And they have to understand who they’re fighting. Morrison is just a front for the World Economic Forum. What’s his name? Mathis Coleman left leadership of the Senate, Liberal Party. The government and the Senate went into the OECD.

Damien:

Yeah. They all do, they all do.

Malcolm Roberts:

Global insanity. Global insanity.

Damien:

Yeah. But they all do that, don’t they? Is the problem career politicians? That’s the problem, because they work through the system and they want to stay inside of the system. It’s the last thing you want to do if you want to stay inside a system, is fall foul of that very system that you’re appealing to.

Malcolm Roberts:

Look at Greg Hunt. Greg hunt, before he got into politics, was a member of the World Economic Forum. He was director of strategy for it, and he’s a graduate of the World Economic Forum’s global young leaders programme. So is Jacinda Ardern, so Macron, so is Trudeau, so is Boris Johnson, so are many of these people. And what they’re doing is they’re infiltrating our entities.

Damien:

And Andrews.

Malcolm Roberts:

Is he, too? I didn’t know that.

Damien:

I believe so, I believe so.

Malcolm Roberts:

They’re infiltrating these entities. The Republican Party in America has got five of them, the Democrats in America have got 20 or so of them.

Damien:

It’s not right versus left anymore, isn’t it? It’s big government versus the people, ultimately, isn’t it?

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct.

Damien:

We got to devolve from the system. Somehow, we have to devolve from the system. What will be that process? How are we going to do that?

Malcolm Roberts:

We have to make sure the system is implemented properly. At the moment, it’s the breaking from the system, the contradiction of the system, that’s enabling it to happen. We have to get back to compliance with our Constitution properly.

Damien:

How do you do that? How do you bring that about when none of the institutions seem to be in support of you?

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, we’ve got to raise it with the people. That’s why when I got into the Senate, my first speech in the Senate back in 2016, I called for an OzExit. You remember Brexit was-

Damien:

Yeah, I absolutely do.

Malcolm Roberts:

… in the mind of people then. November, 2016. And I called for an OzExit, Australia exiting the UN. It’s a corrupt, dishonest, incompetent, anti-human body. It’s an industry. It’s pushing the globalist agenda, who only might control.

Malcolm Roberts:

I raised it then. We got to keep raising it. And so I tend to go for things. What my staff said, “Malcolm, hang on. Just pull the reins back a bit and educate people about what the UN is doing.” And that’s what we did. We’ve got a lot of people now. The moment we mention UN on Facebook, people just swamp it.

Damien:

Yeah. The globalists really struggled with Brexit, too, didn’t they? Because the British people voted for Brexit and then it took them a long time for it to be realised, because the establishment just the didn’t want to implement it, despite the will of the British people.

Malcolm Roberts:

Full marks to Nigel Farage. He did a wonderful job.

Damien:

Yeah, he did.

Malcolm Roberts:

But it’s significant. People within the UN have said that the model for global governance that the UN is trying to build, is the EU. There’s a unicameral parliament there which is supposed to be representing the people from all across the EU.

Damien:

That’s what we have in Brisbane. Brisbane is a unicameral parliament. That means one house.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yes. But the real decisions are made by the bureaucrats who control the show, and so they’re all appointed. You’ve got an unelected continent wide socialist governance going on, and they’re stripping away the powers of the nation states. And the British, to their credit, and especially to Nigel Farage, said, “No. We’ve had enough.” And they pulled out.

Damien:

Now, this is the perversity, isn’t it? Because Farage never has any power locally, but he has power in the EU. He goes to the EU and he says to them, basically, “I went out of this place.” They mock him and laugh at him. Then what is it?

Malcolm Roberts:

It takes him about 20 years or something.

Damien:

And he comes back and says, “Finally, we’re out of here. We’re leaving.” He gets what he wants. But again, he’s thrown away any power that he would’ve had politically, because he wasn’t just simply being a purely political operative. He’s actually a man of some sort of principle.

Malcolm Roberts:

Right, he is.

Damien:

He’ll be painted as someone of no principle, and everyone else is painted as having principle according to the media elite that controls what we see and hear.

Malcolm Roberts:

Maybe this is Nigel Farage’s responsibility to do what I’m about to say. But who’s really responsible there? It’s the people. The people could see what Farage was doing.

Malcolm Roberts:

They got on board behind him, they forced the conservative party, the Tories in Britain, to really push Brexit, and they got it. Then the moment they got out of Brexit, what did they do in the next council elections? They voted with the Tories again.

Damien:

Well, Peter Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens’ brother. He’s been saying for years, and he’s a Tory voter, that the Tory Party needs to collapse. There’s no point voting for it.

Damien:

It’s a pointless party, because it needs to collapse so something can grow in its place. Because otherwise, it’ll continue to do exactly what you’ve just said. It’ll just tody up to the system, staying slightly right of whatever the leftist party is. But offering nothing, ultimately.

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s right. We’ve got the Liberals in this country and the Nationals pretending to be right wing. We’ve got the labor Party who was in coalition the last time it was in government, with the Greens. We’ve got the labor-Greens coalition. And both coalitions go after the middle vote, because that’s where the majority of voters are.

Damien:

Yeah. Especially in Australia, because it’s a small [crosstalk 00:29:04].

Malcolm Roberts:

Scott Morrison belted Bill Shorten last time, because Bill Shorten was untrustworthy. Even the labor Party voters wouldn’t vote for him. But they got the labor Party into deep trouble at the election because of 2050 net zero from the UN.

Malcolm Roberts:

And Scott Morrison was all over it, really bashing the labor Party. Now, the labor Party has adopted it, and the Nationals pretended to dispute it but they went along for the ride.

Damien:

Is there a few things going on there? He was emboldened by Trump. The presence of Trump helped him to be able to take that stance.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yes, but Morrison is shallow and he’s dishonest, in my opinion.

Damien:

Yeah. It was cynical. He did it as a political exercise.

Malcolm Roberts:

He’s doing what he’s told to do.

Damien:

What will he do this time? Will he pivot on mandates suddenly? He hasn’t got long, he better hurry up and do it. The labor premiers might beat him to the punch.

Malcolm Roberts:

I think there’s something else that he’s working on very hard. You’ll notice he’s coming out to align with the Americans and the British on Ukraine. “Vote for the Liberal Party. They’re strong on security.” It’s crap. They’ve got us into so many wars.

Damien:

Will anyone really care? Not to say whatever is happening in Russia and with the Ukraine, but that’s not really going to have any bearing on Australians, is it?

Malcolm Roberts:

What he’s trying to do is whip up fear, because with fear… Humans are wonderful. We’ve got this wonderful thing called the neocortex, logical thinking, processing. But you get someone afraid, that all gets bypassed. We go back to the primaeval way of thinking. Fight, flight, or freeze.

Malcolm Roberts:

And what he’s doing is whipping up some fear around that and saying, “labor Party is weak on this. You have to come to us.” He’ll say, “Taiwan.” And that’s why he’s pretending to scream at China, because he’s trying to show they’re strong, labor Party is weak.

Malcolm Roberts:

And then they’re trying to frame labor Party as colluding with the Chinese. Liberals have had MPs colluding with the Chinese. Decades of it. The Chinese are influential in both sides of politics.

Malcolm Roberts:

What the people need to do is to wake up and say, “Hell, we’ve been voting for these people ever since we were kids. Mom and dad voted for them, granddad and grandma voted for them. I’ve got to stop and think there’s no difference between Liberal Party and labor Party. Why should I vote for either?”

Malcolm Roberts:

And they put us into this mess. The labor Party and the state government has colluded with the Liberal Party, National party, and federal government. They could not have implemented the mandates, they could not have mismanaged COVID without colluding.

Malcolm Roberts:

They’ve done that. They’ve done it under the World Economic Forum’s guidance, directions. They’re doing so many things to damage our country under the UN’s directions. Literally directions.

Malcolm Roberts:

And so people are waking up and they’re saying, “Hang on a minute. They’re the same.” And they’re also saying we need a third force in politics, so that’s why they’re looking at the minor freedom parties now.

Damien:

And what about Trump and his election loss in 2020? Do you believe that he lost that election, or do you believe there was-

Malcolm Roberts:

Stolen.

Damien:

… other powers involved. Okay.

Malcolm Roberts:

Stolen. Yeah. One of my staffers is all over the American political scene. He knows what’s going on, he knows about the electoral colleges, but deeper behind that. And he was telling me, he was unmasking some of the counting before it was actually happening. And he’s saying, “Trump walked this in but it was still stolen.” And now, we see in Arizona-

Damien:

The Dominion voting system.

Malcolm Roberts:

Each state seems to be different.

Damien:

Don’t they want to bring that here, the Dominion voting system? That’s what I’ve heard. Or is that just skullduggery from outside?

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s more myth. I’ll tell you what we’ve done about that, same person in our office. Had a talk with me about an audit of the federal election system. He said, “Do you know that the federal election has never been audited in this country?” Western Australia does get audited, New South Wales does. No one else

Damien:

As they say, vote early and vote often.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. There are two aspects. The first was an audit of the election processes and safeguards, especially cyber safeguards before the election. And an audit of the result after the election, before it’s declared.

Malcolm Roberts:

And so we floated legislation to that effect from my office. We did that. The Liberals came out and said, “We’re not going to vote for it.” And same with the labor Party. The Liberals took it then.

Damien:

It works well for the two of them, doesn’t it? The two party system, they look after each other.

Malcolm Roberts:

No. On this occasion, not so. Because what they did was they came and they saw us, and we said, “There’s the legislation. Copy and paste whatever you want.” They copied and pasted almost the whole thing.

Malcolm Roberts:

They changed minor phrases in a couple of areas, so it’s basically our bill. The Liberals then brought it back. labor Party was forced to vote for it because they couldn’t be seen to be voting against it.

Damien:

Looked like they vote against that. Who could vote against that?

Malcolm Roberts:

And the Liberals did, too. We’ve got that election audited in place, so our elections are safeguarded. And why is that-

Damien:

Is this from the next election?

Malcolm Roberts:

From the next, yeah. Before the next election. What’s significant is that we don’t have electronic voting. We have a paper system, which is wonderful for the house of reps. But in the Senate when you’ve got 120 candidates-

Damien:

And a massive paper a kilometre long.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. How do you allocate those preferences? A human can’t do it, so you’ve got to do it electronically. That’s the process. Our office went out and we listened to cryptographers, some of the best in Australia, and asked them for their views. We got a lot of input. That’s why our bill was basically reintroduced by the Liberals [crosstalk 00:34:04]-

Damien:

Can we trust the process that’s going to look after this safeguard though?

Malcolm Roberts:

Yes.

Damien:

Because it seems like all the institutions are corrupted at some level.

Malcolm Roberts:

We’re very confident. The fellow in my office, he’s been talking with a lot of people. And he said they’re very confident that we’ve now got an election that’s free from tampering.

Malcolm Roberts:

Where it’s still not free is we also introduced the voter ID. And the labor Party is totally opposed to voter ID, because they vote a number of times, some of the labor members. More than two or three.

Malcolm Roberts:

And so they don’t want that. And we know that’s happening, and the Liberal Party wants to bring that in. But where we failed was that we had the election audit and the voter ID in the same bill.

Malcolm Roberts:

The Liberals were clever. They took our work and carved it into two. They introduced the election auditing, and labor couldn’t help but support it. Now, they kept the voter ID separate. Now, they’ve put that up again.

Malcolm Roberts:

At the moment, because we’re fighting for freedom in this country, Pauline and I are opposing every piece of legislation that the government puts up. Not just abstaining, but putting a no vote to it, so the Liberal Party has got to be careful how it introduces voter ID.

Malcolm Roberts:

We’re supporting it, but we can’t vote for it at the moment because freedom is far more important. As Pauline says, “Voter ID is very important to us, but even more important is freedom. Go to hell.”

Damien:

And freedom is?

Malcolm Roberts:

Freedom is freedom from mandates, freedom from a lot of the restrictions, the lockdowns, the closed borders. All the freedoms that have been… You can’t steal freedoms. Freedom.

Damien:

It’s been taken from us though.

Malcolm Roberts:

Taken from us.

Damien:

Freedom has been taken from us. How do we bring it back? Do we need to amend the Constitution?

Malcolm Roberts:

No, no. The Constitution is fine. What we need to do is… You’ll see. I can’t tell you what it is now. We’re going to be doing something in the next session of parliament. Pauline has already tried to get an anti-discrimination.

Damien:

I saw that. Yeah. And George Christensen put a similar bill up, didn’t he?

Malcolm Roberts:

Yes. This issue, Damien, is probably the most important in the country because it’s about our future. It’s about our kids. All kinds of things run off it. Injecting kids run off it.

Malcolm Roberts:

What we’ve got to do is recognise that it is so important, but it’s going to be solved probably… We don’t know yet. We tried every trick we can and every open strategy.

Malcolm Roberts:

And the government, because it’s following World Economic Forum orders and UN orders, they’re just immune to it. Someone in the court system will have a breakthrough. We had one in New Zealand last week. There’s a good case in Adelaide.

Damien:

There’s no mandate placed on the police or the army. That’s right, in New Zealand?

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct. Yeah. Then there’s a case going on in Adelaide and another one, AVN I think is doing it. I can’t remember. The Anti-Vaccine Network.

Damien:

They’re bringing a case into South Australian court, are they?

Malcolm Roberts:

No. I don’t know which court they’re in. I think they’re in the federal, ultimately getting to high court. Then there’ll be people pressure, because senior members of the Liberal Party in the Senate have told me that they’re terrified of the number of members who’ve left the Liberal Party.

Malcolm Roberts:

Said, “The hell with you lot. You’re not Liberal anymore.” And the number of high value donors who used to donate significant sums to Liberal Party, they’ve said, “To hell with you lot.” [crosstalk 00:37:11]-

Damien:

I’ve had both size of the house, labor [inaudible 00:37:12]. There’s a lot of hostility towards members at the moment they haven’t experienced before. There’s always some level hostility to parliamentarians.

Malcolm Roberts:

The people putting pressure on is working. The third thing is it’s going to be some kind of solution in the political arena, somewhere in parliament. We’ve got a few things lined up there.

Malcolm Roberts:

Pauline has already done a couple of things, we’ve done a couple of things. More than just putting pressure on. Then you’ve also got pressure in the media, social media. That’s where we’re ramping that up, providing we don’t get banned, because we’ve been threatened.

Damien:

Banned? From social media.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. We’ve had some of our posts taken down.

Damien:

Do you get banned a bit?

Malcolm Roberts:

I’ve been banned on YouTube twice just for telling the truth.

Damien:

Have you ever been on the ABC?

Malcolm Roberts:

I was initially?

Damien:

Initially what?

Malcolm Roberts:

Greg Jennett back in the first time, before I got kicked out for the citizenship issues.

Damien:

Yeah, that was citizen, was it?

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah.

Damien:

Almost everyone got kicked out [inaudible 00:38:02]. I think we should have let them all go. If we knew then what we know, now we probably said, “See yous later.” But anyway.

Malcolm Roberts:

Greg Jennett from the ABC has asked me if I’d come on. I went on a couple weeks ago with him.

Damien:

How was that? What was the reception like?

Malcolm Roberts:

Fine, fine. There’s a funny story there. The ABC would come to us and they’d distort what we’re saying, and edit it and chop it around, and make us look like something we’re saying that wasn’t true.

Damien:

We’re going to do that to you, Malcolm.

Malcolm Roberts:

Good. I know. Yeah, I can tell from your eyes. Anyway, we said, “No more interviews with the ABC.”

Damien:

Starved them.

Malcolm Roberts:

Starved them. And Pauline is dynamite for ratings. People love watching her. Anyway, the ABC got down on their knees, basically. And I said, “Look, I’m not interested.”

Malcolm Roberts:

They’d call up and say, “Will you do an interview?” I said, “Live or prerecord?” “Prerecord.” “Not interested. Live.” And then Greg Jennett came to me and said, “Look, we won’t disturb [crosstalk 00:38:59]-“

Damien:

They can’t manipulate it if it’s live. Yeah. That’s what you’re saying, because otherwise they’ll edit and make you look however they want you to look.

Malcolm Roberts:

Right. Greg Jennett, I like dealing with him. He put a funny close in last time to get the last word, which contradicted the truth. But that’s fine, it wasn’t about me, it was about climate in general.

Damien:

People are starting to see the mistakes though, aren’t they? People are starting to see through their mistakes.

Malcolm Roberts:

Look at this studio here. How many people-

Damien:

Okay. All right, guys. Just so everyone knows, we’re in The Courier-Mail offices. And I think it was built for about 2,000 people when it was built, whenever it was built. That’s what people have been saying. And how many would be in here now?

Malcolm Roberts:

I don’t know, but there’s a massive… How big is that, 80 metres by 30 metres? 80 metres by 40 metres.

Damien:

It’s empty.

Malcolm Roberts:

Full of desks. Empty.

Damien:

Entirely empty.

Malcolm Roberts:

There’s two journalists over there in the corner. Media is [crosstalk 00:39:45]-

Damien:

The legacy media is really struggling, isn’t it? Yeah.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yes, and they’ve done it to themselves.

Damien:

Well, Trump called out fake news, didn’t he? Remember fake nerves? Now, everyone says fake news. It’s become part of the lexicon, hasn’t it, that we talk about?

Malcolm Roberts:

Trump was like getting a shark and slitting its belly and watching the other shark’s feet on it. Look at Joe Rogan.

Damien:

Yeah. I don’t watch his show, but hear he’s just doing…

Malcolm Roberts:

I haven’t got time to watch it.

Damien:

It’s huge figures. You’ve got your own podcast. I heard some.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. We saw the ratings on Joe Rogan’s interview of Robert Malone.

Damien:

Right, Dr Robert Malone.

Malcolm Roberts:

Was 11.5 Million views. Tucker Carlson show on Fox News had the next highest with 3.8. That’s one third.

Damien:

That’s extraordinary.

Malcolm Roberts:

And CNN rounded off the top 10 with 600,000. People don’t trust them.

Damien:

Why don’t the mainstream just talk to the same people? You can see what works. Why wouldn’t the mainstream just talk to the same doctors that we talk to?

Malcolm Roberts:

Because their owners are the globalists who are pushing the thing. Big pharma in America funds 70% of the media advertising in America. They can’t afford to contradict a big pharma.

Damien:

Yeah. But then what do they do in the meantime and see Joe Rogan’s figures? Sweep. But does it not matter anymore? You don’t need to sell papers, it’s actually a propaganda. George Soros’ propaganda arm doesn’t need to make any money because he can support it anyway.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, that’s true. But also, Gates is known for funding social media and the legacy media, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars to put out propaganda. And the people now know that, and they’re saying, “To hell with you lot.”

Damien:

What are we to make of Trump’s championing of the vaccines? He’s really proud of the vaccines. He still is and he still talks about it. What do we make of that?

Malcolm Roberts:

I can’t work that out. It doesn’t fit with Trump. The only thing I can think of is that… And this ties in with what we’ve learned about Fauci, who’s a genocidal maniac.

Malcolm Roberts:

Fauci was too big to knock off. He’s been in that position 40 years. He’s now 80, so he’s been there all through the prime of his career. He’s entrenched. He’s got a shadowy network of people that he controls through disbursement of money.

Malcolm Roberts:

He’s extremely powerful. You could see Trump in his early days with this COVID virus wanting to take on Fauci, because Trump didn’t run away from people. But you could see him after a while back right off.

Malcolm Roberts:

And so maybe he was doing that because Fauci controlled the injections and so on. Maybe he was just scared of opposing. Trump, you could see, he wasn’t Trump in his normal sense.

Damien:

He got out manoeuvred, didn’t he? He really got out manoeuvred.

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s the word.

Damien:

He outmanoeuvred them by using their social media against them, but they got him back a beauty, didn’t they?

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s a good summary, and I think he fell victim to that. You’ll notice the media when he was in power was all over him for not managing COVID properly. Sleepy Joe came in, completely mismanaged it, and yet they said he was doing a wonderful job. The media, they got him over COVID. They misrepresented what he was doing.

Damien:

What do we make of him running again in 2024?

Malcolm Roberts:

Bring it on.

Damien:

Bring it on?

Malcolm Roberts:

Bring it on. Love it.

Damien:

Yeah. You want to see it again. It’s something you would have really appreciated. He pulled us out of net zero. Didn’t he pull us out? It was Paris he pulled out of.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah, Paris.

Damien:

Which was extraordinary, and it looked like he might even pull out of the UN and all these things. And he was talking a lot about NATO.

Malcolm Roberts:

Pulled out of WHO.

Damien:

Pulled out of WHO. This is just unheard of. No one has done it ever since. It hasn’t been that long, but they wouldn’t even think about it. Wouldn’t dream of it. Because he wasn’t a political operative, really. He didn’t grow up through the system, so he made some really bold calls.

Damien:

But then Morrison lost his mojo, clearly, when Trump fell. And he just went straight back to net zero. And so the Australian people lost a lot of heart in that time.

Malcolm Roberts:

I don’t know that he went straight back to net zero. He was driven back to net zero by Biden and Boris Johnson. Johnson is a real disappointment.

Damien:

Yeah, Boris is. But there’s too many powers operating against a small to medium player. How would you go as the prime minister of Australia standing up to that sort of pressure, which would be really intense? It was serious interests.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, I had a word with [inaudible 00:43:56]. I think first of all, you put the national interest first. And if you do your job well, Maggie Thatcher showed you get reelected. If you do your job well, you get reelected. Reagan showed that.

Damien:

Howard took a real risk, didn’t he, with the GST election. People told him not to go to it. It destroyed Houston. Katie made Houston looked like a fool, and Howard went to the people with.

Damien:

It’d almost take something like that from Morrison, wouldn’t it? Some conviction. Australian people need to see something from him that he believes in, that he’s willing to put his neck on the line for.

Malcolm Roberts:

He hasn’t got the stomach for that. He’s a wind vein and he won’t do that. I can’t see anybody in the Liberal Party at the moment who would do that. And there’s certainly no one in the labor Party. They’re playing the globalist game.

Malcolm Roberts:

The prime minister, Maggie Thatcher showed, so did Ronald Reagan. If you explain why you’re doing something, the people will come on board if it’s done correctly,

Damien:

But you need a narrative to sell then, don’t you? You need something to sell. You need to identify something to sell the people. Some conviction in something.

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct, correct. And Damien, what I’ve noticed, whether it’s in industry or in politics or even social issues. People are not scared of change, they’re scared of uncertainty. And quite often, uncertainty comes with the change.

Malcolm Roberts:

And I’ve had some pretty radical things that I’ve done as an executive that people have followed, even though it was right out of their comfort zone initially. But if you give people the right background and understanding and create a vision, then people will go, providing it’s truthful.

Malcolm Roberts:

What’s happened is you had Kevin Rudd standing in front of a church every Sunday. You’ve got Morrison standing up at Hillsong and all this. Fake Christians. Morrison wouldn’t behave the way he’s behaving if he was a true Christian.

Malcolm Roberts:

What we need is people with conviction. If you look at what’s happened with this virus completely being mismanaged, and I mean completely mismanaged. We could spend a couple hours on that.

Damien:

Deliberately so? Was it set off? Is it a bio weapon that was deliberately set off?

Malcolm Roberts:

I don’t know that it was a bio weapon. There’s certainly [crosstalk 00:45:55]-

Damien:

Opportunists are just using it now.

Malcolm Roberts:

Could be a bio weapon, because the funding came from the United States illegally, and Fauci has admitted that. It could be a bio weapon. It certainly caused a lot of damage.

Malcolm Roberts:

But so far as the leadership, what a good leader does is a good leader listens to the people, finds out what their needs are. And then gets the data and paints a vision and says, “Damien, wouldn’t you like this?” And a leader is characterised by having followers who choose to follow him or her.

Damien:

Unless you know the necessity for change while the necessity is there.

Malcolm Roberts:

Right. What happens is leaders are not created and said, “Okay. Now, people must follow.” Leaders are leaders because people want to follow them. It’s a choice.

Malcolm Roberts:

What we’ve had in the vaccine is the complete opposite. Sorry, the virus is the complete opposite. We’ve had people pushing, shoving, coercing, blackmailing. It’d be like trying to get a horse to move by just all you’re doing is kicking it in the ass all the time, instead of leading it forward.

Damien:

Is Klaus Schwab a leader in that respect then?

Malcolm Roberts:

[crosstalk 00:46:53].

Damien:

Because he’s identifying something needs…. There is a problem with us, with society. There’s eight billion of us on this planet. There’s never been so many of us. We’re facing such huge amounts of debt. Who do we owe this money to? Every country in the world seems to owe money. Who’s it owed to?

Malcolm Roberts:

There’s not a problem with population, because each belly comes with two eyes, two ears, and a wonderful mind, and a wonderful heart. We’ll always overcome these issues. We’re on top of this now. There are more people now in the middle class than ever before, so we’ve got fewer people in poverty, despite population [crosstalk 00:47:27]-

Damien:

An abundance of wealth, really. We’ve never been so wealthy ever.

Malcolm Roberts:

The core problem is that humans are prone to control. Some people, the control freaks want to control others, and it shows an insecurity but people see them sometimes as dynamic. Then we see people subservient to that control, and so what we see, the eternal battle between control and freedom-

Damien:

Master, slave.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah, it is. Let’s face it. If you’re a master and I’m your slave, you can get work me for nothing, and the produce that I produce is yours. What a wonderful way to get goods.

Malcolm Roberts:

Trouble is slaves, eventually you end up having less efficiency. And that’s the lesson we learned from the release of this slaves in Britain. What was that? 18th century.

Malcolm Roberts:

The more efficient way is to help your people who are working for you to be better off. Then they’re more committed, because a slave doesn’t have any heart in the game.

Malcolm Roberts:

And humans, the heart determines everything. And so you have people who are more committed, more creative, more entrepreneurial. If you’ve got people working with you rather than for you, you can be much, much wealthier than just exploiting them.

Damien:

We’re going to enter ultimate slavery, aren’t we, more than ever before with artificial intelligence. We’ve never been more of an attack on what it means to be human.

Malcolm Roberts:

You’ve nailed it, you’ve nailed it. Feudalism was where the barons controlled the land, and they said, “I’ll be the baron now. You go and eke out of living. You’ll produce and I’ll take most of it. You’ll have enough to barely keep you alive.

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s what the UN wants. That’s what their dictators in charge of the UN, unelected dictators, are saying. They want to return to feudalism, because then they will basically control your property, control how you live, what you do, when you do it. What you say, what you spend money on, social credit system. That’s what they want.

Damien:

Are we already living it? Because everywhere you look, you just see everyone is on their mobile phones constantly. Wherever you are in any setting, people are just engaging with digital media.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. That’s the wonderful thing. These mobile phones liberate people, because think of the things that help me with my productivity and help the world with productivity from this. But used wrongly, they become a control tool.

Damien:

We’re having a superficial [inaudible 00:49:35] of it really, because it’s more complex. Like everything in the world, it’s actually really complex. [inaudible 00:49:40].

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. This is wonderful for liberating people and freedom, but it can be used, providing government… It needs government to get in the way of freedom, and government can then turn this into a weapon. You’re absolutely right.

Damien:

We talk about the need for change and a good leader would bring us on a journey, articulating why there is that need for change. But there’s something else that’s wrong, too, I think in this culture, which change seems to happen for change’s sake.

Damien:

And maybe change doesn’t need to occur at all. Actually, tradition is what saves us and keeps us whole and keeps our humanity intact. And I think climate change might be a real example of that. That’s something I think you’ve spent a lot of your political career investigating and certainly criticising.

Damien:

I believed I heard that’s what the carbon tax was about. Carbon taxes are a means for globalism, for the UN to raise taxes, because the UN doesn’t have any natural tax base.

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct.

Damien:

A nation state has a tax base, but a universalist system like that doesn’t have one. World governance doesn’t have a tax base. But that’s what the carbon tax, wasn’t it? Because a percentage of that went to the United Nations.

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct. A big percentage. No, you’re absolutely correct. I don’t need to say anything about that. You’ve nailed it.

Damien:

Yeah. But that wasn’t necessarily a good thing, because that was change.

Malcolm Roberts:

Terrible.

Damien:

That was articulated to us by Julia Gillard, and that was change, but that wasn’t necessarily a good change, was it? Change is not always good.

Malcolm Roberts:

No. And so much of what we hear today from the Liberal Nationals, and the labor Greens is about reform. “We’ve got to make reforms.” And here comes another reform. It’s really fiddling, tinkering. It’s not reform at all.

Malcolm Roberts:

We need reform in tax. Complete overhaul, comprehensive overhaul to make it fair, efficient, and honest. We need complete overhaul of the industrial relation system.

Malcolm Roberts:

And now, I’ve had senior people in the ETU, the CFMEU, two of the most powerful unions of the country, say they want reform. I’ve had Dave Noonan from the CFMEU as senior national secretary say, “Yes,” he will sit down and discuss something like this.

Malcolm Roberts:

Because what’s happening is the industrial relation system has been corrupted by politicians. It’s now this thick. How can any individual work and know what his entitlements to her entitlements are? We want proper reform, not tinkering.

Damien:

The union alludes with government and corporations now, anyway, isn’t it?

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct.

Damien:

Actually, I remember being out the front of the CFMEU in Victoria, before it started to really go off down there with Andrews government. And it was extraordinary.

Damien:

And the membership were wild. They were so aggro. And John Setka, the leader of the CFMEU, tried to bust his way out of that office with knuckle dusters on. Punch his way through his membership. Got pushed back into the office.

Damien:

We walked past it again the other day and it’s still boarded up. Months later, it’s still boarded up as a reminder to what went down there on that day. And it really set off. The next day, 30,000 to 40,000 people occupied the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah, and that was wonderful. That’s the grass roots saying, “To hell with the CFMEU leadership.”

Damien:

It felt like hope at that point in time, and then the next day there was a few of us that were saying every day, every day, They’re just going to keep fighting every day. We thought, “Wow. This is a people’s revolution. We’re part of a people’s revolution.”

Damien:

Then the next day at the shrine, there was maybe one 10th of the people that had been there before. Significant number, but nowhere near it.

Malcolm Roberts:

[crosstalk 00:52:51]-

Damien:

And that’s when they opened fire on us. It was significant, too. Because think the state finally went, “Make them pay, make them pay.” And it’s extraordinary that the state actually said, “We will not tolerate you any longer.” But that’s not extraordinary at all, because that’s what power has done throughout history.

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct.

Damien:

There’s actually nothing extraordinary about it.

Malcolm Roberts:

No, but it’s extraordinary that you stayed there. See, even in the face of those rubber bullets, you and many, many other people stayed there. And in the face of the CFMEU’s control of its members, the members said, “Go to hell.”

Malcolm Roberts:

And that was significant because Dan Andrew said, “If one of my largest union supports is being undermined by its own voters, I’ve got problems.” Dan Andrews brought, as you know, brought in lockdowns.

Malcolm Roberts:

The harsh, severe lockdown, the latest one. The last one with about 200 cases a day. He released the lockdowns with 2,000 cases a day because the people stood up, and that’s what we need. You were highly effective.

Damien:

People get rewarded from the system, don’t they? Because I was just talking to a guy the other day, and he was telling me how good Daniel Andrew was. That he’s never met a politician so willing to look after the people, to go that extra mile.

Damien:

And where does he get his money from? The government. He gets his money through government services, through ministering to addicts and alcoholics and stuff. He’s just funded. He’s basically funded to praise the government, to minimal effect of what he’s doing.

Malcolm Roberts:

Look at his media. He’s got so many journalists and social media manipulators. But if you look at government, what’s going on. Now, I’ve been a volunteer. I was a volunteer for basically 12 years.

Malcolm Roberts:

I was working voluntarily and costing me money to do so, in terms of some of the material I had to buy. Fighting a government that was taking money from me in the form of taxation, to put in climate bullshit which was completely wrong.

Malcolm Roberts:

And when I go around the country, I see thousands, if not tens of thousands of people who are fighting the government. Because the government is telling lies. And the government is using their money, either directly in campaigns or indirectly through funding the ABC to push campaigns out there.

Malcolm Roberts:

We’re actually fighting our own government. That’s why. And if you go to Canberra, I don’t know if you were in Canberra for the protest a couple weeks ago.

Damien:

Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was. I saw Pauline come out.

Malcolm Roberts:

So was I. Wasn’t it wonderful to see Australia back?

Damien:

Yeah.

Malcolm Roberts:

You go to Camp Epic and people were having fun. Because even though they were locked up to some extent, they were just being Australians again. And the buzz there was just phenomenal.

Malcolm Roberts:

It was one of the best things I felt. I felt like up until then, I’d been almost ashamed to be Australian in the last couple of years. But I felt that buzz. I could just feel it tingling in my body.

Damien:

Commissioner of the AFP came out and said estimates. I’m sure you’d be aware, he came out and said, “Maybe 6,000 or 7,000, 10,000 tops there on the day.” The propaganda wall continues, doesn’t it?

Malcolm Roberts:

I asked questions of the commissioner of the AFP, and I got to say he was quite good. He acknowledged that the behaviour of the crowd was fantastic.

Damien:

He did that.

Malcolm Roberts:

Head of ASIO. Was it Mike Burgess? He also said the behaviour was phenomenal, and that there were very few activists. There were two or three activists, but they weren’t part of the crowd. They were hangers on who wanted to take advantage of it. That was something for all Australians to be very, very proud of. [crosstalk 00:56:11]-

Damien:

That’s all Australians, or do you think it was predominantly Western European Australians or Western European heritage?

Malcolm Roberts:

There are a lot of Aboriginals involved, a lot of mixed races.

Damien:

There are a lot of [crosstalk 00:56:20].

Malcolm Roberts:

A lot of whites, for want of a better word. The big, big players were people who’d come from the former Eastern European countries, the communist countries. Same climate.

Malcolm Roberts:

When I went around the country speaking at rallies on climate, always the people who came up immediately I finished. They’d come up and they’d say, “Thank you. That was wonderful.” And they always had a foreign accent from Eastern Europe.

Damien:

Eastern Europeans are really strong. They’re really strong. You’re right. It was a European Australian movement mainly, because I see it every time. No one wants to admit it. No one wants to talk about it, because then you can be so easily pilloried.

Damien:

But if you see it, you look at it. But is there a problem? Is there a problem with mass immigration? Not multiculturalism as such or immigration, but mass immigration.

Malcolm Roberts:

There is a problem.

Damien:

Everyone is not moving in the same direction, as a cohesive unit, as a culture.

Malcolm Roberts:

Let’s get to that in a minute, and remind me if I don’t get back to it. But these Eastern Europeans, they said time after time, “We know what’s happening. We were born and in a totalitarian regime. Cruel, no freedom. We can see that coming here through the climate. We can see that climate change scam and the UN trying to get control.”

Malcolm Roberts:

They saw it. And I recognised that very early on in my research, even the first year, that it was all about control. Not about the environment, not about climate at all. It was about control and money. That’s what these globalists want. Immigration-

Damien:

10% will be fine and the rest of us will be slaves, serfs.

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct. That’s all it’s about, control and money. They’re making the billionaires happy. You’ll notice that the UN gets a few key people on board. They’ll make the billionaires, like Twiggy Forrest will make a lot of money out of it.

Malcolm Roberts:

Atlassian founders will make a lot of money out of it from the scam of so-called renewable energy, which is really unreliable. It’s wind and solar. They’re devastatingly expensive, they cripple countries eventually. We’re starting to see that it’s a terrible future.

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s what they do. They make a few people rich and those people jump on board. Coming back to your immigration. Immigration, we have about 70,000 people leave a year, but we’ve had something like 240,000 come in every year.

Malcolm Roberts:

We have a massive growth in population. It’s suppressed wages, it’s destroyed some workers conditions. It’s cruel, the housing market. And it’s put pressure on infrastructure. Traffic jams are longer than they have to be. Waiting lists in hospitals are longer than they have to be.

Malcolm Roberts:

What Pauline and I want, we recognise immigration is good on two conditions. First of all, that you can manage the numbers within what we’re capable of with our infrastructure.

Malcolm Roberts:

And secondly, that we bring people in who want to come to Australia because they want what we’ve got, not come here and destroy what we’ve got. We want people who will comply with our laws, comply with our values, comply with our culture. People say to me, “America is multicultural.” America is not multicultural. America is Americans first, and they’re very, very proud of that.

Damien:

Haven’t we taken part of America with that though? Because we bring people here, but then we teach them our version of critical race theory. We teach them to hate our culture, we teach them to hate us.

Damien:

And this is an irony, because mainly there’s white middle aged men still in the parliament. There’s a lot of white women, too. And there’s other minority groups.

Malcolm Roberts:

The white men are gutless.

Damien:

But they’re the ones selling this. They’re the ones selling it for big government. It sells.

Malcolm Roberts:

Because the globalists have told the media that this is what has to be done. And then when the media pumps it up, people say, “I’m afraid to speak against it.” And so the white male parliamentarians, many of them just kowtow to it, just fall into line. And then they start parroting the same thing.

Damien:

We’re future readers. “We don’t care about the future, we just destroy it just so we get what we need and then [crosstalk 01:00:04]-“

Malcolm Roberts:

Exactly. “We want to get a vote.” That’s what some of them say. But America says, “By all means. If you’re Polish descent, be proud of Poland. If you’re Greek descent, if you’re African descent, if you’re Indian descent, be proud. Be proud of being Korean and Japanese and all the rest of it. Number one, I’m American.”

Malcolm Roberts:

And that’s what they say, and that’s what we need in here. Number one, I’m Australian. I was born in India to a Welsh father and an Australian mother. What am I? I’m Australian because that’s my citizenship and that’s what I’ve worked for. And same with Pauline, she’s Australian. I don’t know where you were born, but you’re obviously Australian.

Damien:

Is there a crisis of masculinity in this country?

Malcolm Roberts:

Yes.

Damien:

Is that why so many young men are committing suicide?

Malcolm Roberts:

Yes. It’s really crisis of courage. A crisis of integrity, a lack of integrity, a lack of courage.

Damien:

Have all the institutions been taken over by feminism as well?

Malcolm Roberts:

Most of them. Feminism is to some extent a reaction to females being left out of processes. Females couldn’t vote 120 years ago. That’s wrong.

Damien:

They didn’t have to go and fight foreign war either, and die on foreign fields. I guess there’s two ways of looking at it.

Malcolm Roberts:

Certainly. But what I’m getting to is that quotas where you have so many percent females will destroy things. Not because they’re female, but because you promote the people who are not quite competent.

Malcolm Roberts:

What we needed to have was an adult discussion saying, “We want you as a female in there, because you bring skills that you as a male don’t bring.” Males and females are wonderful when they’re working together, and they’re complimentary because females and males are different.

Damien:

That’s one of the divisions that has been done by government to us.

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct.

Damien:

The division between men and women has been the ultimate one, really, in many respects.

Malcolm Roberts:

And you’ll notice that the UN and the World Economic Forum come out and say, “We have to fix climate because it hurts women. We have to fix climate because it hurts minorities. We have to fix climate because it hurts the children.”

Malcolm Roberts:

What the hell has it got to do with that? Everyone suffers if it’s true, but it’s not true. What they do is they always come up with something to divide, so that they get the female vote, the male vote, the white vote, the black vote. [crosstalk 01:02:12]-

Damien:

Nature will reassert itself eventually though, won’t it? Men will stand up for themselves again, ultimately, won’t they, when they have to. Or is that [foreign language 01:02:18]-

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, some of us already are and some women are. Pauline has always stood up.

Damien:

Definitely. And I see a lot of women, too, particularly in the freedom movement saying, “Where are the men? Where are the men?”

Malcolm Roberts:

I was about to say that a while ago and I forgot. You talked about a lot of the Eastern Europeans being leaders of the freedom movement here. Women, community groups. Women, marches, rallies. Women.

Malcolm Roberts:

They’re either upfront or they’re out the back. Or they’re saying, “Get your ass down to Canberra, hubby, and start protesting.” Because they’re concerned for their kids. Women have just been so wonderful. Gives me goosebumps to think about it. They’ve been wonderful just pushing this.

Damien:

It’s interesting, isn’t it? Because we talk about the Eastern Europeans have really been on the front lines. You think the Vietnamese would be a natural cohort, because they escaped a totalitarian communist regime as well to come here.

Damien:

Many of them fleeing in horrible circumstances, on boats, et cetera. But there’s not so many of them on the front lines, too. Is there a problem that they maybe don’t feel welcome, because they feel like, “That space is very much a European space?”

Malcolm Roberts:

I don’t know. I haven’t done studies. Could it be due to the Vietnamese… Basically, a lot of Asians tend to be more… What’s the word? Compliant with their regime.

Damien:

But clearly not these ones, because these are the ones that have fled the regimes.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah, they fled. They didn’t stand up. They tried to, some of them, but they couldn’t.

Damien:

That’s an interesting point about immigration that people very rarely raise, too, isn’t it? At what point do you say, “Okay. Should I have fled Victoria?

Damien:

“Or should I flee Australia because I’m frightened about these circumstances that may be encroaching on us, and becoming totalitarian? Or is this the hill I die on and I stand and fight?”

Malcolm Roberts:

Exactly. And we’ve got so many Victorians coming up here now. Victoria had an extra seat allocated to it in the federal election, in the distribution of seats. And Western Australia is going to lose one. Now, they’re cancelling that because so many of them moved to Queensland. [crosstalk 01:04:17]-

Damien:

Yeah. I’ve got friends that moved here about eight months ago.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. When are you coming up?

Damien:

They saw Daniel Andrews’ Strong Cities Network and they said, “I’m out.” I’m here now, Malcolm.

Malcolm Roberts:

But the scary thing, Damien, is that in Mackay for example, and so many regional towns, they’re putting in the same crap. What do they call them? I can’t remember the UN’s name for those things.

Damien:

The the bloody Victorians are going to spread the wokeness with them. They’ll bring the wokeness up here. Don’t let anymore in.

Malcolm Roberts:

I was talking to a mayor of a pretty big city in Queensland. Mackay, I’ll mention it. They’re only doing it to take part in listening to it, but that’s how it starts. You’ve got to stand up and say, “To hell with you lot.” You’ve got to do your research and get rid of it.

Damien:

I’ll say when we arrived here, the Brisbane River was really flooding. You know what I mean? It reminded me of watching images on television of 2011, I think was the last major flood.

Damien:

And Kevin Rudd rolling up the sleeves and stuff, sandbagging. Hoping to get the top job back, which he did eventually, of course. And surely, these two major floods in 10 years, that would be an example of climate change, wouldn’t it, Malcolm?

Malcolm Roberts:

In 1893, there were three floods in the one summer. And each of them was more severe than the 1974 flood, which was more severe than the 2011 flood by a long way.

Damien:

And that was even before they were damming. They weren’t using the dam stands, so it was just natural waters coming through.

Malcolm Roberts:

Correct. You and I were talking before about the early settlers in Brisbane. They camped where the city centre is now, and the Aborigines came down from Spring Hill and said, “Nah. You’re going to get flooded.” And they didn’t take any notice.

Damien:

And that was John Oxley, wasn’t it? He was one of the early explorers and stuff.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, there’s a book. I don’t know how long it’s been out. It’s called The City in the River. And Australian rivers, they quite often got very little in them. This close to the coast [inaudible 01:06:03], but they’ve got very little water in them. But next thing, they’re running massively.

Damien:

When they flood. Yeah. Well, up here in the tropics, too, it’s different again, isn’t it? There was a convergence of two rivers at that time. I think the Brisbane and what was the other one?

Malcolm Roberts:

The Bremer?

Damien:

The Bremer. Right. Yeah. They were smashing together. It’s a part of history that doesn’t really get talked about, too. The times when those first contact between European Australians and Aboriginal Australians.

Damien:

And it’s not all doom and gloom. Clearly, it’s a clash of civilizations, and I don’t know the way around that. I don’t think anyone does. It’s been a really intractable problem for Australia as a culture. [inaudible 01:06:38]. But there’s other moments, too, that it doesn’t get celebrate, does it? In the bureaucracy, anyway.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, I think before we can propose solutions to problems, we have to understand the cause of the problem. And we haven’t bothered to listen to the Aborigines to understand the cause of the problem.

Malcolm Roberts:

And the government, and to some extent the early churches, were the major cause of the problems. And Whitlam really ramped up the problems under labor.

Malcolm Roberts:

But we still get prime minister Morrison and Anthony Albanese, the opposition leader, standing up and talking about closing the gap. It’s all bullshit. They just mouth platitudes. There’s not a single statement in there that’s really factually strong and consistent.

Malcolm Roberts:

We were up in Cape York, spent three weeks running around the Cape. We’ll go back again, because we listened to every community on the Cape. And the message we got repeatedly was land rights have been a complete failure. Native Title, been a complete failure.

Malcolm Roberts:

The Native Title Act, the [inaudible 01:07:38] preamble to the act is littered with the words UN agenda… United Nations, sorry. UN, United nations. What that was about was about locking up land. Taking it off the white fellas and keeping it away from the black fellas.

Malcolm Roberts:

Now, the Aborigines, when you listen to them in the communities, they can’t build houses because they can’t get land. Why would you build a house if you couldn’t own the land?

Malcolm Roberts:

Government has destroyed the Aborigines. What we’ve got now in this country, feeding off government, feeding off taxpayer, is the Aboriginal industry. They have black consultants, they have white consultants. All kinds of consultants and lawyers.

Malcolm Roberts:

The money goes from us in huge numbers as taxpayers, and it goes to the Aboriginal industry and gets hived off. And the people in the communities don’t get it.

Malcolm Roberts:

The people in the communities, when you actually listen to them and meet them. They’re wonderful, they’re fired up, they want autonomy. They want to make their own decisions. That sense of responsibility is removed from them by stupid government, state and Liberal.

Damien:

The world is changed, hasn’t it? They can’t stand the gilded cage as well. Sometimes [crosstalk 01:08:32]-

Malcolm Roberts:

Correc.t.

Damien:

… feel like we want to keep them in a gilded cage.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah, and that is doing enormous damage. Because what a human wants, the freedom to live, the freedom to make decisions. And make bad decisions and wear the consequences.

Damien:

I talked to someone on the show one time, and they were really concerned about the stolen generations. And they were talking about what great business plans they’ve brought to the Aboriginal community, to help them achieve in business and stuff.

Damien:

And I thought, “Isn’t it possible that in the future, that will be again, too part of cultural appropriation?” And you could see him flush red. I’m saying flush. It was a big crawl that I did in a way, too.

Damien:

But it was just to prove a point, because that’s the fear though. That’s the fear we’re all confronted with. And he was a good person. He was not being… You know what I mean?

Malcolm Roberts:

What do they say? Good intentions usually end up in damage. Because the point is-

Damien:

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Malcolm Roberts:

Thank you, thank you. [inaudible 01:09:25] than I. But this is probably the strongest thing I can say about parliament. Liberal, labor, Nationals, and Greens don’t make decisions based on data.

Malcolm Roberts:

They make decisions based on looking after their mates, looking after their donors, looking after vested interests, kowtowing to the globalists, getting good media headline. Opinions, hearsay, looking good.

Malcolm Roberts:

Rather than actually saying, “Go and do the work, get the data, make a decision. Explain it to people and bring the people with you.” The climate change, the immigration, the Aboriginal issues all are devoid of data. They just try and do things that look good. And when you do that [crosstalk 01:10:03]-

Damien:

It’s hard operate with truth and integrity in those areas, because you know you can be ripped apart, so instead you try and stay away from it.

Malcolm Roberts:

I say it to people in the Liberal Party, labor Party, National party. Not the Greens because they wouldn’t understand. They’re incredibly thick and so ideologically driven. But the others, I say, “If you-“

Damien:

How you going with Lidia Thorpe, too? She’s joined you in the Senate.

Malcolm Roberts:

She’s actually quite nice to me. Quite pleasant, because I don’t pay any attention to her when she’s behaving like an idiot. She actually came up to me and sat in front of me and said, “I actually agree with lot of what you’re saying.”

Damien:

Wow. You’re getting a bit of that outside of the chamber.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. Data. Look at the Liberal Party and the labor Party. How many leaders have been dumped over climate? I’ve counted about seven or eight. If they came up with the data, Damien, it’ll be all over.

Malcolm Roberts:

If they came up with the data, I’d be gone and finished. And I’m saying, “Go do it.” But I’ve got the data on my side, so whenever I have that position and there’s no evidence of what we’re doing will have any impact, I’m going to keep fighting it. I’m just going to keep going.

Damien:

That’s the same with corona, isn’t it? If they come with the data, they wouldn’t need to coerce me into a vaccine. I’d be lining up for one. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be having this interview with right now. I’d be sitting home somewhere really safe, looking after myself and my family, hopefully.

Damien:

Our ability to make choices for ourselves has been taken away from us. And our ability to be able to take responsibility for ourselves and be treated like an adult, we’ve had in my experience in life.

Damien:

And I can make some of my own choices here. Thanks very much, government. But no, I better not. Because what do the experts say? Experts? What are you talking about? Who’s the expert?

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, what do they say? The experts, they say the scientists. There’s no science driving this mismanagement of COVID. On Monday, the 23rd of March, 2020, we had our first single day session in the parliament pushing through the COVID measures. Which was Job Seeker, I think it was.

Malcolm Roberts:

And then on Wednesday, the 8th of April, 2020, the following month, we had another single day session. And we pushed through Job Keeper. And I basically said to the government… And I was wrong on this.

Malcolm Roberts:

But I said, “Looking at all of the deaths being reported from overseas, we don’t know what’s involved so we’ve got to err on the side of caution.” I said, “We’re going to give you a blank check. Go to it.” But I said, “We want the data, we want a plan, and we will then hold you accountable.”

Malcolm Roberts:

And by the way, have you gone to Monash University and seen the remarkable results they’ve had with their in vitro trials of ivermectin? Very promising results. And have you looked at Taiwan, which is managing this virus extremely well?

Malcolm Roberts:

We have abysmally mismanaged. They never gave us the data. I wrote letters to the prime minister, letters to the premier. In Senate Estimates, I said to the chief medical officer, “I want the data that characterises the virus. And I want it in absolute terms and I want it relative to past severe flues.”

Malcolm Roberts:

[inaudible 01:12:57] came back on a wonderful graph, really easy to understand. They gave me the numbers. The severity on their own damn graph says low to moderate, not severe. Lower severity than past flues. What the hell are we doing?

Damien:

How do they still get away with it? That’s the thing you got to ask, how it still gets through. Malcolm Roberts, I could keep talking to you for hours. It’s been great.

Damien:

Look, what it is, is we’re allowed to be wrong, but we’re allowed to have an honest conversation. Because when we don’t and we’re shy of having an honest conversation, I feel like this is what’s going to cause the culture never to really get to where it needs to go. Thank you for having the courage to come on and have an honest conversation.

Malcolm Roberts:

You’re very welcome. And you didn’t talk about my shorts either.

Damien:

We’ll get those in a minute. We’re going to get those in a minute. You just dubbed yourself in. Are you rolling? We came to Queensland and this is what we’re expecting to see, and we didn’t see it until the right honourable Senator Malcolm Roberts turned up in his suit. He thought, “No, better wear the tie because I want to look good.” [inaudible 01:13:56] Hugo Boss shorts, did you say?

Malcolm Roberts:

Yes, and Armani sandals.

Damien:

Armani sandals, which have Aussie flags on them as well. I think they’ve got Aussie flags showing up. Aussie flag. [crosstalk 01:14:06]-

Malcolm Roberts:

Actually, we went out to listen to a wonderful scientist. We had dinner with her, my wife and I last Saturday. And we spent so long with her that it was late getting back.

Malcolm Roberts:

She’s got some wonderful stuff about COVID which we’re going to release soon. But so late getting back, we got cut off. I haven’t been home for three days.

Damien:

He hasn’t been home. [crosstalk 01:14:24]-

Malcolm Roberts:

I did have a shower this morning. I did have a shower this morning.

Damien:

I was going to say, mate.

Malcolm Roberts:

I came into town and I borrowed a shirt off one of our staffers who lives downtown.

Damien:

I told your chief of staff that I’d be happy to. I’ve got a couple shirts [inaudible 01:14:38].

Malcolm Roberts:

[crosstalk 01:14:38].

Damien:

Might have wrapped it around you. Could have worn it is a muumuu.

Malcolm Roberts:

Everyone above 5’3″ is abnormal anyway.

Damien:

You’re right. You should pass a law in parliament, I reckon. Thanks, mate.

Malcolm Roberts:

[inaudible 01:14:47].

Damien:

Good to talk to you.

The Morrison-Joyce government’s recent fuel excise reduction creating a 22c per litre drop in petrol and diesel prices, is now shown to be a deceitful marketing tactic.

Senator Roberts said, “The devil in the detail is that the Morrison-Joyce government reduced the amount of excise that road transport operators could claim back against their tax, meaning that despite the 22c drop road transport operators only received a 4c per litre reduction.

“The Prime Minister has perfected the sleight of hand; he gives with one hand and takes with the other.”

Road transport is the primary method of transport for non-bulk freight in Australia and is an essential part of the supply chain for many industries, delivering food, clothing and household goods.

Senator Roberts added, “These high fuel prices feed directly into the prices Australians pay at the supermarket. Only yesterday Independent Research firm Morningstar revealed prices in Coles and Woolworths have risen by 4% in just 3 months.

“One Nation lobbied the Morrison Government very strongly this month to get this fuel excise reduction, but we did not expect this short-sighted deceitful con and clawback.

“The money Australians are saving at the fuel bowser with a 22c reduction, will now be spent at the grocery store checkout over the next few months.

“The Morrison-Joyce government excels at deceptive gift giving and I encourage all Australians to punish his insincerity at the next election and to put the major parties last.”

It is a disgrace that the QLD Workplace Health and Safety prosecutor did not charge and make accountable the Grosvenor Mine operators for the badly injured casual coal miners in the mine explosion in May 2020.

Senator Roberts said, “Anglo American have a duty of care to its workforce, and it is inexplicable that an explosion can occur, five miners get badly injured and almost die, and there is no accountability back to the operator.

“Anglo American are treating its casual coal miners as literally being expendable with no serious consequences of their neglect to the keep the mine safe for workers now and in the future.”

Senator Roberts has listened with casual coal miners in NSW and QLD and some of the serious mining incidents can be traced to the culture of disrespect and exploitation of coal mine workers.  The culture of penny-pinching, fear and intimidation is especially prevalent in the growing casual / labour hire segment

Senator Roberts said, “It is a gross injustice that casual miners are discouraged from reporting safety issues for fear of losing their jobs.

Queensland Coal Mining Safety and Health Advisory Committee consists of majority membership of mine owners / operators and unions, and neither group represent nor have any interaction with casual coal miners.

Senator Roberts said, “The casual coal miner does not have a place at the table, nor any representation, on key committees that determine safety standards and address safety concerns. “The Labor Palaszczuk government has no integrity when it comes to keeping casual coal miners safe.”

I talk to journalist Tony Thomas who is interested in climate change, indoctrination in schools and universities, the ABC, and Aboriginal politics. See all episodes of my show on TNT radio.

Recorded 19 February 2022

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

You’re with Senator Malcolm Roberts on Today’s News Talk radio, TNT.

Senator Malcom Roberts (00:07):

And welcome back to Today’s News Talk radio, tntradio.live. This is Senator Malcolm Roberts, and I just want to apologise for my amateurish approach to the microphone. I’m learning this game as we go. So bear with me, please. Hope this is much better now. I’ll look for some feedback from the panel in the gold coast. This hour coming, I’m going to be chatting with the real journalist. Tony Thomas is someone who hasn’t lost sight of the dignity and responsibility of journalism. Tony’s now 81, he’s been in journalism for more than 60 years. Since he started his cadetship, and I want to emphasise that word cadetship, in 1958 on The West Australian newspaper, he spent a decade there, followed by 10 years writing economics for the age in the Canberra Press Gallery. Through the 1970s. He’s an ideal person to talk about the Press Gallery and the media in Canberra reporting on politics.

Senator Malcom Roberts (01:04):

He spent 20 years with weekly business magazine, BRW, including as associate editor. Since retiring from salary journalism in 2001, he’s published more than 400 features for Quadrant and Spectator magazines, and his work is marvellous. It’s always factual and accurate. He’s done a part-time master’s degree in literature and a bachelor of economics at Australian National University and published nine books on history, business, and current affairs, including four books of collected essays in the past five years. So you can see that he’s across many different topics. One of his books on business won an award in 2000, from the chartered accountants body as quote, “A substantial contribution to the literature of the industry.” Tony’s major topics currently include climate change, indoctrination in schools and universities, the ABC and Aboriginal politics. Welcome to tntradio.live. Tony.

Tony Thomas (02:04):

Thanks very much Malcolm, a very nice introduction.

Senator Malcom Roberts (02:10):

We always start with appreciation. Tell me something you appreciate, no matter how briefly, no matter what topic, what do you appreciate?

Tony Thomas (02:18):

I appreciate the ability to research right, and get published with alacrity. There’s no fun writing for a publisher, and then your book comes out 15 months later, but writing for Quadrant Online, I put the article in within a day or two it’s up on the blog site. So, that’s very satisfying.

Senator Malcom Roberts (02:43):

Thank you. Now I want to go back to your cadetship. How did young journalists operate? Is it like the classical movies tell us 40 years ago, they would sniff an issue, they would go out and research it, they’d talk to people, above all, listen to people, give everyone a fair hearing. And then they would write an article without fear, without favour, objective. Is that the way you started? Is that the culture in which you started?

Tony Thomas (03:14):

Yes. In those days, the young journalists were monitored and herded by old veteran pot belly grizzled journalists changed [inaudible 00:03:27], who’d been in the game since before the war, who would roast you for the slightest grammatical mistake or sloppiness, and so on. I must say though, The West Australian was a monopoly in that capital city. So they weren’t as sharp as many other newspapers are where everybody’s competing, but still it was a four year cadetship. I did three years and you learn shorthand. I actually learned shorthand twice over once at school and once on the job. And you were put through all sorts of experiences, especially court reporting, which may seem quite okay for a young cadet. But in fact, it’s the most difficult and exacting form of reporting. And if you get one little thing wrong or you mishear something because of bad acoustics, you are in big trouble. So the training was quite slow in those days, but thorough.

Senator Malcom Roberts (04:30):

Thank you very much. So basically it’s an apprenticeship and you learn-

Tony Thomas (04:35):

That’s right.

Senator Malcom Roberts (04:35):

…the tools of your trade and the methods of your trade and the processes of your trade by the guidance of experienced people, successful people. You also said something else, implicitly. You said that The West Australian was a monopoly. And therefore it wasn’t as sharp as some of the other papers where there was cutthroat competition. You also said there’s shorthanded school as shorthand was at school, basic skills that are not taught today. Now, just of something of interest. And you also mentioned you were sent to court reporting, where you have to be accurate and precise and succinct, just a little sideline, whenever I’m approached by anyone in the media, whether it be by phone or personally, I always turn on my recording device.

Senator Malcom Roberts (05:23):

The other day in parliament, I was wandering through the corridors on my way to Senate estimates hearings, and Andrew Probyn now with the ABC saw me and he went past me and he said, “Can I just get your comment off the record, of course, about a topic?” And I said, “Hang on just a minute, I’ll just turn my recording device on.” And he said, “No, if that’s it, not interested.” So, there’s that kind of thing, he’s not willing to stand up to accountability because if he misreports, this is my opinion, if he missed reports, then I can hold him accountable for it. The moment I did that, he ran away. So journalists have prized impartiality, what happened?

Tony Thomas (06:09):

Well, what happened there, was the old story, as you said, of journalists not wanting to be accountable. Now, it’s 10 times worse with the TV journalism because the TV journalist will interview you for half an hour and then cut and snip the interview down to just a few sentences, according to whatever agenda he’s on. And some really clever people like Joanne Nova, the climate blogger in Perth, when she was met by the ABC filming team, had her own filming camera set up in the lounge room and she filmed the ABC filming. And so then she was able to say, this is what the ABC has done with that interview, where they’ve cut, how they’ve distorted it, and basically how much they left on the cutting room floor. So there’s an old saying about, trust me, I’m a journalist. Well, that’s ironic.

Senator Malcom Roberts (07:15):

Yes. That’s a really important point. You’ve just mentioned journalists, as we agreed is not accountable today. And it’s worse with TV because of the editing. That’s implicit in what you said, Joanne Nova’s filming the filmers. There’s a story, I was in Cannes with a candidate who was fairly inexperienced and he had a colourful background, nothing wrong with it, but he had background and some of the media locally were trying to distort that misrepresented to cast dispersions on him. And one of the journalists came up and I said to him that I was recording it in front of the candidate.

Senator Malcom Roberts (07:54):

And then I proceeded to answer his questions by asking him questions. And after a couple of minutes, he realised that he was being interviewed and I realised where the slant of his thrust was going to go. So what I did was I posted the recording on Facebook immediately. Now that’s taking away livelihood from a journalist, but in my opinion, it was also protecting an honest, innocent person from being slandered or being misrepresented. So that’s one way of fighting the media, but how else can we protect ourselves against the media?

Tony Thomas (08:36):

Well, before the online world happened, the journalists for print could write what they liked and the only response that any reader would have would be to write a letter of complaint to the editor. And then the editor, which is like complaining to your wife about your mother-in-law. The editor would normally pick a side of the journalist and throw the letter in the bin, or whatever. But now that there’s an online world, if a journalist writes a piece that people object to, either on that site itself or on their own blogs or anywhere, they can put a post up arguing back against the journalists. So, that’s what the online world has opened up. The journalists are now accountable to every person on the planet, which is an excellent thing.

Senator Malcom Roberts (09:32):

Yes, until we get censorship in social media, which is what Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and LinkedIn are doing. So how do we counter that?

Tony Thomas (09:43):

Well, as Trump and Joanne Nova, and people are doing, they’re finding other platforms, which are pretty obscure, and I’m not across them, I think a bit [inaudible 00:09:56], and these ones are open and not centering you. So that takes some power away from Twitter and Facebook.

Senator Malcom Roberts (10:05):

What about polls? What do they show about trust in the media these days, Tony?

Tony Thomas (10:09):

I’ve been looking into this and there, there was a poll by the Reader’s Digest of all things in Australia last year. And they wanted people to rank professions according to trust. And guess where journalists came, they came second last of 30 professions, just ahead of politicians. Sorry about that, Mal. And just-

Senator Malcom Roberts (10:32):

You’re not affecting me because we deal with honesty, Tony, I know exact be what you’re talking about. They’re [inaudible 00:10:38].

Tony Thomas (10:38):

Yeah. And just ahead of delivery drivers, and when you go to a place like the United States, there was a, I think a Pew poll, for how is trust in the media represented across 46 countries, and of the 46 countries trust in the media, in the US was bottom. You can’t get any lower than that. Only 29% of the population said they trusted the media. Whereas I looked up Australia, that was 43%, but Australian trust in the media is below what you got in Croatia, Poland and South Africa. If you want a bit more there’s other polls quite recently, where trust in the media overall in the US is only 36%, which is the second lowest ever since Gallup began polling, only 11% of Republican trust the media. But when you take all American adults, only 10% trust the media on their COVID coverage. Now that is truly remarkable and indicates that no matter what the press is saying, their audience frankly, is mostly not believing it.

Senator Malcom Roberts (11:59):

So, they’re startling figures. So trust is just about shot, which will ultimately lead to two things, correct me if I’m wrong, people will stop paying media. People will turn to alternatives as we are doing. We are turning to what I call independent truth media, podcasts, independent stations like tntradio.live. These are the things because ultimately there is a free market, but let me just check again. Pravda still exists, doesn’t it, in Russia?

Tony Thomas (12:36):

I think so. I’m not sure.

Senator Malcom Roberts (12:38):

I’m pretty sure it does. That means our journalists in this country, our media in this country are ranked below Pravda, who would’ve thought that 40 years ago before 1988? Who would’ve thought that?

Tony Thomas (12:52):

Well, I don’t know where the Russia who was on that list of 46 countries, but I’ll give you the benefit on the doubt there, Malcolm.

Senator Malcom Roberts (13:00):

Well, some of the Eastern block countries.

Tony Thomas (13:02):

Yes. Well, they were there. Poland, Croatia. You name it.

Senator Malcom Roberts (13:07):

Yeah. How effective is the ABC’s charter for impartiality?

Tony Thomas (13:12):

Oh, it’s really a joke. What it actually says is that the ABC reporters should follow the weight of evidence. So that means if there’s a consensus about something, they should reflect that consensus. But it says that all points of view should be covered over time. And what this has done is given a licence to the, in addition it said, you don’t have to worry about tinfoil hat conspiracists and [inaudible 00:13:44], and people like that who are not actually entitled to any sort of point of view in balanced coverage.

Tony Thomas (13:53):

Well, the ABC people of course have now lumped climate sceptics to take the most pertinent example, along with the tin hat foil conspirators, and they won’t touch any sceptic point of view. And on the rare occasions they have, such as on their science show where they interviewed Dr. Judith Curry, a very esteemed American climatologist with a sceptic point of view, they book ended her with two or three of their own pet climate scientists, so that everything that Judith said, they were able to drown out with opposing views from their several friends there. So, that’s how they pretend to keep their charter, while actually protecting the public from the views of a very large proportion of people on climate.

Senator Malcom Roberts (14:51):

Well, it’s very interesting you mentioned. I didn’t know those details about the ABC, even though we’d done some research and some work in response to some political activities a couple of years ago. They are a disgrace, in my opinion, I think they should be sold with the exception of the regional arm. And that should be retained, especially for natural disasters. So, I’ll come back to the ABC in a minute. Well, let’s deal with them first, before we go to-

Tony Thomas (15:16):

[crosstalk 00:15:16] Pilborough.

Senator Malcom Roberts (15:17):

…go to the Pilborough in 1980s, the ABC actually requires dealing with the consensus, supporting the consensus. Now, that’s very interesting because they don’t do their research. When it comes to climate, the consensus is with the scientists who don’t believe that carbon dioxides from human activity has to be cut. That is undoubted. The Oregon petition 33,000, 34,000 now scientists, who are opposed to what we are being told by the United Nations. Kevin Rudd as prime minister, what a disgrace he was, his behaviour was atrocious because he’d basically lied in parliament. He said that 4,000 scientists produced the IPCC’s report. I challenged him. I wrote to his office and I said that the claim is really 2,500, but of those 2,500, only about a 1,000 produced a science report.

Senator Malcom Roberts (16:24):

In the science report, and you would well know this, in 2007 there was one sole lonely chapter claiming carbon dioxides from human activity effects climate, needs to be cut. The rest was bumf, fluff. That was it. Chapter nine, from memory in 2007. In that chapter, the reviewers numbered about 57, of those reviewers, only five endorse a claim that carbon dioxides from human activity affects climate, only five. And there’s doubt that they were even accredited scientists. So we have, not 4,000 that Kevin Ruddd told us, we had five. That’s from the UN’s own process, the UN’s own data, which Dr. John McClain painstakingly took from UN documents. After that exposure by Dr. John McClain, the UN stopped producing reports on the numbers of scientists, but that is a blatant lie. Now what makes it even more so atrocious, Tony is that I wrote to Kevin Rudd, his department responded to me. I then told them why their response was nonsense. They then responded to me again, from memory. And then I told them why that was nonsense. I won the argument. They didn’t respond. Hard data they go against.

Tony Thomas (17:48):

Yeah, I actually am a friend of John McClain, here in Melbourne.

Senator Malcom Roberts (17:53):

Wonderful man.

Tony Thomas (17:54):

Yeah. He tipped me off that there’s a key chapter in the IPCC reports called Attribution Studies, where they have to literally attribute global warming to CO2, via their modelings. And I’m not sure which report it was. It could have been the 2007 one. There were only 60 scientists involved in that attribution exercise, and basically all of them were in a network where their peer reviewing each other’s work, and hobnobbing together, and you can do one of those spider graphs where you can link just about every one of them to every other one. So it was a small group, a closed shop of people, but there were 60 people basically dictating this entire global warming hysteria that’s been going on now for 30 years.

Senator Malcom Roberts (18:51):

Well, not only that, I’m pretty sure you’re citing the data there that I also cited. There were 60 authors of the critical chapter, the sole chapter, again. The overwhelming majority of them were climate modellers, not empirical scientists.

Tony Thomas (19:10):

Sure.

Senator Malcom Roberts (19:10):

And there’s no empirical data, which is the fundamental root foundation of science. Objectivity is based on empirical data, hard facts, hard observations. None of that appears in chapter nine, 2007, the sole chapter that claims warming and attributed to carbon dioxide from human activities. What’s more though, is we see… And why hasn’t the ABC reported that? Why hasn’t anyone reported that? Because they’re too lazy, in my opinion Tony, to go and do the work, do the research that you were trained to do. And now it’s that second nature to you, but not only that, they don’t report on the links, the links to, for example, the network of very close, I think about four institutions, those 60 odd scientists, I don’t call them scientists, I call them academics. The 60 academics that produce the chapter nine, but largely modellers overwhelmingly were modellers.

Senator Malcom Roberts (20:12):

But more importantly, they were from, I think about four different modelling organisations. All enrolled in spreading this climate crap. And so they feed off each other, they validate each other’s papers. And when you look through the peer reviewers, they’re all forming a very close club and they depend on each other to maintain their positions. But there’s also another connection, a colleague of mine in Canberra, who I think you know, Peter Bobrov, he did an analysis of those who are connected to the United Nations or globalist organisations. Overwhelmingly, the loud voices, the mouths that spread this nonsense, they’re academic activists, advocates. They’re all one in the same, it’s hard to tell the difference between academia and activists these days, but they’re overwhelmingly connected to the UN or associated globalist bodies.

Senator Malcom Roberts (21:14):

And then David Karoly, he was editor, lead author for one chapter, I think it was in 2001 for the sole chapter that claims warming and attributed to carbon dioxide. He was also one of the three primary reviewers of the same chapter, the equivalent chapter, sorry, chapter nine in 2007. And the 2007 report just built on the 2001 report. So if we’ve got crap at the start in 2001, and it was, then it was validated by the people who produced the crap. It was validated in 2007. And David Karoly, despite people saying the science was settled back then, received a grant for $1.9 million to research this climate science, despite it being settled. And it’s just stunning the money that taxpayers spread out through people like Kevin Rudd, and sadly the liberals. So there’s this very tight incestuous group, but the media doesn’t talk about it.

Tony Thomas (22:17):

Yeah. The Australian Academy of Science in 2015, put out a booklet called a Question and Answers on the Science of Climate Change. And I immediately went looking for where are they going to produce the evidence for the CO2 causing the warming? And it said, “Paleo climate studies plus outputs from modelling provide compelling evidence of the connection.” Well, since when is output from models, been compelling evidence, it’s just a scientific absurdity. And this booklet would’ve gone through the hands of dozens and dozens of academy of science people, making sure that they weren’t going to get caught out on anything, and this just goes through. Output of morals to them is compelling evidence. It’s shocking, really.

Senator Malcom Roberts (23:14):

But no media journalists pick it up apart from Adam Creighton and Tony McCrain and sometimes Graham Lloyd. The media seems to willfully ignore it. And when you challenge him, aren’t they still ignore it. You mention the Australian Academy of Science, I had dealings with will Stephan, who is a member of the Academy, from memory. He was on four government funded organisations. And yet when he was introduced as a newly selected member of the climate commission, or should that be climate [inaudible 00:23:44], but anyway, climate commission, the minister at the time for climate, pushing climate, he was Greg Combet, and he said that Will Stephan. And the others were all impartial.

Senator Malcom Roberts (23:55):

They already had strong connections to the government. And as you point out, that the only thing that they can hang their hats on now is modelling. We had 90 models producing vastly different outputs. So which one of these is the settle science? And now we have whittled that down from 90 to 40, they say. So as it was asked in Senate estimates last week, if you’ve got 40 models producing different results, what does that tell you about the science being settled?

Tony Thomas (24:29):

Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. What they’re now going for is to pretend that basically the consensus is overwhelming and there’s no more argument. And so if you start signing the pledge and so on, that is proof that everything’s okay, there’s this organisation called Covering Climate Now based in Columbia University, School of Journalism and The Guardian and a few other groups, and they’ve got 460 media groups worldwide to sign the pledge, to do their utmost to hide global warming and shun any critics of it. And to use words that the guardian recommends like global heating, global crisis, emergency climate breakdown. So they even want to constrict the language into this campaign of theirs. Well, once you realise that 460 media outlets have signed that pledge, how can you possibly imagine that any of them remain objective on the subject?

Senator Malcom Roberts (25:40):

Exactly. And I love your use of data. Your readily available at your fingertips data. And I note that News Corporation in its editorial, leading up to the Glasgow Conference of Parties with the UN back in, what was that? November last year. The news Corp said, “We’re going to change our editorial policy slightly. We’re going to be reporting more implicitly,” didn’t state it directly, a slanted view, but Tony, we’re going to go to an ad break now. What I’d like to do when we come back in a minute or so is have your views on the role of the now activist global news agencies like Associated Press, AFP, Reuters, AAP, et cetera. We go to the ad break.

Tony Thomas (26:29):

With pleasure. I’ve been researching that all week. Okay. Thanks Malcom.

Senator Malcom Roberts (28:38):

Welcome back you’re with Senator Malcolm Roberts interviewing a journalist with 60 years of experience, Tony Thomas. Tony, one of the advertisements a minute ago just said “Your future depends on how you think.” Could it be any better said? The quality of our decisions depend upon what we think or on how we think. And particularly based on data, how can we make a sound decision on voting, which will determine taxation and community policies, defence, social policies, industry policies, productivity, with a biassed media? People have been asleep in this country. The media perpetuates the two parties, which are so similar. It’s really a uni-party, but people are still asleep. COVID though have as awoken people, and no matter how much the bias is there, and it’s very solid. People seem to be waking up. What’s the role of the now activist global news agencies?

Tony Thomas (29:36):

Well, people don’t really realise or appreciate that if it wasn’t for the huge global news wholesalers like Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Bloomberg, their newspapers would be half empty and the same with the radio, news, and so on. That they just shovel in the output from these news global wholesalers. And I’ve just been checking, and I find that AFP, which has got literally thousands of journalists there and probably thousand or more media customers, and Reuters and Bloomberg have all signed this covering climate now petitioned to hype global warming and stamp out any dissenting views. And then I began to realise that The Australian newspaper, which has been my main reading and I’ve always respected it, is taking basically ghastly climate propaganda from AFP. And there is an example, just the other day about a headline, The acceleration of global warming code red for humanity.

Tony Thomas (30:58):

And it was illustrated with a picture of a cool city with beautiful green grasses, blue skies, pink, white, fluffy clouds. And then because of CO2 on the left side of the picture, it turns into a boiling hot hellscape, fires and cracked earth, not a green thing in sight. And this was all under the heading, Breaking News. And then I found that the same guy from AFP who’s their global head of climate coverage called Marlowe Hood has got more than 20 of these propaganda pieces into The Australian.

Tony Thomas (31:41):

And it’s just unbelievable that they wouldn’t at least be put under comment, but to have them all in the news section like that. And clearly The Australian having paid for a feed from AFP, just uncritically takes everything that they offer. But if we move on to Associated Press, there’s a huge scandal just broken in the United States, where five leaftist philanthropic foundations have given Associated Press $8 million to hire 20 new reporters to push the climate change message.

Tony Thomas (32:29):

So this means that when you are reading climate stuff from now on, from Associated Press, you could be reading material by people who’ve been hired with money from foundations like The Rockefeller Foundation, the James and Catherine Murdoch Quadrivium Foundation. There’s the Walton Foundation, there’s another one that I’ve forgotten. Anyway, they’ve all got green leaf credentials. They’re all determined to save the planet. And this is so contrary to the codes of ethics of Associated Press itself, which it says don’t allow money to influence anything you’re doing and always be wary of anyone offering money to influence your coverage. And in point, they even said, announcing this $8 million grant that they were no longer going to be so wary because the money from these foundations is such nice money, and we really need it. I mean you can’t make this stuff up.

Senator Malcom Roberts (33:41):

No. And we know that I think it was John Rockefeller. One of the early Rockefellers about a hundred years ago, thanked the New York times, that’s right, for keeping the global control under wraps. So not being impartial, just silencing the control of the major 46 newspapers in the United States that were biassed and controlled by the globalists. And then there’s another problem we have Tony, and that is that I think it was Julia Gillard’s Labour government that had in amongst its ministers and its staff, amongst its MPS. It had something like 150 journalists working for them. Anastasia Palache was recently reported, was it 30 journalists reporting to her or reporting in her department-

Tony Thomas (34:39):

There could have been.

Senator Malcom Roberts (34:39):

…and what’s happening, sorry?

Tony Thomas (34:41):

Well, it could have been triple figures for all the media Flex in the Palache Queensland government. And it’s much the same in the Andrew’s government. The teams of media flex that he owns are probably larger than the teams in any other media outlet stable.

Senator Malcom Roberts (35:03):

So the point I was getting to, that’s a really important thing to say that the biggest employers of media are in fact, the politicians because what’s happened with increasing competition, especially from the internet, is that some of the conventional, what I call the legacy media, especially the print media, are now shutting down. Well, have been for many years, shutting down the number of journalists they have. And so journalists go and are employed by the politicians, especially those in government with seemingly endless taxpayers money to employ journalists. And this army of journalists, writes crap. And then the under demand journalists in the mainstream media, the legacy media, they just take whatever they’re given and copy and paste it, straight into the media. And so what we’ve got is, we’ve got governments of both types, labour liberal, both virtually writing newspaper articles.

Senator Malcom Roberts (36:07):

I cancelled my subscription to Sky News because it’s now woke, lame. Prime Minister Morrison seem to do some favours for some of the journalists in Sky News. And now they just gush about him. It makes people sick. And Sky News is dropping in viewership now. I don’t buy any newspaper, other than The Weekend Australian because my wife likes The Weekend Australian magazine, some News Corp journalists are quite good, Alan Jones, but he’s sacked or he’d been let go. So, that tells you something about News Corp. Bolt has been throttled, Terry McCray’s good, Graham Lloyd is sometimes impartial. We’ve got these temperatures. The temperatures today are cooler in Australia than the temperatures in the 1880s, 1890s. Fact Bureau of Meteorology’s own record. We know that temperature hasn’t increased. There’s been no warming trend since 1995, none globally.

Senator Malcom Roberts (37:14):

If you take away where the El Niño and Southern Oscillation in this, which is cyclical, there’s been no warming in Australia. We see now that we’ve had two experiments, real life experiments, and that’s the key to science. In 2009, there was a massive recession, a pretty severe due to the global financial crisis near the end of 2008. So when we have a recession, industrial production goes down, which means the consumption of hydrocarbon fuels goes down, which means the production of carbon dioxide from human activity goes down. It went down enormously. So the human production of carbon dioxide went down enormously in 2009. Yet the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued increasing unabated, same linear trend of increase. In 2020, we had almost a depression around the world due to government restrictions on COVID, not due to COVID, but due to government restrictions because of COVID.

Senator Malcom Roberts (38:18):

And so again, we saw a reduction in carbon dioxide from human activity, and yet the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued increasing at a linear trend. We know from science that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are controlled entirely by nature. We know that there’s 50 to 70 times more carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans than there is in the entire atmosphere. And the UN has given us those figures. And so slight changes in temperature of the ocean, which is naturally variable, lead to either absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or liberation from the oceans to the atmosphere.

Senator Malcom Roberts (38:58):

So we’ve got this massive facts staring at us in the face. And yet we don’t see any of it reported in the media. So the media is destroying itself, people are losing trust. As you’ve pointed out, alarmingly. The people are losing faith in the science because they know there’s no overall warming, that people are losing faith in politics because of the lack of responsibility. And that means people don’t take responsibility because they don’t see that they can affect the outcome of politics. So these are not good science for our society, are they?

Tony Thomas (39:34):

No. Sure, the one sided reporting is pretty terrible, but even getting away from the climate issue, the public have got so many good reasons not to trust the media. I was just been looking into the scandal at the New York Times, which is the premier masthead in the world, old where-

Senator Malcom Roberts (39:56):

Well, I’ll disagree with you, but you can have that view.

Tony Thomas (40:00):

Yeah, well, but for 10 years, they were taking a $100,000.00 a month from the Chinese Communist Party to run Chinese communist propaganda in the guise of advertorials from the China Daily newspaper. And it only came to light because Republicans began demanding from China news, full details under probably the foreign lobbying act of just what they’d been up to with the American mainstream media. And it turned out that since 2016, they basically bought the American media for as little as $20 million, that included the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, New York Times, and running these propaganda pieces about which islands belong to China, and which don’t, and how nice the Chinese have been to the [inaudible 00:41:00].

Tony Thomas (41:00):

And it turned out that the New York times had run 200 of these pieces. And when China daily got sprung, the New York Times, which has kept their archives back to 1850, that’s how comprehensive they are. Sneakily went in and deleted all 200 pieces from their archives. So, this is an enormous scandal and you wonder the New York times would have any reputation at all left after this. So that’s just one of the latest scandals to hit the American media, which helps explain the low levels of trust there.

Senator Malcom Roberts (41:45):

What about the role of fact checkers these days? Are they a restraint on bad reporting?

Tony Thomas (41:51):

Well, they’ve been captured by the very same people, who are running so many, dare I say, fake news items. For example, Facebook contracted out fact checking to some group. And when somebody sued Facebook over their fact checks, Facebook said, but our fake checks are only opinion and that’s protected under the first amendment. Well, once they’ve said that, you know what fact checking’s all about. Now Agence France-Presse, and I think Associated Press have also got their fact checking outfits alongside, but of course, who needs fact check more than AFP and AP itself, there’s been a whole litany of leaks and stories from within these large media groups, like the New York Times where.

Tony Thomas (42:48):

For example, the New York Times editor, when it came out, the Trump collusion with Russia story was dead in the water, briefed the journalists to say, well, we gave that one, a good run. We focused our whole coverage on the collusion story. Now that’s gone. We need a new cause. So let’s focus on how racist America’s been since 1619, I think it was. And so that’s the new line that is being propagated through the New York Times, all about race and identity politics and so on. Well, once upon a time, or as the TV, people used to say, just the facts ma’am, just the facts. Well, now you’re getting just the narrative, thanks. Just the narrative that we’ve selected.

Senator Malcom Roberts (43:39):

And we’re getting something else too. I think Tony, from the use of these labels like racist, Islamophobe, homophobia, misogynist, et cetera. What I’ve noticed happen is that if I present something or when I present, so that is solidly backed by data, which is my habit, and a logical argument that shows cause and effect. Then people respond, especially journalists with either silence to shut me down, stop my common sense getting out or with labels. So they call me racists, Nazi, whatever they want to call me, tinfoil, hat wearer, a conspiracy theorist. And what I’ve learned to do to them is to turn around and say, well, thank you for just confirming that you have got no data or you can’t string together a logical argument for rebutting what I’m saying. Thank you for admitting that you’ve got no data and that I’ve won the argument, because if you had any argument, you wouldn’t be using labels, instead you’d be presenting the data in the argument, instead of valid response.

Tony Thomas (44:48):

Well, that’s an excellence response from you and basically name calling does lose you the argument in any debate. I must say there’s a new trend. It’s creeping in everywhere where the reporters are writing. What’s supposed to be a straight story and they’ll suddenly throw in the words “He falsely claimed,” or “He claimed without evidence,” or ” XYZ is a conspiracy theory.” And they attach these completely subjective labels to what they’re reporting. And I think as Joanne Nova said, “As soon as you see any of those labels, like false, misleading, without context and so on, have a good look because it’s very likely that what you’re reading’s correct.” And I could give you a recent example, the ABC 7:00 PM news last Sunday had a report on Scott Morrison, the prime minister accusing the opposition leader, Albanese of being soft on China. And the reporter said, Morrison accused Albanise, without evidence of being soft on China.

Tony Thomas (46:02):

So I put in a complaint to the ABC saying, what evidence would actually satisfy your reporter, that Albanese was a tool of China. Would you want a stat deck from three government ministers? Would you want a high court ruling? Would you want a Royal Commission that establishes the truth? Do you want a court case leading to a victory for Albanese, and how come you never say that Albanese, when he turned around and accused the prime minister of being the Manchurian Candidate no less, how come you never attach the label without evidence to that one? So I’ll be interested to see how the ABC replies to my complaint there. Sometimes I win these complaints. So that one time in three, I’d say.

Senator Malcom Roberts (46:51):

Well, I’m going to set aside. I’ve had questions that I prepared for you, further questions. We could go for hours, but I’m going to set them aside entirely because I’m sensing something far more interesting here. We’ve established what the media is like these days sadly, they’re propagandist. But I want to know about Tony Thomas, you’re 81, you’ve got the voice of someone in their 40s. You’re taking on these bastards in the media, you’re taking on these bastards in the government. Tell us what you do during the day. It’s fascinating.

Tony Thomas (47:28):

Well, I’ve been retired a long time and I don’t have too many babysitting duties. So I just think of a subject, research the hell out of it, wind up with maybe 30,000 or 40,000 words of raw material on it. And then I boil it all down to about 2,000 words and send it off to Roger Franklin at Quadrant Online. And as I said, he publishes it very, very promptly. And I love finding out stuff that’s so outrageous, that people have to say, Tony must be making that stuff up, but I’m always scrupulous to put in my links and evidence for everything I say. I mean the latest article I wrote-

Senator Malcom Roberts (48:12):

I’ve seen your work.

Tony Thomas (48:15):

…Biden’s new assistant deputy secretary for nuclear waste disposal, being a fetishist to do with gay men, pretending to be dogs with tails stuck up their rectum and all sorts of goings on there. And copiously illustrated with photographs. And this is the man now in charge of America’s nuclear waste industry, and as some of the commenters have said anything to do with nukes, you wouldn’t let a man like that, normally within a thousand miles of it, I mean, he’s entitled to his hobbies after work, but he’s making an absolute parade of his fetishisms. And as somebody else said, are his subordinates going to respect him in his role? Or is he basically shot his credibility, even in the nuclear waste area where he is qualified and nobody’s claimed that he’s not qualified. So, that’s the sort of article I love writing that just make people real back saying this can’t really be happening in the world I live in.

Senator Malcom Roberts (49:29):

Well, maybe giving Biden the button to obliterate the world through America’s nuclear arsenal is good because I don’t know if he’d be able to remember where it is. So may maybe very safe. Tell me what is most satisfying about your whole career spanning now 60 years? What are the highlights?

Tony Thomas (49:50):

When I was in the Press Gallery in the 70s, I was the only journalist who immediately spotted that Rex Connor, the minister for minerals and energy was a nut case. And I spotted this because he’d drawn a map with gas pipelines, going all over Australia, which is about 2,000 miles wide and high. And he apparently saw no technical problem with crisscrossing the country with these gas pipelines. And then he got up and told parliament, he was going to set up a nuclear enrichment plan on Spencer Gulf in south Australia, because there, it would be safe from enemy submarines.

Tony Thomas (50:30):

And I just knew that this man was short of a few kangaroos in the top paddock and began writing that way. So for a couple of years, I was almost the only writer who was critical of this minister for energy until he fell flat on his face, trying to do deals with raising $4 billion from Saudi Arabians. And it was all just a fantasy. And so he got sacked, his mate, Jim Cairns got sacked and then Whitlam, the prime minister got sacked, and that was the end of the labour government. So I think that was my proudest moment.

Senator Malcom Roberts (51:13):

And you weren’t proud, from what I can pick up, of leading to the dismissal of the labour government. You were proud of the fact that your facts eventually prevailed because of your gathering the data and your dogged persistence. And this is where it’s wonderful to be on a station like tntradio.live, because I happen to have been brought up in a family, and we’ve only got a minute or so to go now, Tony, before the news.

Senator Malcom Roberts (51:38):

But I was brought up in a family that ridiculed Connor, but later on, I talked to people and listened and there was some marvellous, what would you call it? Overall aims that he had for protecting our resources? Not for nationalising them, but for protecting them and getting a good price for them. So I can see both sides of the argument, but what’s important here is not whether I agree with you or disagree with you because in part I agree, I can see some things I disagree, but the fact that you were determined you would [inaudible 00:52:09] and you got the facts out and that’s extremely important, isn’t it?

Tony Thomas (52:12):

And unpopular, you could say.

Senator Malcom Roberts (52:16):

So that’s something to really wear proudly because it’s something that Pauline and I do as well. Proud of being honest. Tony, I want to thank you for speaking so bluntly, so refreshingly purely, so objectively, and thank you for coming loaded with data. This is Senator Malcolm Roberts on tntradio.live. Thank you very much, Tony Thomas.

Today I talk to Emeritus Professor of Law David Flint about our broken system of democracy, the monarchy and republic fight, China, ABC, Biden and much more. Listen above or read the transcript below. See all episodes of my show on TNT radio:

Recorded 19 February 2022

Transcript

(00:01):

You’re with Senator Malcolm Roberts on Today’s News Talk Radio TNT.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (00:07):

Good afternoon, or wherever you are in the world. It may be good morning. This is Today’s News Talk Radio, tntradio.live. Thank you for having me as your guest in your car, your kitchen, your lounge, to your shed, or wherever you are right now. There are two themes to my show, freedom and personal responsibility. Freedom is specifically in the context of freedom versus control. As we can see under assault all over the world is freedom right now. The control freaks want to take over. It’s basic, freedom is basic for human progress and people’s livelihood. The second theme is personal responsibility and the importance of integrity. That’s also basic for personal progress and for people’s livelihoods.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (00:55):

Our show’s direction and tone are along these lines. I’m fiercely pro-human. I’ve had enough. I’ve had a gut full of the media and politicians bagging and ragging on humans. Excuse me. I’ve just been told that my mic level is too high. The second thing is that I’m very proud to be part of the species that is the only species in the world that is capable of logical thinking. Although sometimes I wonder if all people are capable of logical thinking. Another aspect and tone is that we are positive. While we are here to deal with issues that people face and are concerned about, I encourage our guests to provide solutions, lasting, meaningful solutions, as well as what’s wrong with politics, what’s needed in politics. As well as what’s wrong with politicians, what we need in politicians. As well as what’s wrong with the media, what’s needed in the media.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (01:58):

We’ll get to the core issues, words and all to develop solutions. We’ll cover the human aspects, the strengths, the weaknesses, the vulnerabilities, the failings, the highlights. What makes people real? We want to be data-driven. We will be and are data driven, factual, truthful, and honest. And we will speak out bluntly on the issues. I had the privilege, and I mean that sincerely, the privilege of being one of the many hundreds of thousands of protestors in Canberra last weekend. I was down there, was due to come home for the weekend, but decided to stay. And so glad am I that that happened. My wife and son drove down the 14-hour trip to join me and join hundreds of thousands of protesters in Canberra.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (02:47):

And those protesters were either ignored by the media or downplayed into just a few thousand or maybe one channel even had 10,000. That’s complete rubbish. It filled acres and acres of land between the old parliament house and new parliament house. And what an exciting buzz it was. It was phenomenal energy there. People are angry, but they weren’t violent. They were calm. They’re determined, they’re encouraging, supportive of each other. The posters that people had, the signs, it was just beautiful. It was absolutely stunning to be there. And after the protest, I went down to Camp Epic, which is where tens of thousands of people are camped out. People have driven here from Perth, driven to Canberra rather, from Perth, from Darwin, from Brisbane. It was absolutely stunning.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (03:37):

And the environment, the tone, the energy was electric, but it was also people having fun. People just being themselves. It was a real community, tens of thousands of people from all over the country showing what real Aussies are about. And they’re about respect, they’re about care. They’re about freedom and they’re about community and connecting with each other. It’s one of the highlights of my life to just feel that atmosphere. It was just absolutely marvellous to see that back in Australia, after months and months, two years of government control.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (04:11):

What I’d like to do today is talk about the media. And it was triggered, this topic, by something David Flint, Professor David Flint said during his talk on the conversation two weeks ago with me here on TNT Radio. He says that the first duty of the press, The Times newspaper declared in 1851, “The first duty is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the events of the time and instantly by disclosing them to make them the common property of the nation.” David Flint is a very honourable man, a highly respected man, and he’s nailed it right there with that quote from The Times. So I’m going to hold the media to account today with my two guests.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (04:58):

First up, it’s great to be talking with Professor David Flint again. He joined me last fortnight to chat about the constitution and we invited him back. I didn’t realise it would be just within two weeks. Professor David Flint, who has an order of Australian medal, is an emeritus professor of law. He read law and economics at Universities of Sydney, London, and Paris. After admission as a solicitor of the New South Wales Supreme Court in 1962, he practised as a solicitor from 1962 to ’72 before moving into university, teaching, holding several academic posts before becoming professor of law at the Sydney University of Technology in 1989.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (05:38):

Professor Flint is the author of numerous publications. His publications include books and articles and topics such as the media, international economic law, Australia’s Constitution, and on Australia’s 1999 Constitutional Referendum. And I almost made the mistake of voting for that referendum until I listened to some high court judges in Brisbane. And then I became totally in favour of our constitutional monarchy. He was recognised with the award of World Outstanding Legal Scholar. I’ll say that again, World Outstanding Legal Scholar, awarded by the World Jurist Association Barcelona in October, 1999. He was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1995.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (06:23):

There’s a higher qualification though, that David has. He has come from lofty academia. He works and rubbed shoulders with some of the most powerful people in the country, and he is respected by them. But he remains a man of the people. You’re just as likely to bump into him on the street, bump into him at a protest, bump into him at a conference. He challenges the elites and the establishment, but is still highly respected by even them. He’s aware the system is broken and the media is responsible for perpetrating the two party system, the pseudo-democracy. Well, we’re given a choice, but there’s no real choice because they’re both the same. Welcome, David.

David Flint (07:03):

Well, thank you very much. Lovely to be on your programme again, Malcolm.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (07:11):

Something you appreciate, David, what do you appreciate?

David Flint (07:14):

Well, I appreciate common sense. Particularly because I think it’s such a guide in relation to politics and all sorts of public activities. Common sense mixed with integrity, if you have those two, I think you’ll go a long way. And that is what is so missing in the management of society today. You quite rightly quoted that comment from The Times back in 1851 at the time of the referendum in 1999, which wasn’t just a referendum about royalists wanting to keep the monarchy. It was about requiring those who wanted to change the constitution to be doing something to improve the governance of the country. We had quite a few slogans in that campaign. And one which really cut through was vote no for the politician’s republic because this was going to increase the power of the politicians.

David Flint (08:25):

It was going to take away the role of the crown as providing leadership above politics, and playing a role as one of the guardians of the constitutional system. That’d be taken away, and what you would have would be a puppet president and the power of the politicians, that is the two-party cabal, would’ve been significantly increased. But what we found in that referendum was that most of the politicians wanted the politician’s republic. The extraordinary thing was that the media, which have a duty because they get all their freedom. They get their freedom in return for being responsible,, for giving that real information to the people without bias and without distorting emphasis and not suppressing anything that’s in their code of ethics.

David Flint (09:22):

They have that enormous freedom so that they can be responsible but they weren’t in the referendum. And this is where I particularly noticed it because I was chairing the vote no group. And we used to meet regularly every day, and we would be amazed sometimes by the way in which the arguments were distorted. But there was an independent observer of that referendum in 1999. This was Bill Deedes, and later on made Lord Deedes. He was a very distinguished fighter during the Second World War, and he was one of the very lofty stream of people who’ve been editors of London Telegraph. London Telegraph is one of the most reliable newspapers in the world.

David Flint (10:14):

But he wrote this about the Australian referendum, “I have really attended elections or votes in any country. Certainly not a democratic one in which the newspapers have displayed more shameless bias. One at all, they determined that Australians should have a republic and they used every device towards that end.” That’s all of the newspapers. Most of the electronic media, all of the public media, the ABC and SBS, all of them were pushing one way. There was only one major person in the media who offered something towards the no case, and that was Alan Jones. Alan Jones used to say when people rang in and said, “Alan, I don’t know how to vote. What should I do?” He’d say, “If you don’t know, vote no. If you don’t know, vote no.”

David Flint (11:18):

But the fact is, even with all that massive campaign, all of the politicians, almost all of them, just a handful of them who were coming out and saying this model’s no good, all of the media, except Alan Jones, as a major person in the media, and many of the elites, big businesses, they’re all saying vote for this republic, although it would’ve increased the powers of the politicians. And yet, we were able to get a vote, which shows the common sense of the Australian people. We were able to get a vote, which produced a national majority. It produced a majority in all states. In a referendum, you’ve got to win at least four states. We got all states and we won 72% of electorates. Not relevant to a referendum but it just shows how sweeping that decision was by the Australian people, which shows that there’s a lot of common sense out there among the electorate. And-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (12:22):

Let me jump in there, David.

David Flint (12:25):

Sure.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (12:27):

That is a remarkable statistic you’ve just given us. But overwhelmingly, the Australian people, despite the media, despite the politicians being almost exclusively in favour of the republic, and despite the propaganda, the constant barrage all through the media, with exception of Alan Jones, the people still kept their sanity and the people prevailed. So that’s really important to understand.

David Flint (12:56):

And remember, we didn’t have much money. We didn’t have the money for advertising that Malcolm turn … Malcolm [inaudible 00:13:04] funded most of the republican campaign, and he put a lot of money into it, but it didn’t make that much difference.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (13:13):

Let’s come back to the media because I’d like to include this in the summary when I give it in a minute. You’ve written articles on the degradation of today’s journalism. People worldwide are waking up to the death and the dearth of journalism talent. What is it that you have been railing against in your articles against the media and that people are now waking up to?

David Flint (13:37):

Well, I think we’ve seen the worst in the United States where the mainstream media and a lot of the social media have decided to become the propaganda arm of the democratic party of a democratic party, which is swung to the far left. And when the media decided to become a propaganda arm, it’s like living in a communist country. It’s not as bad because you still have other media. But we saw this, for example, when Hunter Biden lost his laptop, and that laptop contained an enormous amount of information, which demonstrated that the Biden family had been operating as an enterprise while he was a senator while Biden was vice president, and now as president. He was operating as an instrumentality, particularly when he was vice president, which offered to plutocrats, usually in authoritarian countries. Offered to them access and influence in Washington, but highly improper of course, but that laptop showed this.

David Flint (14:55):

What happened when that laptop came out and young Hunter Biden didn’t deny that what was on that laptop was his. He didn’t deny that, although some people are saying it’s a Russian setup, but it turned out to be perfectly real. What it showed was that the Biden family was behaving, offering access and influence to plutocrats and their favourite plutocrat, because they were the ones willing to pay the Chinese communists. Now, what did the mainstream media do? What did the social media do when this came out before the final voting and the election? They killed it. Twitter and Facebook closed down the New York Post to cut … But New York Post was one of the few journalist outlets that was willing to broadcast this and mention this.

David Flint (15:55):

And after the election, there was an opinion poll, which showed that the majority of people didn’t know about what was on the laptop. They didn’t know about the laptop story because the press managed to hide it. And the majority of them said that if they had known, they would have voted against Biden. Well, that just demonstrates that the median America, a lot of it owned by corporate interests who were making a lot of money out of slave labour in China and the sort of things that go on in China, and they hoped to make a killing in the Chinese market, they were willing to sacrifice their media ethics to make sure that Trump didn’t get in.

David Flint (16:48):

Because Trump had shown himself to be the first president of the United States since Clinton effectively, unleashed the communist by allowing the communist to join the world trade organisation in the hope that they would follow its rules, which they haven’t. I mean, that’s why we’ve got a tax, I think of about 280% on our barley, because they had questioned the origins of the virus, which we’ve suffered from. That’s the situation-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (17:23):

We suffered from the virus, David, or have we suffered from government restrictions and mismanagement?

David Flint (17:27):

You’re absolutely right. And this really comes to the question we’re discussing. You’re right. This virus is benign in relation to the majority of the people. It’s one of those viruses where we’re fortunate enough to know who the vulnerable are. The vulnerable aren’t the healthy children, they aren’t healthy people. It’s essentially those people who are both elderly and suffering from other illnesses, they’re the ones who are the most vulnerable. And they’re the ones who should have been looked after. You’re so right, we’ve suffered terribly from government decisions, but it hasn’t been the virus that has caused the suffering for the great majority of people. And even in relation to the vulnerable, more people, more vulnerable have died than should have died because of the activities of the government.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (18:28):

I agree entirely but nowhere have I seen that in the media, except for maybe Adam Creighton in The Australian, a wonderful economist who speaks with data and truth. Terry McCrann, similarly. Perhaps if I could give a summary, and then we’ll start the conversation about what triggered me to invite you back so quickly. First of all, you’ve mentioned the politician’s republic, the vote for a republic would’ve been a vote for a politician’s republic to increase people’s power. That’s a wonderful insight that I didn’t realise until you mentioned it to me last week and you’ve repeated it again. You also mentioned that the media gets its freedom, whether implicit or by law, if it presents impartially.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (19:15):

You chaired the no vote group and you saw yourself, shameless biassed back then, I was too young at the time to realise that, but I thought newspapers were objective, but I realised now it was completely biassed. And you mentioned that was across all forms of media, all papers, most electronic media, the ABC, the SPS, the public broadcasters. And you said quite rightly so, there’s only one major media person who was opposed to the republic vote. And that was Alan Jones. How many times have we heard Alan Jones being pilloried for being alone in dissenting from the majority view? Majority of the media view that is.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (20:02):

And I loved your comment about Alan Jones saying, “If you don’t know, vote no.” And I would say that right through almost every topic today. And you pointed out something that was the core to what you said, despite all the political propagandist, the overwhelming weight of political opinion, political experts, which are not really experts, and the media, the people prevailed. And that’s why in my opening comment, I support humans because when we’re aware, we prevail. You then went on to talk about the USA gives us the worst examples of media bias, democrat bias, social media, which is paid to shut down opposition, the media itself. You quite rightly pointed out. And that’s significant, Professor Flint, because the USA is known to be the home of modern democracy.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (20:56):

We could argue Britain is, but in terms of modern expression, the USA thumps its chest about that a lot. And yet the USA now has the worst censorship because it’s hidden censorship. And we know for example, that if the tanks roll in and the army gets out with guns, we know that we’re being controlled. But what you’ve done is you’ve highlighted the hidden control, the subtle control, the invisible control, which is every bit as effective as a gun or a tank. The media has silenced me. They sometimes silence Pauline Hanson. And it’s significant to understand, I don’t know if you mentioned this, but you did mention that the corporates control the media and the media has become a propaganda arm.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (21:40):

That was mentioned to me by someone called John McRay back about 10 years ago, that he showed me quotes from the owners of the media, the Rockefellers, controlled by the banks, the major banks pushing the bank propaganda. And we’ve been under this not just for the last two years of COVID, not just for the last 24 years since the referendum, but we’ve been under this for a hundred years and longer. And you also pointed out that the communist part, Chinese Communist Party controls many of the corporations or the same people who control those corporations are in bed with the Chinese Communist Party to control humans around the world, not just China.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (22:20):

So we are in fact, while not ruled by the Chinese with guns, we are ruled by the corporate globalists with silence and with propaganda. Now, you mentioned, Professor Flint, that in my show two weeks ago when we had a chat, that the media perpetuates the two party system. And it’s really a one party system because the policies are almost identical and we’re given a choice, we think, but in fact, there’s no real choice because we get shafted with the same policies. How is the media perpetuating the two party system that is effectively one party?

David Flint (23:01):

Well, I think we see this, for example, in relation to the Wuhan virus, which the communist wanted us to call COVID-19 and the WHO, which is under their control, agreed to. But they do this because they’ve become the propaganda arm of the politicians. And that means the two party system, which as you write this in many ways is becoming almost one party because like oligopolist in a small market, they’re not competing. In a small market, oligopolists don’t compete on price. They compete on product or brand distinctions, different ways they advertise, for example. And that’s what the politicians are doing. They’re both, for example, for net zero emissions, they have very similar policies on most things, but they make a slight difference by saying one will be harder on China than the other.

David Flint (24:02):

Although both sides demonstrate that some politicians when they retire seem to be able to get very good jobs with the Communist Chinese. I think they’ve become, in many ways, the propaganda arm. And you see this in relation to the virus. Their favourite phrase is doing the right thing or the people have done the right thing. These people are going to do the right thing. We have to do the right thing. The right thing means what the politicians have decided is right. And this is from a group of politicians in the national cabinet most of whom have had no life experience and really don’t know that much about doing the right thing. Because they’ve been so up to their necks in political manipulation that they’ve lost a lot of the ideas of what the right thing is.

David Flint (24:58):

And just take it, for example, just take it at the beginning. They’ve ignored the common sense rule in relation to [inaudible 00:25:06]. Two common sense rules. Firstly, you look after the vulnerable. And if the virus is such that we know who the vulnerable are, and here we do know who they are, you look after them and you let everybody else get on as best they can with their lives. But what do they do? They abandon the vulnerable, the premier of Victoria being the worst there. And they tied down the rest of us as though we were all sick so that we couldn’t go out. We had to stay home. I live near Bondi Beach. The first thing they did was to close the beach. Though anybody with any sense knew that the virus didn’t survive in the sun and the wind, but it was probably the healthiest place to go to. It was the first place they closed. And the second thing that they-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (25:58):

Excuse me, David. Oh, sorry, when you finish this point, we’ll go to the ad break.

David Flint (26:03):

Yes. The second thing they ignored is [inaudible 00:26:07] fundamental rule for any decent constitutional system, that is that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. They’ve whittled away all of the controls on the politicians. We’ve had just some minister or the premier deciding on a whim, for example, in New South Wales that they’d closed down the construction industry. They didn’t even have medical advice to do that. She closed down the construction industry for two weeks costing one and a quarter billion dollars and it wasn’t justified. And the reason is these regulations, these regulations are now made by a minister in his office in the middle of the night. Whereas once upon at a time, the regulations were to be submitted for audit by the executive council, the government council, even in colonial terms this was done.

David Flint (27:07):

And the second big thing, even more important was the regulations were subject to parliamentary scrutiny, particularly by the upper house and how fortunate we are to have a senate as we have now, unlike the Canadians who have a weak senate, we’ve got a strong senate because we based it on the American senate rather than the appointed Canadian senate, which is just a political stitch up. And that senate and the upper house in the states, except Queensland, which the way the politicians took to work, the upper houses can disallow the regulations. That’s a very important power. And the politicians know they have a sword of Damocles above their heads when this political system works, but they’ve been whittling this away just like the republic. The weakness in-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (28:00):

Thank you very much. We’ll resume this conversation with Professor David Flint after a minute or so of advertisements. Thank you very much, David.

David Flint (28:11):

Certainly.

Automated (28:11):

TNT Radio’s, Mike Ryan.

Mike Ryan (28:13):

What do you miss the most about being able to, or not being able to practise medicine? What the actual, what it all means to you? Because I mean, it’s overall saying, oh, well he’s got to going to go to court. It’ll be handled legally, but it’s much more than that. It’s your whole life, your whole being. What’s the thing you miss the most about not being able to practise medicine?

Mark Hobart (28:42):

Being part of the community in North Sunshine where I grew up, where I went to school. A community is so important. It’s your connection to everybody else. We’re all connected to each other. We’re connected to each other through love. That is the number one binding force of the universe’s love. And the other force is not love. It’s the opposite, it’s destruction. And that’s what we’re facing.

Mike Ryan (29:23):

Dr. Mark Hobart, truly an honour to speak with you.

Automated (29:26):

Mike Ryan on Today’s News Talk TNT Radio.

Automated (29:31):

We want to show you what’s dangerous about this river, but we can’t. That’s the problem. You can’t see ice cold water, snags like tree branches or strong currents. So in enjoying our rivers, remember where a life jacket avoid alcohol around water, never swim alone and learn how to save a life. Our rivers are beautiful, but more Australians drown here than anywhere else. It’s simple, respect the river. Head to royallifesaving.com.au/respecttheriver for more information

Automated (30:11):

For the news and talk, you can’t hear anywhere else. It’s TNT Radio.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (30:18):

Welcome back. This is Senator Malcolm Roberts, and I’ve got a very intriguing and very expert guest, Professor David Flint. And I’m going to give you a summary now before we resume our conversation with David. David pointed out that the media is pushing the two party system and it’s really one party. It’s perpetuating the two party system. At the War Memorial last week, the week before last, I took part in the service that precedes the opening of parliament for the year. And they call on the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. At the church service before parliament started the next day on Tuesday two weeks ago, they called on the leader of the opposition and the prime minister to take readings from the Bible.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (31:08):

And as professor Flint pointed out, the policies are almost identical. They’re so similar. And so we need to understand who controls the parliament. I’m going to be asking Professor Flint that in a minute. During the week, David, I was in Senate estimates and I asked Senator Seselja a simple question that anybody should have been able to answer. He’s in the government, as you know. And we were questioning the CSIRO, and in that segment, I said to him, “Minister, your party, led by the prime minister, won the election in 2019 based largely on one particular issue.” He said that the labour party was in favour of the UN’s 2050 net zero policy that the Liberal Nationals Party was not, it opposed UN 2050 net zero.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (32:04):

“Where is the evidence for that change in policy? What changed in the science?” And David, I have never seen anyone so uncomfortable. He didn’t look me in the eye once. He looked down, head was bowed. He was squirming in his seat. He was just making up words as he went. Then I said to him, “Let’s go back in time. Tell me the basis of your policy.” And the same endless dribble. And he’s a nice man, Senator Seselja, but he was talking absolute nonsense. He could not tell me the basis of the policy that is now gutting air energy sector, stealing land from properties, stealing property rights from farmers, decimating our manufacturing, controlling our water, locking up our resources all on behalf of the UN.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (32:54):

Then I asked him a simple question, policies should be based upon hard data that shows the impact of a certain amount of a specified, quantified impact of carbon dioxide. What it will do to temperatures? Rainfall. I asked him, “Isn’t that fundamental?” And again, more waffle, looking down in the eyes, head bowed, squirming. They haven’t got anything but they get away with it because as Professor Flint said, the media pushes the two party system, which is really one party and the narrative. And then they come up with slogans, as Professor Flint said, doing the right thing. These politicians are lacking practical experience. Very few of them, none of them have worked for a few years at the coalface, as if literally at the coalface underground, lacking practical experience.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (33:43):

I asked a simple question, Professor Flint, who among the politicians came to Canberra to listen to the people at the protest of where every day Australians came out in the hundreds of thousands? I’ll tell you who. Pauline Hanson, Malcolm Roberts, Gerard Rennick, George Christensen. You just pointed out some fabulous points with COVID. They have ignored the fundamentals. They have ignored common sense. They have not looked after the vulnerable. They have betrayed the vulnerable. That’s something I’ve been talking about in the senate and publicly for many months now. Then they tied up or they tied down the rest of the people, the healthy people. They stopped exercise on beach. They stopped fresh air. They stopped access to the sun for vitamin D.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (34:33):

And as you said, Lord Acton said that the power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. Regulations being made by the minister, just being introduced in the middle of the night. Professor Flint, one of the things that’s emerged from the response to the virus is that the state and federal governments, labour at state level, liberal at national level have worked together on this. That’s completely opposed to the intent behind our constitution. Isn’t it?

David Flint (35:11):

Yes, we’re supposed to have competition and the states are supposed to take decisions in relation to state interests and the federation in relation to federal interests. But you say right, they do work together. And one of the things the media does, which really irritates me is that they attribute to the politicians the fact that our death rate is lower than that of a number of other countries. This completely ignores the fact that the real reason for that is we are a remote island nation. And like all other remote island nations, we’ll have a lower death rate from this sort of virus. And to attribute that to the politicians is ridiculous.

David Flint (35:57):

But then we get them when they stand up there, the politicians will refer to the medical advice and the journalists just accept that. We never know who the medical advice was from or rarely know it. We never see it so it can’t be tested. We are given glib answers like follow the science. Whereas we know that the scientists are divided on a number of significant issues. And we saw that in relation, for example, to ulcers and Australia went to scientists, received the Nobel Prize because they went against the science view that it was just a disabling condition. It could never be a disease, and they found that it was a disease. And for that, they were given the Nobel Prize. And then you’re told, believe the experts.

David Flint (36:52):

Well, having worked in a law office when I was young, in a law office where you are involved in a case concerning two sides and you’re acting for one side and there’s another people, people acting for the other side, each side has their own experts. Whether they be medical experts or engineering experts. They’re all very well paid. And I’m not saying they act in any way improperly, but they give different views. Experts are divided all the time. This idea that you must believe the experts, which means you must believe the expert that the politicians that are trying to adopt as their view is ridiculous.

David Flint (37:32):

But I think the very worst thing they do, Malcolm, this is this rule against medical treatment, including prophylactic or preventative measures in relation to this virus. It’s the only malady I know of where doctors are instructed to do virtually nothing between somebody catching this virus and really getting a serious case of it, be aware when they start putting them onto a ventilator. But nothing happens in between because they’ve ruled that none of the medical treatments, which have been shown in a number of jurisdiction to be very effective, can be used. And we know also that most of the media won’t mention these things, particularly the social media, because it goes against the interest of big pharmacy.

David Flint (38:25):

And we know that big pharmacy needs under American law, they needed to get approval for their vaccines. They needed to be able to show that there were no preventative measures, which could be taken against the virus. Hence, this campaign to kill off Ivermectin and other. This is not just the magic cure but there a number of things used either to prevent it or to cure it in the early stages. And these proved very effective. Yet in Australia, we’re told that you can have no medical treatment and no serious medical treatment between catching it and really getting a very bad dose when you’re … There’s nothing much they can do if you are in a weak condition. Otherwise, you might get out of it and they put you onto a ventilator.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (39:26):

Well, David, perhaps I could summarise your points again. The media has been silent on the live and the prime minister has repeatedly said, “Australia has no vaccine mandates.” Yet the Morrison, Joyce Federal Government drives the vaccine mandates, and at the very least enables mandates through many means. The Morrison, Joyce government bought 280 million doses of these things. They could easily stop the mandates at the state level by withholding these injections from states that don’t make it optional, but make it compulsory through stealing people’s livelihoods. The federal government indemnified the states. Senator Hanson’s bill could amend that so that the federal government can stop mandated injections.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (40:15):

The states said, this is the fourth point I’m making, the states say that the vaccine mandates are in line with the unconstitutional so-called national cabinet that the prime minister leads. The prime minister, as you’ve just pointed out, his government withdrew the proven, safe, effective, affordable treatment using Ivermectin and various other drugs. And it’s significant, Professor Flint, that you can freely mention Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and alternative natural treatments on this TNT Radio station. But you can’t mention it on any other network apart from podcasts. You can’t mention it on social media without being banned.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (40:58):

The federal government health department provides the data and systems that the state’s access to enforce the mandates. The federal government mandated vaccines in aged care workers. The federal government mandated vaccines in the Australian electoral commission poll workers. They’re mandating it in some defence personnel to inject. They drove the employers to mandate injections, BHP, for example, and they funded ridiculous policies by the premiers of the states. And yet, despite all these things showing completely that the states could not have mandated injections without federal government enabling them to do so, supporting them to do so, the prime minister of this country has repeatedly lied to the people.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (41:47):

“Australia has no vaccine mandates,” he says. That doesn’t get reported in the media, or if it does, it’s done in a positive way that the prime minister says that. And yet at the rally last weekend in Canberra, hundreds of thousands of people were walking up and they were saying he’s a liar. The prime minister is a liar. So we come back to government control and that is only one on side controls the media, and that’s the money side, the corporate side. Professor Flint, do they also control the government?

David Flint (42:25):

Well, I think they have a very strong power over the government. It’s in the interest of government to follow what is in the interest of big pharmacy it seems. You can only judge politicians by their results when they’re in government, not what they say. For example, in education, for example, they say that they’re very interested in children’s education, but the fact is that we know that there’s a very strong Marxist influence in education departments. We know that notwithstanding the increase in funding, which I think is about 40% increase since that was introduced, we know that standards in Australia have fallen more than any other OECD country except perhaps Finland.

David Flint (43:22):

So the more money we’re putting in, the standards are falling and that’s because our education departments are not allowing or not encouraging the teaching of children in the really important disciplines. They’re filling their minds with all sorts of propaganda and Marxist rubbish. Their obsessions, for example, you get some new dogma for example, about gender fluidity or something like that. And that becomes an important issue as we saw in relation to the religious legislation. But as you say, there’s this obsession with vaccines as though it’s the only thing which should be followed. And that’s where the money is. That’s where the very big funds are being made by big pharmacy, instead of things which should be associated with vaccines.

David Flint (44:12):

For example, early treatment, that should be the first thing that they should be following because that would’ve saved lives in relation to the vulnerable. And it’s something which I don’t think we should be considering seriously for children, given that these only have a temporary authorization. We don’t know the long term consequences of some of the things which are being put into children’s bodies. They’re very serious things, which are being done. And the national cabinet has gone along with what a really communist solutions that is lockdowns. Lockdowns don’t work. They regiment the people even more, but they certainly have had no effect in relation to getting rid of the virus because they don’t get rid of the virus. And they’ve resulted in more deaths in Victoria, which had the most serious lockdowns, had more deaths among people from suffering from the virus. But you are so right-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (45:17):

Yeah, go ahead.

David Flint (45:17):

Certainly.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (45:20):

I’d like to interrupt to summarise what you’ve said before getting onto the solutions. Because I know you’re a man of solutions. So let me just summarise what you’ve just said. The media is culpable for serious damage, serious problems in our community. Medicine, it’s enabled deaths because it doesn’t hold the government accountable for its complete obsession with unproven injections and reliance on them. Greg Hunt, the federal health minister has said, “The world is engaged in the largest clinical vaccination trial. These drugs, these injections are experimental. It’s a trial. And we are now talking about injecting them into kids without any assessment of long term consequences.”

Senator Malcolm Roberts (46:06):

In the United States you also mentioned that a lot of this is driven by money. In the United States, 70% of American advertising in the media is funded by big pharma. And yet, as you rightly pointed out, the obsession is leading to deaths through the mismanagement of COVID and the application of experimental injections. You pointed out the damage to our educational sector, the 40% collapse in measured outcomes. And yet the manipulation of kids growing at adulthood, children, I should say. You mentioned the early treatment that’s proven affordable, safe, successful around the world. And you also mentioned that lockdowns are effectively a communist solution.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (46:59):

Journalism, Professor Flint, over the decades, journalists have fought for freedom to tell the story and rights to privacy of sources. Yet, they’ve shown no regard for the freedoms and privacies of the people as you just pointed out. Yet, their duty is to provide, freely tell both sides of the story with accuracy and balance. Who holds them to account? And where do we go to from here? How do journalists restore their reputation? Because at the moment they’re feeding on each other and the people are watching them destroy themselves. But we do need a strong, solid press, don’t we? So what do we have to do now? What are the solutions?

David Flint (47:35):

Well, the solutions I think, are by going to those outlets such as this station where the truth is being presented. That is our best solution. I would not recommend the regulation. You can’t have the regulation of the press because they’re free. And there is some protection from defamation laws, but that only relates to individual reputation and not reputation of institutions and things such as early medical treatment, which is important. So we have the power. We have the power to deal with the media and we have the power to put the right politicians in office. And this is something which Australians must seriously do. They did that in America with President Trump, they got a man in who was obviously going, from what he promised, was going to change the direction of the United States.

David Flint (48:36):

And this had a magnificent effect because the Republican Party is so open in the way in which it pre-selects. And it doesn’t restrict pre-selection to even members of the party, any registered supporter of the party can vote in those pre-selections, which gives tremendous power to people in America. We don’t have that, but we can choose people from other parties or at least give our first preferences to people like yourself. Now, you One Nation, New AP parties, which are talking about this, what you said also about the federal government, I’d like to comment on that briefly.

David Flint (49:18):

The federal government had the power to stop mandated vaccines. And you were quite right, the legislation that you proposed, I think One Nation introduced legislation to that effect that I think was within power. The commonwealth has the power to move in relation to quarantines. It can occupy the field. And that’s the core part of the management of vaccines, the control of quarantines. And I think that the commonwealth should have continued in that first case concerning the West Australian border. It should not have allowed the states to close off their borders, locking down whole states that achieved nothing in relation to controlling the virus.

David Flint (50:08):

And it was most inappropriate, in relation to Australia. The whole real economy should have continued. As you rightly have pointed out in the past, it’s not the politicians who are imposing this sort of thing, lockdowns and so on, who suffer. It’s the people who lose their jobs. It’s the people who lose their businesses. The people who are tied up, they’ve put their savings into some business quite often. They’ve mortgaged their house. And an enormous number of people have been ruined by the activities of the government, who’s only just beginning to start again.

David Flint (50:45):

There was no need to close down vast parts of the economy in Australia to stop this disease. What they should have done was looked after the vulnerable. What they should have done was encouraged early measures and preventative measures, prophylactic measures. If they’d done those things, as the media should have been calling on them to do, we would’ve been in a better situation than we are today. And we wouldn’t have this massive debt, which is going to be carried by the next generation of Australians.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (51:18):

So I’m going to have to summarise now before we end the show, because I wanted to do a summary. You’ve raised some marvellous points. The solutions you’ve said are up to the people. The market, choose the media well. We have a choice as to which media we watch. The media is sweating on that. We see Joe Rogan topping the media ratings in the United States with 11.5 million views of one of his podcasts with Robert Malone. The nearest competitor was Fox News with 3.5 million views. That’s a long way behind. CNN, the propaganda experts in America, around about 800,000 views [inaudible 00:51:59]. Don’t have regulation, that just gives more control to the globalists and to the government.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (52:04):

It’s up to the people through media choice and through political choice at votes. We have the power, you said, Professor Flint. I make a note that pre-selection in the liberal party now on New South Wales is becoming just like labour, fictionally written. You’ve pointed out that the commonwealth government has the power, it just hasn’t exercised it. And you’ve pointed out something that I’ve said repeatedly in the senate, people are paying the price for police stupidity.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (52:30):

The governments and the politicians make the mistakes regardless with no responsibility, and the people pay the price. For goodness sake, people of Australia, wake up. Choose who you listen to in the media with your wallet, follow and vote for politicians who work for you, serve you, and give your preferences at accordingly. Professor David Flint, thank you very much again for yet another wonderful session. I love your practicality, your common sense, your good sense. Thank you so much.

Casual coal miners who have highlighted the unscrupulous practices of the government corporation Coal Long Service Leave (Coal LSL), have been vindicated in a recent audit by consultants KPMG. 

Senator Malcolm Roberts has championed the scrutiny of Coal LSL after he first became aware of many malpractices from Hunter Valley casual coal miners and labour hire companies in 2019. 

Senator Roberts said, “This issue has been in plain sight for years, yet successive Liberal, National and Labor governments have ignored the calls for an investigation, instead sprouting platitudes with no action.” 

The KPMG report, which the Government ordered in late 2021, makes 20 recommendations covering governance, treatment of casual coal miners, exploitation of SMEs, compliance, and Board governance and conflicts of interest. 

Senator Roberts said, “I welcome the recommendation for independent Coal LSL board members to address the current glaring conflict of interest with only Minerals Councils and the CFMMEU representatives. 

“The shame of the current arrangement is that CFMMEU bosses on the Coal LSL Board – and who should have known better – enabled, perpetuated and covered up many malpractices, and sold out their casual coal miner members.” 

Senator Roberts gathered evidence from many casual coal miners that showed LSL entitlements were incorrectly calculated, and yet Coal LSL refused to investigate and rectify. 

“When the casual coal miners themselves could work out that Coal LSL were not calculating their entitlements correctly and notified Coal LSL management, it begs the question why it took a KPMG review for Coal LSL to finally listen,” Senator Roberts said. 

Coal LSL’s attitude toward casual coal miners and SMEs has been shown to be unresponsive, dismissive and highly litigious and “it seems that Coal LSL board and management just didn’t know when to stop the money grab, taking a heavy handed and litigious approach to demanding that SME contractors entering coal mining sites for short term maintenance, also pay into their Coal LSL fund, knowing this group would never be able to access the money,” added Senator Roberts. 

Coal LSL were reluctant first-time attendees at Senate Estimates in 2019, having never faced Senate scrutiny, until Senator Roberts demanded they appear to account for their actions.  They have appeared at every Senate Estimates since 2019 at the request of Senator Roberts. 

Senator Roberts said, “There was no way Coal LSL were going to continue to avoid scrutiny because I knew that hundreds of casual coal miners had been systematically ripped off and ignored over decades.” 

Although some miners prefer to be casuals, all casuals deserve respect as they allow companies to move with changes in the global market and mine site conditions. 

Senator Roberts said, “The mobility of this casual workforce doesn’t mean they should be treated with such contempt and disregard; they too have livelihoods and families to support.  “It’s astonishing that successive governments, Liberal, National and Labor, and union bosses, have shown no care for the plight of casual coal miners over many years.” 

Dan lives with his wife of 25 years and three children on their property approx. 160 km north west of Charleville.  They run about 1000 head of cattle and have Droughtmaster breeders.

Like so many people in Rural Queensland, Dan and his wife Katrina have invested their working life of blood, sweat and tears into purchasing their own Freehold property so as to provide their family’s livelihood by breeding and grazing livestock.

While not one of the most willing students at school, Dan lives by the principles of respect, observing those around him, looking, listening and ‘having a go’ as the means of learning life’s valuable lessons.

Dan’s key interests are, in order of priority, his wife, his children and everything that makes up his livelihood from machinery to animals to the governance of not only his livelihood but the governance of our society as a whole.

Acknowledging the sacrifices made by our forefathers and the selfless conviction of the men and women of our current defence forces, Dan cannot and will not sit back and watch our government throw away our rights and freedoms so hard fought, won and defended by our nation’s most courageous people. Dan has first hand experience when the Constitution doesn’t work for us as it should.  In 2017 he was convicted of six tree clearing offences with the magistrate fining him $40,000 and ordering him to pay costs of more than $72,000.  Later it was dropped to $10,000.  He is going to share his story with me today.

Transcript

Senator Malcolm Roberts (00:05):

Welcome back to today’s news talk, radio TNTradio.live. We’ve just spent an hour with Professor David Flint learning more about Australia’s constitution. In this next hour, I’m going to chat with Queensland’s grazier, Dan McDonald. Now I said of Professor Flint, that he is an expert with international recognition, and international awards, yet he’s a man of the people. He’s one of us. He gets down and dirty, mixes with people in the streets, in rallies, in meetings, he attends functions and speaks knowingly, but also lovingly, with the people.

                Now we have a man who is of the people, but can mix it with the experts, and he’s self-taught. Dan McDonald lives with his wife of 25 years, Katrina and their three lovely children on their cattle property. About 160 kilometres Northwest of Charlottesville. They run about 1000 head of cattle and have drought masters breeders. Like so many people in rural Queensland, Dan and his wife Katrina have invested their working life of blood, sweat, and tears into purchase their own freehold property, so as to provide their families livelihood by breeding and grazing livestock. So he’s used his initiative, done this, they’ve both used their initiative to do this, and they’re try to make a living, which is a purpose; one of the things we have to do in life.

                While not one of the most willing students at school, Dan lives by principles of respect, observing those around him, looking, listening, and having a go as the means of learning life’s valuable lessons. Dan’s key interests are in this order of priority: his wife, his children, and everything that makes up his livelihood from machinery to animals, to governance of not only his livelihood, but the governance of our whole society, as a whole. This man has gone into battle for us all, and what he’s going to talk about affects every single Australian and their children, and our country itself and our country’s future. Acknowledging the sacrifices made by our forefathers, and the selfless can conviction of the men and women of our current defence forces, Dan cannot, will not sit back and just watch our government throw away our rights and freedoms so hard fought, won and defended by our nation’s most courageous people.

                Dan has firsthand experience when the constitution doesn’t work for us, as it should. In 2017, he was convicted of six tree clearing offences with the magistrate fining him $40,000 and ordering him to pay costs of more than 72,000, up for 112,000. Later in an appeal that was dropped to 10,000. Dan’s going to share his story with me today. And I want to remind people, I have eight keys to human progress, the first is freedom and the free exchange. Second is the rule of law. Dan is going to talk to us about the rule of law, because the law is supposed to protect people, not control people. Hello, Dan.

Dan McDonald (03:27):

Good day, Malcolm. How are you?

Senator Malcolm Roberts (03:29):

I’m very well made. What’s something you appreciate?

Dan McDonald (03:33):

Oh, Malcolm, I think the top of that list would be my family, and second to that would be honesty.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (03:40):

Amen. Okay. Dan, let’s get stuck into it. Property rights; tell us what they are and why they’re so important, so fundamentally important to everyone.

Dan McDonald (03:52):

Absolutely. So, Malcolm, we have two different elements here; we have property and we have of rights, and I think it’s important if we just touch on both. Essentially what property is, is anything tangible and intangible that is capable of ownership. So, quite often we have, and being related to land, we can say that’s tangible. It’s something that we can see, we can touch. But of course, we also have elements of property that are intangible; we can’t see them, we can’t touch them, but they certainly exist, and they certainly have a value, and they certainly play a very important role in all our lives. So when we combine the two and we talk about property rights, what whereas essentially doing is talking about our right to use our property. Rights in themself are essentially defined as a power over, or an authority to use, to enjoy, to occupy or to consume.

                If you have a right to something, that is what gives you the authority or the power over that thing. And when we combine those rights with property, essentially, we’re talking about the most valuable element; it is the right to property, that is, I say it again, the most valuable element. If we take rights of use away from any property, essentially it becomes absolutely worthless. We cannot underestimate or overestimate that it is the right of use of property, whether it be a cup of coffee, whether it be a motor car, or whether it be your house and land, it is the right of use of that property that actually affords it value. If we just use a cup of coffee, as an example, if we buy a cup of coffee, the most valuable element that we are purchasing there is the right to consume it. How many people out there would buy a cup of coffee if they did not have the right to drink it? So we can apply that same principle to all forms of property; they all have rights attached, and as I say, it’s usually a right of use a right of enjoyment, a right to consume. So there’s no doubt about it; property rights are extremely important. Indeed, they are the most fundamental element of a free and democratic society.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (06:30):

And just to interrupt, I’m hoping to not disturb your train of thought, but it’s so important that in our federal constitution our forefathers, the inserted Section 51 Clause 31, which basically says that if the federal government interferes with someone’s right to use their property, the federal government must pay them just terms compensation. In other words, if you destroy someone’s, or impair someone’s right to use their property, you must pay compensation, which is essentially you are buying their right to use that portion of their property.

Dan McDonald (07:08):

Absolutely. That’s right. And just to go back there just quickly, and give another example of how, how rights in property can work. We can have a land owner, owner parcel of land, and of course that gives them the absolute rights of use of that land, but then that land owner can of course, lease that property out or rent it out. Now, when someone enters into a lease or rental agreement on a home, they also acquire a right. The right they acquire specifically is the right to occupy. So if someone rents a home, the tenant that’s paying the rent actually holds the right to occupy that dwelling. Once again, that’s a property right; a very clear example of how rights can be owned, and obtained, and held without physically owning the tangible property. The tenant holds the most valuable element of that property when they enter into that agreement by physically owning the right to use that is whatever they comply with the terms of, of an agreement.

                So this is how it works, and this is why it’s so very important. Essentially, Malcolm, we could not have a stable society anywhere throughout the world without having secure property rights; it is absolutely fundamental. When we don’t have them, well, essentially we’re inviting outright anarchy, because we just cannot exist without them. I cannot overstate that. None of us, whether you are a farmer, whether you are a business owner in the city, no matter what you do, every element of your life every day involves the use of an enjoyment of rights, property rights, so, it’s something that we certainly cannot live without.

                When we talk specifically about an impact on, on farming, as you pointed out in your introduction, I’m in the business of farming, a food producer, it is extremely important to have property rights, because it is not actually the land itself that allows us to produce food; it is our right to use the land that allows us to produce food. It doesn’t matter how good our soil is. It doesn’t matter how much rain we get. It doesn’t matter how much fertiliser we use. If we don’t have the right to use our land, we can’t produce anything. So it’s extremely important. And of course, essentially in a civil setting as such, we don’t lose our property. We don’t lose property full stop, because we’re afforded protection by our legal system, supposedly. And I say that for this very reason, that in a civil setting, if someone comes and takes your property, you are able to, throughout our legal system, seek to recover that property, or certainly seek damages for it, if it’s unrecoverable.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (10:34):

So could I just jump in there for a minute because you’ve raised two extremely important points, firstly, a new slant on things, which will help us all; it certainly was new to me: rent. If I go to rent your property, then I am buying the right to use your property without owning that property.

Dan McDonald (10:53):

Absolutely.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (10:54):

So property rights, thank you so much for that clear, succinct example. It reinforces the fact that property rights is about, if you buy something, you have a right to use it. And so it’s not simply the owning of something, but it’s owning the right to use it. That’s very important.

Dan McDonald (11:15):

And that’s why, Malcolm, we need to always remember that rights in themself are property.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (11:21):

Yes. Thank you.

Dan McDonald (11:22):

They’re capable of ownership. As I said earlier, property is anything capable of ownership. And there are many examples where we can own rights. Where rights are owned and it’s no different. If we hire a motor car from a car rental company; when we hire that car, we purchased the right to use that motor car. Very similar to, as we said, with a tenant renting a home, a tenant actually acquires the right to occupy the dwelling. That is the whole purpose of it. So there are elements of ownership, of rights, right throughout everything we do.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (12:01):

And there are protections too, because, I hope we get onto, I’m going to let you just go wherever you want to go. Okay? Please, because you are so knowledgeable and so basic.

Dan McDonald (12:14):

As far as you go talking about protections, Malcolm, that is the most fundamental element of all when we talk about rights, when we talk about property-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (12:21):

But before we get into that in detail, if I, as a landholder, a grazier, destroy my land, and wash the top soil into the neighbouring property, and destroy his or her use of their land, then my neighbour has a right to Sue me for impairing his right to use his property, for stealing his right to use his property. Correct?

Dan McDonald (12:46):

That’s correct, because-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (12:47):

So there are natural protections. Away you go.

Dan McDonald (12:49):

If you cause damage to another party, you are liable.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (12:51):

Yep. So away you go. Now take off.

Dan McDonald (12:54):

So, it’s very important that we have security of property rights. Now, as we know, all throughout the developed world, we have elected governments in our supposed democratic societies, we have elected governments that are effectively administrators, and as you would well know, and I think your previous call had pointed out, effectively governments act as administrators to serve the people, and effectively provide us with security. Okay? So that’s one of the most fundamental elements of any democratic society is a government providing a secure environment for us all to live in. We have to be able to rely on our institutions of government to protect our property. That’s where the buck stops. That’s where our judicial system operates from. So essentially, we have to be able to have trust in government to protect our property. It’s the only foundation upon which any of us could invest or acquire any form of property. However, as I’ll get to a bit later on, in my own case, it was actually the administrator, it was actually government that have taken my property from me. And that, of course, not only does it add insult to injury, it really leaves you in a position where you are totally powerless, when the administrator that you have to go to for justice is actually the same body that’s taking from you, all hope is gone.

                So I’ll just touch on this, Malcolm; if a food producer loses property rights, they’re extremely vulnerable. It’s no different to someone living in a rented house. If a tenant has fully complied with the terms of their rental agreement, yet the landlord, the owner of the property comes along and says, “Well, I’m not happy with you being here today, get out.” Well, of course the tenant becomes extremely vulnerable. They’ve got an absolute reliance upon their right to occupy that dwelling. So in that same context, a food producer must have the right to the use of his land to produce food. If you don’t have the right to use your land, what have you got? How can you operate? Where is the security of your equity? Where is the security to invest your blood, sweat, and tears, if you don’t hold the right to use your land. So the loss of property rights in a farming context is extremely devastating for landholders, but it is also a situation that leaves the vast majority of populations all over the world, vulnerable.

                And as I say that for this reason, we have to, we have to never forget the fact that food producers are a very small sector of our overall population. Just to give a brief example, Malcolm, in Australia, we’ve got just under 26 million people. We have approximately 87,000 farm businesses, and the vast majority of those farm businesses are family operations; they’re husband, and wife and children. We have 65% of our production gets exported. Okay? And ironically, we actually import about 15% of our food consumption in this country. But if we average all of this out, Malcolm, it’s quite clear that 87,000 farmers in Australia feed 130 million people. So essentially you break that down, we’ve got just under 1500 people relying on one farmer to feed them. Okay?

Senator Malcolm Roberts (17:23):

So what were those numbers again? 87,000 farmers provide food for?

Dan McDonald (17:26):

We’ve got 87,000 farmers. We’ve got 26 million people in Australia. Okay? We actually export 65% of our produce, and we also import 15% of our consumption, so if we base a calculation on the calories of food that we produce, okay? And the calories of food that are, on an average basis, consumed by human beings, it’s quite clear that we feed Australian farmers feed 130 million people that is, we feed our own population and we feed a large number of people just over 100 million people elsewhere throughout the world. So we’re

Senator Malcolm Roberts (18:10):

Feeding five times. Yeah, more than that. Yeah, no five times our population. Okay, continue.

Dan McDonald (18:18):

So, you break it down, you’ve got every farm entity feeding 1,494 people. Now, to my way of thinking, and I’m sure most would agree. That’s a fairly vulnerable position for that 1,494 people; they’re reliant upon one farm entity to feed them. You got nearly 1500 people that are solely reliant on one person to feed them, essentially. Every time we see another farmer go out of business or of their productivity, detrimentally impacted, that 1400 people have got to go somewhere else to get their food. Now you can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep working on that trajectory for too long before you certainly have a very vulnerable population across the globe.

                You know, we live in an era at the moment where most times people can go to a grocery store, and they can fill their trolley and go home and they can do it, arguably at a reasonable cost. But of course, let’s not forget that it is only the abundance of supply that both protects, and effectively ensures the sustainability of the population, but an abundance of supply also is what controls the value, the cost. So the more supply we’ve got, the more affordable food is for people.

                To get back to the property rights aspect, we have to remember that in producing that food, we are 100% reliant upon the farmer’s right to use his land. So effectively, all these 130 million people across the globe are fed by Australian farmers, their food security is underpinned, not by the farmer’s piece of land, or how much rain he got, but primarily by the farmer’s right to use his land. If he loses the right to use all or part of his land, he can’t feed anybody.

                So I can find no clearer example to demonstrate just how vulnerable city people are when it comes to their own sustainability. It is 100% reliant upon the farmer having security of the right to use his land. And unfortunately, Malcolm, that is essentially what is missing in this country. That is a major problem that has to be addressed. At some point it has to be addressed. We’ve been losing farmers in this country for decades. We’ve lost 50% of our farmers in the last 40 years. We go forward another 40 years, how many of us will be left? But at the same time, we’re told we’re going to have a growing population.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (21:23):

So, let me take us to the ad break in a few minutes, and we’ll when we come back, Dan, could you tell us your story? What happened? How could that happen? The constitution is there to protect you, what compensation did you receive for the theft of your property rights, the rights to use your property? But let me give our listeners, we’re guests in their company right now, so let’s give our listeners a summary of what you’ve said. The security of property rights is essential. It is the right to use the property that you have a right over. Governments should act as administrators to provide security. But we’ll see, after the ad break, that government has been the thief of your rights to use your land.

                I add here, Dan, the government has three roles: to protect life, protect property, protect freedom. And freedom’s absolutely essential, but so is secure property rights. Government is now the administrator that is committing theft, not protecting people. If a farmer or anyone who has an asset, such as a small business, and this is affecting small businesses right around the country with the government’s capricious restrictions over COVID mismanagement, small businesses have us the right to use this, what they own. If we lose the right to use our land, then you as a farmer, Dan, cannot earn a living. So it becomes a means of shutting down your provision of feeding your family. That is a fundamental human right that you are being denied. It’s also significant that the communists want to take away land and property. That’s one of the first things they do. The World Economic Forum has said, “You will own nothing and you will be happy.” That’s what the plan is right around the world.

                The bankers though, I hope John McCrae is listening here, a wonderful man, he was on our show two weeks ago. We’ll be having John back. He gave me a quote from the Bankers’ Association in America many years ago, “The banks want people to lose their houses, because when they lose their houses, they are at complete control of the major banks.” Dan just told us that Australian farmers feed around 1500 people, each Australian farmer. Now let’s have a look at the restrictions on property rights, and the rights to use our land. Have a look at when Dan comes back with this in mind; all restrictions apart from natural restrictions, like drought, are due to government. We have an abundance of supply from our farmers. Southeast Australia is completely green, producing massive quantities of food after the drought broke, yet, some of the supermarket shelves are bare?

                Why? Not because of a shortage of food, not because of a shortage of supply, not because a shortage of truck drivers, but simply because truck drivers are not able to come to work because of injection mandates, and because of close contact rules, which are completely wrong. They’re completely capricious. So government is acting to control the supply. And I must remind people before we go to the ad: 100% reliance of farmers to use their land is essential for us to feed our bellies, drink a beer, have access to just about everything over to you with the ad break,

Senator Malcolm Roberts (27:39):

And thank you for allowing me into your company with my guest today, Dan McDonald. Dan, you’ve told us the background, the foundation, now tell us what they did to you. The people who are supposed to be protecting us all are the ones who are thieving from us to control us. What happened?

Dan McDonald (27:55):

So Malcolm, to go back to the start of my investing in this big business, I and my wife chose to, to develop a grazing business, a livestock grazing business, and in doing that, of course we needed land upon which to do it. In that process, we sought out to purchase, so we had the absolute rights to the use of freehold grazing land. And that’s exactly what we did; we found some freehold grazing land, and that’s what we purchased against the backdrop of a secure element of property that would be protected at all costs, and we would be able to not only produce food for a hell of a lot of people, but in doing so, we would be able to sustain ourself and our family. So, we bought the land, and said about doing what was necessary to improve it from the perspective of grazing. So, infrastructure like fencing, and water points in the like-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (29:06):

So let me just show you what a keen student I am. When you bought that, you say you bought the land, you bought the land and the right to use the land according to how you and Katrina wanted to.

Dan McDonald (29:18):

Well, essentially, exactly that. And just to go a little bit further there, Malcolm, land right across Australia and, and most developed nations throughout the world is classified into primary land uses. So, you don’t go to the middle of Brisbane to buy a grazing property. Land in cities and towns will either be classified as residential, or commercial, or industrial, and right across Australia it’s like that. And essentially we purchased land that was classified as grazing land. Okay? So ironically, the primary land use for this land, as classified by government is grazing. And of course, in freehold tenure, our most fundamental issue there was buying land that we had the right to use. That’s what we did. And we’ve invested essentially our life’s work into doing that.

                Everything went okay there quite some time, but along the way, of course, when you’re running a grazing business, you’re actually feeding livestock; that’s the whole purpose of your business. And that’s exactly what we did. We just, we used our land to feed our livestock, and everything we thought we were doing was right. And as far as the letter of the law goes, it was right. We hadn’t stolen anyone else’s land. We hadn’t ran our cows onto someone else’s property. We were using our own land. Anyway, along, came the government, and essentially said to us, “Well, hang on, you can’t do the that.” And I said, “Well, what’s wrong? What can’t we do?” “Oh, you can’t use your vegetation to feed your cows.”

Senator Malcolm Roberts (31:10):

When did you buy it, by the way?

Dan McDonald (31:12):

2003.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (31:14):

Thank you.

Dan McDonald (31:16):

So of course, this came as a fairly big shock to myself, and my wife, and my children to have a government body telling us that we could not use our land. And I said, well, hang on a minute. That’s what we bought it for. And ironically, Malcolm, some of the land here that we purchased, we actually purchased from the Queensland government. So it was land that was essentially in what was called leasehold tenure prior to us buying it. We purchased it, and then obviously purchased the lease of it. And then we repurchased through an approval process, the freehold tenure to that land. So that gave us the unimpeded, supposedly, right to use the land. And it was a all done so under the classification of being grazing land.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (32:07):

So, isn’t the selling of something as a con, a confidence trick, so the government are con artists, the government is also misrepresenting something; they’re basically committing fraud.

Dan McDonald (32:22):

Exactly. Malcolm, there is no other the way to describe it. So when we go into a process of purchasing land of any sort, we have a contract. We buy subject to certain terms and conditions, and also, there’s a duty of disclosure there from a selling party. And particularly when the selling party is the government, they have a duty to disclose any rights or encumbrances that they wish to hold over that land. This is the whole purpose of our land, our property law regime that we have in this country, but essentially, government are not complying with that. Government are committing fraud; they are failing to disclose. And I say, deliberately failing to disclose their true intentions.

                If government offered land for sale, and in that process, they disclosed the fact that the purchaser would not obtain the right to use the land, or quite clearly, very few people would want to buy the land. Would they no different to, if you go to a coffee shop and buy that cup of coffee, but you don’t buy right to drink it, well, you’re not likely to buy too many cups of coffee from that shop. So, the government are actually committing fraud. They are failing to disclose they are selling land under that regime. And of course, then it’s not until you physically make use of the land that they’ll then quite happily come along as they did in our case, and prosecute us.

                So, in about 2016 Malcolm, they commenced proceedings against us to prosecute us, essentially under what they called a regime of illegal tree clearing, which in real terms, and as it was certainly adopted in the court, was essentially feeding cows, feeding livestock. We were grazing livestock with our vegetation.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (34:28):

And perhaps I should clarify; I’ve been to your place a couple of times, the trees that the state government alleges you were killing, clearing, were mulga. There’s scrubby bush, they’re borderline calling it a tree.

Dan McDonald (34:47):

Well, that’s correct, Malcolm and-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (34:49):

And cattle love it in the drought. And you bought that property, did you not, because it had some mulga on it because in a drought, it provides all provides very much more security. So you purchased it because of the mulga, and your right to be able to use that mulga?

Dan McDonald (35:05):

That’s right. That’s the feed source, and it’s a renewable feed source, essentially, all we do is effectively prune it to feed livestock, and it grows back again. It grows back very quickly. As a matter of fact, it would be extremely difficult to eradicate it, it grows back so quickly. However, under the government’s regime of land clearing laws, they’ve effectively locked it up as conservation. Just, it’s ironic; we have land that is still classified by government as grazing land. We have a situation where the primary land use is effectively now conservation. Government have implemented a regime across us where we do not now have the right to use our land at all. We physically do not have the right to use it. They will allow us to use certain areas of our land, under very strict guidelines, and other than that, our property is effectively conservation.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (36:11):

So hang on, hang on. You are charged with the responsibility of providing a livelihood. You have the right to use your land, but the bureaucrats in the city of Brisbane and the city of Canberra tell you how to use it. They’re running your farm.

Dan McDonald (36:29):

Absolutely.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (36:30):

That’s communism.

Dan McDonald (36:30):

Absolutely.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (36:32):

And now that you have had the right to use your land stolen from you, that is communism. They basically own it, even though you paid for it.

Dan McDonald (36:42):

If we get into the nuts and bolts, just briefly of how it all come about. I mean, obviously when this matter-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (36:49):

Go for it, we’ve got 17 minutes left.

Dan McDonald (36:51):

Yeah. When this matter came upon, as I sought to obviously investigate and represent myself throughout the court proceedings, and I did so, but the primary thing I wanted to work out, Malcolm, was where this came from, what was the root cause of the fact that I had had my primary element of property stolen from me. And essentially, that all came down to the federal government. The regime itself of taking white land was implemented by the Queensland state government. It fundamentally came from the coercion and pressure of the federal government, as it done across many states throughout Australia, but there was certainly no state more heavily impacted than Queensland. And primarily, the whole goal of the federal government’s taking of our property and locking it up for conservation was all about securing carbon credits to go into this ridiculous emissions trading type regime we now have being implemented across the world.

                So, effectively, instead of government coming along and paying me for the property that they wished to acquire, which would’ve been consistent with the constitution, they effectively stole it, by way of regulation, and that’s the situation we are now in now. And as I said earlier, that’s been a devastating impact to myself, my family, but it’s also a detrimental impact across the broader population, not only of Australia, but the world. This is not just my own property that’s impacted by this; it’s right across Australia, it’s certainly right across Queensland. And the loss of production that comes from that is profound. And essentially, that loss of production will only continue to increase, as in the productivity is declining, of our land or all the time, and there’s nothing we can do about that.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (38:57):

Okay, we’ve just heard from Professor David Flint, one of the world’s best and Section 51 Clause 31 of our federal constitution says that wherever the federal government interferes with someone’s rights to use their land, their property, they must be paid just terms compensation. What exactly did they do? Why did they do it? Without paying compensation? And how did they get away?

Dan McDonald (39:29):

Malcolm, the federal government got around it by actually getting the states to do the dirty work. You know, states were coerced financially into enacting the appropriate legislation that would effectively acquire the property in question for the federal government. And that’s the exact mechanism they used to avoid compensating anybody. No one’s been compensated; we were certainly not compensated at all. The most valuable element of our property was stolen from us, and we’ve never been offered 1 cent of compensation. So that’s the mechanism they use. States have their own constitutions. Interestingly enough, whilst there’s no specific provision for states to compensate when taking property, it is actually embodied within the state’s constitution, and it is also embodied in the state’s legislature. They do have legislation that says, if they’re taking property, they must pay fair compensation. But of course they refuse to do it. So-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (40:38):

So the state government-

Dan McDonald (40:39):

The situation we are in, and somehow that’s the environment within which we’re expected to produce food.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (40:47):

So, so let me just give the people who have us as guests in their present company, some details. Because I first learned about back around 2008, ’09 ’10, something like that. We had the UN Kyoto protocol, which came in in 1996. That was the same time John Howard’s government, and John Anderson’s national party government came into, into power in Australia. So the Howard-Anderson liberal national government said, “We will not sign the UN’s Kyoto protocol, but we will comply with it.” Now they had a choice they thought, “To comply with that. We will have to shut down power stations, reduce car travelling, reduce industry.” And John Howard’s government realised that was not going to be accepted by Australians, and rightly so. So, they concocted the idea, and the UN blessed it, that what we could do is stop the farmers’ rights to use their land, stop them clearing the land that they bought. And in that way, they would save the trees and absorb carbon dioxide. Forget for a moment that grasslands absorb more carbon dioxide, and forget for a moment that it’s all crap anyway. Just forget about all of that.

                So then they had a problem. “Okay, so now we’ve protected our power stations from the UN, we’ve protected our cars, our industry from the UN, how do we steal it from the farmers? Because we have to pay just terms compensation, and that would be a couple of hundred billion dollars. Okay, so what do we do? Oh, I know. The states, they don’t have to pay compensation. It’s advisable to, but they don’t have to, so we’ll do deals with the state governments.” At the time in 1996, and I’ve seen this document, another property owner showed it to me. An agreement was started between the federal and state governments. At the time, the Prime Minister signed it on behalf of the federal liberal national government. The premier of Queensland signed it on behalf of the National Party government. At the time in 1996, Rob Borbidge was the State Premier. All the officials who signed this were either members of the National Party or members of the Liberal Party. Three from federal, three from state of Queensland.

                And later on, that was an understanding that they would comply with the federal request to curtail, to steal farmer’s rights to use their land. Correct me if I’m wrong here, anywhere Dan, and then-

Dan McDonald (40:47):

No, you’re spot on, Malcolm.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (43:47):

And then, when Peter Beattie came to power, the labour government in Queensland in 1998, the rubber started hitting the road. And Dan bought his property in 2003 with no understanding of this, no disclosure from the owners of the land, the Queensland state government.

Dan McDonald (44:04):

Absolutely.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (44:04):

Then when he started using it, he was penalised for doing so. Now it’s very important that people understand Queensland’s state [inaudible 00:44:16], the parliament entry record includes in its records letters from John Howard, the Prime Minister, federal liberal Prime Minister to Peter Beattie, the State Labour Premier saying basically, “Please stop farmers clearing their land, for the purposes of the UN Kyoto protocol.” And Peter Beattie responding saying that they would do so for John Howard’s governments to compliance with the UN. The similar thing happened in New South Wales and Bob Carr, I think he was in Environment Minister at the time, but he was on YouTube. I’ve seen it. He was gloating, laughing, saying that he stole farmers’ rights to use their land, so that the Howard government could comply with the UN’s Kyoto protocol. And what happened was John Howard’s government, the Howard-Anderson liberal national government went around the constitution deceitfully to steal farmers’ rights to use their land. Is that not correct?

Dan McDonald (45:22):

That is absolutely correct. So, the primary security mechanism we had to protect our land has been totally ignored. And of course, government acting as the primary administrator, yeah, they’ve just totally ignored it. And, and essentially we don’t have anywhere else to go. It’s a fundamental issue that will continue to play out for a number of years. And I think I’ve highlighted the vulnerability of the greater population. Malcolm, let’s never forget that besides water, food is the most valuable commodity on this planet.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (46:06):

Oh, hang on, hang on, also oxygen. Well, and now they want to tax our carbon dioxide that we exhale.

Dan McDonald (46:14):

We’d like to hope that we can continue to breathe without having to pay a tax.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (46:17):

But they’re taxing it.

Dan McDonald (46:19):

The most valuable on the planet, and the only protection, right? The only protection for consumers comes from an abundant supply, which stems from secure property rights. We are losing our property rights, and effectively, we are now losing our productive capacity.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (46:41):

Thank you. Thank you. This goes to other areas as well. There is a grazier, or at least he used to be a Grazer near Okie, which is an army defence base. It’s got an army Air Force squadron there, and they have to use PFAS chemicals well, they don’t have to, but the government chose to use PFAS chemicals for firefighting. That PFAS is now polluting the in underground water. It’s destroying the soil so much so I won’t go into the details now, but the Defence Department, after doing this to David [Jefferies 00:47:23] and Diane [inaudible 00:47:23] property, does not pay compensation. The state government under Campbell Newman, I think, liberal government, I can stand be corrected, but I’m pretty sure it was Liberal National Party government under Campbell Newman, took the water rights from David Jefferies and Diane [inaudible 00:47:41] with no compensation. Water is essential for farming. And then John Howard’s government, John Anderson’s government stole the farmer’s property rights before that. And so, the rights to use their land. So, our food production is really threatened. And this is all about control of land, is it not, Dan?

Dan McDonald (48:07):

Absolutely Malcolm. Absolutely. And look, let’s just never forget the fact that rights are property, and rights are always owned by somebody. And it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about rights to use land, to drink a cup of coffee, to drive your motor car, or indeed rights to breathe oxygen, those rights belong to somebody, okay? So, your rights are your property. All of us own property, we all do. Don’t think you need to own something tangible to own property. Your rights to breathe, your right to choose what you do with your body.,Those rights are your property. You own them. Nobody else, no one else has the right to them. They’re yours. And they must be protected. Unfortunately, this is the biggest downfall of our society and our government at the moment; our rights are not being protected. Indeed, if anything, they’re being totally denigrated and decimated by government.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (49:11):

Well, as I mentioned earlier on governments have three roles: protect life, protect property, protect freedom. The government in your case has hurt all three. They’re not protecting life; they’re creating a woody weed monoculture that is destroying life. They’re destroying your opportunity to provide a livelihood for your family. They’re destroying your rights to use your property. They are stealing your freedom in the name of protecting the environment, but really in the name of the United Nations to control land. We can see it in native title legislation; the land was taken from some people, and handed back to the Aboriginals we were told, but the aboriginals can’t use it. It was stolen to lock it up. Murray–Darling basin, more legislation that the Howard-Anderson government introduced in 2007 was done to do exactly the same thing. It’s to steal the right to use the land. And in Dan’s case, it was done without compensation. Is there anything you’d like to say; we’ve got about two minutes left before I have to wrap it up, Dan.

Dan McDonald (50:31):

Malcolm, I’d just say that we’ve got to remember the fact, and I would say that you spoke then of the impacts to people like myself, the impacts to farmers trying to generate a livelihood. Malcolm, I would contend that the impacts are far greater for the vast population. Because as I pointed out, every farmer is feeding almost 1500 people. The greater impacts of all of this are on the vast population. They haven’t seen it yet, but there’s one thing for sure, they will. The only protection that consumers have is abundant supply, which stems from our secure property rights. That’s where it all comes from. We cannot afford to have rights in any way, shape or form just denigrated, and not secured. It’s the fundamental pillar, fundamental foundation of our very existence.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (51:32):

So my eight keys to human progress, number one is freedom, because that’s where you invent, you initiate, you exchange ideas, you exchange concepts. Number two is the rule of law, so that what you earn, you keep, and your neighbour can’t steal it from you. Number three is a constitutional governance that provides continuity, so that provides security; a stable environment. Number four is secure property rights. And Dan’s explained that, and shown us how he’s fought to try and get them back, and failed. Dan, it is so important, a true liberal in terms of a Liberal Party, a true liberal says there is nothing more sacrosanct apart from the right to life, than the right to secure property rights, yet it’s the liberals and the nationals who stole them.

Dan McDonald (52:33):

Yes, that’s right, Malcolm. The fact are that that over the last 20 years, a little over 20 years now, the most detrimental impacts, and policy directions in this country have came from the supposedly conservative side of government, the Liberal National Party, it is the coalition at a federal level that have driven this all the way.

Professor David Flint AM is an Emeritus Professor of Law.  He read law and economics at Universities of Sydney, London and Paris. After admission as a Solicitor of the NSW Supreme Court in 1962, he practised as a solicitor (1962-72) before moving into University teaching, holding several academic posts before becoming Professor of Law at Sydney University of Technology in 1989.

Professor Flint is the author of numerous publications. His publications include books and articles on topics such as the media, international economic law, Australia’s constitution and on Australia’s 1999 constitutional referendum. He was recognised with the award of World Outstanding Legal Scholar, World Jurists Association, Barcelona, in October 1991.

He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1995.

So David is an expert in constitutional law and I am going to chat about with him about Australia’s Constitution – a document that most people never give a second thought to.  Over the last couple of years, as we have watched our freedoms being eroded, references to the Constitution have reached a level of popularity equivalent to “new best seller”. 

The Constitution is also being misused and mis-referenced and there are a whole lot of crazy stuff going on in the name of the Constitution.  David is going to help me make sense of it all.

Senator Roberts also interviewed David Flint a second time, expanding on these topics and discussing others.

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

You’re with Senator Malcolm Roberts on Today’s News Talk, TNT.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (00:05):

Thank you for having me as your guest in your car, your lounge room, your men’s shed your kitchen. It’s indeed an honour all over the world to be with you today. There are two themes to me and my show, freedom specifically versus control, and it’s basic for human progress and people’s livelihood. And the second theme is personal responsibility and the importance of integrity. That’s basic for personal progress and people’s livelihoods.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (00:35):

So we have three aims for the show in the terms of direction and tone. I just let you know, now that I’m under apologetically fiercely, pro-human. I’m tired of the media and the politicians ragging on humans. And I’m going to tell the truth about humans and humanity. I’m proud to be one of our planet’s only species capable of logic and loving care. We’ll be positive. We will certainly deal with what’s wrong with politics. But we’ll also deal with what’s needed in politics. We’ll deal with what’s wrong with politicians and what we need in politicians. We’ll deal with what’s wrong with the media, as well as what’s needed in media. We’ll get to the core issues, what’s and all to develop solutions. We’ll cover the human aspects, the strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities, failings highlights, and what makes people real.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (01:24):

The second basic aim is to be data driven and factual, truthful and honest. And the third thing I’ve been given and that I comply with and why I’ve been invited to compare this show is to speak out, to be blunt and will certainly be that. Hubert Humphrey who lived from 1911 to 1978, served as the United States vice president from 1965 to 1969. And he said, and think about this as we remember that a private company is locking down private citizen in an age care facility. He said, “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the Dawn of life the children, those who are in the Twilight of life the elderly, those who are in the shadows of life the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”

Senator Malcolm Roberts (02:20):

Well, think about our society in Australia and growing around the world. This week in the news, there were stories continuing regarding age care residents being literally locked because residents and staff have COVID. In some cases, apparently there’s no COVID, but they have been locking down anyway. So today I have two very impressive guests. First up, I have the privilege of talking with Professor David Flint, and this man is not only an expert, he’s a wonderful person. Professor David Flint order of Australian medal is an Emeritus Professor of Law.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (02:57):

He read law and economics at universities of Sydney, London, and Paris. After admission as a solicitor of the New South Wales Supreme Court in 1962, he practised as a solicitor for 10 years before moving into university, teaching, holding several academic posts before becoming professor of law at Sydney University of Technology in 1989. Professor Flint is the author of numerous publications. These include books and articles on topics such as the media, international economic law, Australia’s constitution.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (03:30):

And on Australia’s 1999 constitutional referendum. He was recognised with the order of world outstanding legal scholar. I’ll say that again, world outstanding legal scholar. The World Juris Association Barcelona in October 1991, he was made a member of the order of Australia in 1995. So David’s an expert in constitutional law, and I’m going to chat with him about Australia’s constitution. A Document that most people never give a second thought to. Over the last couple of years, as we have watched our freedoms being eroded references to the constitution have reached the level of popularity equivalent to the new bestseller.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (04:12):

My office is handing them out will very, very frequently. The constitution is sadly also being misused and misreferenced. And there’s a whole array of crazy stuff going on in the name of the constitution. David’s going to help me make sense of it all. Now importantly about David he’s one of the world’s most eminent legal scholars, and professors, in academics, but more importantly he’s one of the people. This man you’ll see him at social functions, gatherings with speakers speaking in the street, he speaks at rallies.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (04:49):

He is truly a wonderful human being. And to give you context, there are eight keys that I have for human progress. The first is freedom. The second is the law rule of law. And the third is the constitution to provide continuing ongoing governance and succession. The purpose of law is to protect people, not control people. So welcome David.

Professor David Flint (05:16):

Well, thank you very much. That is a very kind introduction and I’m honoured to be on your programme.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (05:23):

Well, it’s a pleasure having you here and we’ve met a few times in the past. What is it… David, before we start what is it… Tell me something you appreciate.

Professor David Flint (05:33):

Well, listening to what you said. I do appreciate integrity, but I also appreciate common sense because common sense seems to be escaping so many in public life these days. And I suspect that goes back to belief, to strong belief in principles and a commitment by those in public life towards the national interest and not their personal interest. And I think there’s a lot of that missing today. And not only in Australia.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (06:06):

I think it’s rife in the Western world where there’s something afoot and it’s beyond our national borders, David, but we can see what’s going on. The governments and the parliaments, state and federal level. Their aim is not to control the virus because clearly they have failed at that. Other countries have succeeded in that and the recipes are simple, but the aim is not to control the virus, the aim is to control the people. And yet, we have a constitution to protect us. What is the constitution? What’s its purpose, role? Why is it significant and why is it failing?

Professor David Flint (06:46):

Well, I think we have to remember that we were already self-governing before we entered into our constitution. By the middle of the 19th century, the British had given us self government. We were still part of the empire, but we were governing ourselves with our own system of government and they gave us the one that they knew that is the Westminster system in contrast to the American system. Instead of having an executive who’s independent of the other two powers, we have an executive which is controlled by the lower house, must be responsible to the house of representatives.

Professor David Flint (07:26):

And ours is a collective executive, unlike the American, which is essentially an individual or president, ours is a collective like the British always responsible to the house of representatives and liable to lose office. If they lose a vote or lose the confidence of the house of representatives. Now that’s a good system. It works well. And it has been exported. I think between the American and the British, there’s not much difference except a difference way of dealing with the problem of government.

Professor David Flint (08:01):

And the essential problem of government was set out by Lord Acton. A great English peer and historian who stated an essential principle. And that goes with the nature of man. And that is that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If there’s a lesson in government, that’s the lesson because there’s Madison and all that. One of the great American founding fathers said, man is not perfect, and that’s why we need government.

Professor David Flint (08:38):

But we can’t give if absolute power, there must be checks and balances. The Americans have it in their constitution, we’ve got it in ours. But what our constitution was essentially, was a document to bring six self-governing countries, states, there were still self-governing colonies to bring them together into one country that was its purpose.

Professor David Flint (09:08):

There’s a constitutional system, and then there’s a federal constitution. The constitutional system is wider some of it is not as guaranteed as in the constitution. For a definition of constitution I think one of the very best definitions given by Berlin Broke in England a few centuries ago, in which he said a constitution is that body of laws, customs, and institutions by which the people have agreed to be governed. That assembly of laws, customs, and institutions by which the people have agreed to be governed. So it’s the people who are the essence of this. One of the really great things that happened when our six colonies decided to federate was that in the course of that, it was firstly, that was the process.

Professor David Flint (10:10):

When we first had a convention appointed by the state parliament, it met together, they drew up a constitution. And then when it was sent back to the sixth state parliament, they all bickered among themselves, tried to do it again. And there was a conference held at a place called Corowa, which was on the border of New South Wales in Victoria. Important in those days, because we had tariffs between the colonies. If you wanted to transfer goods from one colony to the other, you had to pay a tax. And that of course was inimical to forming one country.

Professor David Flint (10:50):

People met at Corowa was a private conference, a conference of people. And they came up with a solution to the problem of overcoming the politicians, and getting a constitution which could unite this country, the first continent of the world to be formed into one country. So they met in Corowa a man there called Sir John Quick, who’s not remember today, no school child wouldn’t know anything about him, but he came up with a proposal which was adopted by the conference.

Professor David Flint (11:25):

And that was the future conventions should instead of being appointed by the state or colonial parliament, they should be elected directly by the people. The second part of his proposal was that when the convention had decided on a constitution, on a draught and sent it out for discussion by the people, by the six colonial parliament, it would then come back to the convention. They’d settle the final form, and then the way of getting it approved would be to have referendums in every colony.

Professor David Flint (12:15):

So we had six referendums. New South Wales was proved to be a little difficult so it had to be done again, but eventually it was all passed. It was the people who agreed to the constitution and because they had that model in it, they put in a vital part of the constitution. In fact, the prime minister of South Australia as the premiers used to be called Charles Kingston, wanted to introduce into the constitution, not just having a referendum, not just require a referendum for changing the constitution, but also introducing more control over the politicians so that the people could in relation to any new legislation, stop that legislation. If they petitioned for a referendum and the people in that referendum decided they didn’t want that piece of legislation.

Professor David Flint (13:19):

So he was going to introduce much more of what we call direct democracy. America, Australia, Britain, we’re all representative democracies. We elect people to represent us. And then the past laws on our behalf. In Switzerland, and in later years in parts of the United States and Canada, they’ve introduced more direct democracy. And what that means is that the politicians are much more accountable to the people than they are in a pure representative democracy. There’s a Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of every politician, which is the ideal. I know you won’t like that Malcolm.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (14:11):

No, no. No, no. David, I love that idea.

Professor David Flint (14:15):

You’d love it. Good. And it’s wonderful because you are a good politician, but there are not many who follow, who do what the people want. And if the politicians did something which the people don’t like, the idea is, well, they could by petition ask for a referendum to decide whether that should happen. To take it a step further they could even have a referendum in which they propose their own legislation, which then has to be adopted.

Professor David Flint (14:50):

Now, some people say that won’t work, it works very well in Switzerland, every three months, every three months, they have a number of referendums, which the people propose and being a federation, they proposed at the central level, the federal level they’re also propose is at the state level, they call them cantons at the state level. But also at the municipal level, the local government level. And you don’t have to vote if you don’t want to.

Professor David Flint (15:21):

It’s not compulsory as in Australia, but it does mean that everybody can have a say and the people can make decisions, which doesn’t prove the quality of government and certainly improves the quality of politicians. So we have a federal constitution, and those parts which essentially relate to creating a single country. Those can only be changed by the federal parliament proposing referendum and the people then agreeing to that. But not everything is covered, not everything in that constitutional system is covered by that.

Professor David Flint (16:00):

And two things which are not covered in the constitutional system came out very much during the crisis over the pandemic. And this was that most of the decisions the politicians were made on the quite often on the spur of the moment too often for political reasons, rather than genuine health reasons. And they were made by way of regulations. That is by the executive government quite often just by a minister. And that was never envisaged to work that way.

Professor David Flint (16:47):

And this was done without any parliamentary scrutiny. Even in colonial times we had two checks and balances on the making of regulations, which seemed to have been whittled away. One was that for important regulations to be made, these had to be done by the governor in the executive council. The governors in Australia is appointed by the crown on the recommendation of the local premier or the federal government. But the role of the governor or the governor general is as a sort of auditor to see all the [inaudible 00:17:33]in the two he’s crossed that all the proper details are there before regulation is adopted and it’s adopted properly.

Professor David Flint (17:43):

Instead of, as for example in New South Wales, there’s a moment in New South Wales, one of the Australian states where during the pandemic, the premier that’s the first minister, the prime minister of the state. The premier decided suddenly that we should close down the building industry. It was closed down for two weeks until there was enormous amount of outrage over it. But that cost $2 billion put a lot of people out of work, stopped all building in the cities. And even the bureaucratic medical advisor said, “Well, I didn’t advise that, there were no health reasons for that. It was just that the premier thought this is a good idea at the time.”

Professor David Flint (18:36):

Now that should have gone to the executive council, it should have been put to the governor who wouldn’t decide on the merits. The governor would just make sure that all the documents there, the argue were there. And most importantly, that this was in power because the regulation about closing the building industry was being made under health legislation. And surely there would have to be documents there supporting the case for some health reason to do that. But in addition to having the executive council, what we thought of, and this was in colonial times. Wat we thought was also an important check and balance was that the two houses of parliament and all states except Queensland in Australia have two houses and governments rarely control the upper house.

Professor David Flint (19:31):

The two houses of a parliament exercised close scrutiny over regulations. They call for evidence. They call the minister before them to explain why this regulation was made. And they have a power of disallowance governments, as I say, rarely control the upper house. And if the cross bench and the opposition joined together, they can quite often get a majority. And a lot of the excesses might have been stopped in the upper house after a proper scrutiny. But those two things, both of those two things disappeared during this crisis. And quite often, the power to make regulations for health was abused.

Professor David Flint (20:24):

In what lawyers would call misfeasance in public office. The trouble with the laws, you would know Malcolm is it takes a terribly long time for a case to come on. If you want to argue that the government has exceeded it’s powers in making regulation, it can take years. A few years ago, we had a ban on the export of live cattle to Indonesia. There were complaints that in some abattoirs in Indonesia, the cattle were being treated cruelly. So the minister adopted a regulation banning cattle to those abattoirs were ones where there might be inhumanity to the cattle. They weren’t being treated properly. But then a few days later, because of pressure from the left, from the ABC and other sources, the minister issued a second regulation.

Professor David Flint (21:32):

And that was to totally ban all export of cattle from Australia. That was done suddenly, it ruined farmers, it ruined people working for farmers, it ruined people working the ports. People lost their jobs. Those people who suffered were indigenous people. We have a great concern in Australia about the indigenous people. They also suffered all done suddenly, and they all decided to assume about this. It took almost 10 years to get together the facts, get together a case and get a ruling by the judge who found that there was in fact misfeasance in public office that the minister went too far.

Professor David Flint (22:21):

Now, damages are being worked up, but guess who pays the damages? Not the minister he’s in retirement. He’s got other jobs, no doubts, consultancies, and so on. He’s living well. The government’s living well. When the damages are worked out, it’ll be the poor old taxpayer who’ll pay the damages, but it took a long time for that case to come on.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (22:44):

David, can I interrupt you there for a minute, please? Well, actually we’re going to have to go to an ad break. This is wonderful. It is absolutely wonderful. What I would like to do before going to the ad break is to summarise for our listeners and then go to the ad break and come back and let you continue. And I’d like to get onto a couple of specific things after we come back. For now my summary is that you mentioned Madison and you mentioned that man is not perfect.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (23:13):

And Jefferson recognised the failings of humans. And he recognised we need to protect individuals in government, in Congress, in parliament, from those failings, because everyone has them. The second thing is that you have made it very, very clear. The core of the whole parliamentary process should be the people. You’ve also said that there is a need for a solution to overcoming the politicians. You’ve also said that it was the people who agreed to the constitution. You’ve also said that it’s the politicians who must be accountable to the parliament and that they aren’t.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (23:56):

You’ve also said… Implicitly, sorry, I’m going to extend what you said here. Leaders, in my opinion are servants. There is so much material you are raising that I would like to invite you back now for a second show sometime in the future, if you could do that. But leaders are servants. Whether it be in business, corporations, clubs, parliament, football clubs, the community leaders go and listen to people and then develop a vision. And then they have to convince people that their vision is the best solution. If the people believe it is they will follow.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (24:33):

The whole of this COVID nightmare, this mismanagement has been atrocious in Australia. The whole thing is about control of people not serving the people. This is not… And the leadership has not been about leadership, it has been about coercion and forcing sometimes brutally and inhuman immoral ways. You’ve mentioned that there’s a lack of parliamentary scrutiny. I couldn’t agree more. David, this is echoing throughout the west because the west is under people now who want to control the people and it’s happening in the west. And perhaps that’s for another discussion in the future.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (25:12):

But I do want to finish with the words of Jeannette Young. She was chief health officer for Queensland during most of this mismanagement. She admitted to her credit that as chief health officer, she was responsible only for people’s physical health. The premier is a really guilty one here in Queensland and right throughout the country, because the premier abdicated, she said, “It’s all about physical health.” Well, that is complete rubbish. It is about people’s economic health now and in the future. You mentioned the construction industry in Victoria being brought to its knees for no valid reason. She also ignored the premier up here, ignored people’s mental health. They did nothing to do that. And they made it far, far worse, all to control people.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (26:06):

And now you’ve told us how suing parliament to prove malfeasance takes a decade. And that’s because the damn parliamentarians are not doing their job. And you finished with one key statement. Always the people pay the price. And that’s what makes me sick because I’ve noticed this time and time and again. The government stuffs it up. The parliament fails to hold them accountable because they’re both working together and the people pay the price. So let’s go to an ad break now and come back and listen more to professor David Flint.

Speaker 1 (26:44):

You should hear what Patrick Hening’s talking about.

Patric Henson (26:47):

They outsource a lot of this what they call Turk work, believe it or not, Amazon coined that term called Turk work. So they farm all this stuff out to various places around the globe. Try to take advantage of the cheaper labour. No, in theory, there’s nothing wrong with that. Yes, they are creating jobs to some degree, but that’s not the point. The point is this, the point is that either algorithms or some completely unqualified person in a foreign country is actually, looking at the dashboard and deciding what gets banned, what doesn’t get banned. And most of the times the people making these, the human decisions on this, they have no idea what the issues are.

Speaker 1 (27:30):

Patrick Henson on Today’s News Talk-TNT radio.

Yon (27:35):

Using meth taught me everything about freedom. Only, not like you think it taught me how easy it is to lose your freedom. If you think meth is taking control of you, ask for help, you have the power to be truly free. I know I’m Yon and I’m free from meth.

Speaker 6 (27:53):

If you or someone you know, is struggling with meth, call 1800-662 help for 24 hour free and confidential treatment referral. Learn more at samhsa.gov/meth.

Speaker 7 (28:04):

A few years ago, Steve Fair Cow’s lungs were failing.

Steve Fair Cow (28:08):

I don’t think I had more than a couple weeks to live.

Speaker 7 (28:11):

That’s when Steve received a lung transplant made possible by an organ donor. Now Steve could do things he never imagined like climbing 94 floors to the top of a skyscraper.

Steve Fair Cow (28:20):

I never knew that breathing could feel this good. It’s an incredible gift.

Speaker 7 (28:24):

What could you make possible as an organ organised tissue donor leave behind the gift of life. Go to organdonor.gov, US department of health and human services, health resources, and services administration.

Speaker 1 (28:36):

This is the Malcolm Robert show on Today’s News Talk radio-TNT.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (28:40):

Welcome back. And thank you for having me as a guest along with professor David Flint, as a guest, wherever you are. Professor Flint has just given us a very, very comprehensive, yet succinct summary of the constitution in Australia. Professor Flint, before we move on to you’ve identified some problems in our constitution before we move on to discussing some of this solutions, perhaps you could deal with some questions on something that is at the moment, occupying a lot of hype, particularly on social media, regarding people serving papers to public officials under the banner of the wait for this, the international court of common law in the high hope that we can restore our freedoms. What is the common law courts?

Professor David Flint (29:31):

Well, the international court of common law or something I would suggest when people receive these documents, they should look up. They should Google it because I regret to say it doesn’t exist. The top court in Australia is the high court of Australia. There’s no such court above the high court of Australia. In fact, such a court does not exist and people are being misled by this. I can understand there’s a great need for change. And I don’t agree with all of the decisions of the high court. I disagree with a number of them, but one has to accept them because those are the decisions we have, but what we have to do rather than being way laid by something, which doesn’t exist.

Professor David Flint (30:21):

These documents concoct a court which has no presence. And you’ll notice that quite often, there are not many names on it of judges whom you could check on as to whether they exist. These documents relate to something that somebody is creating for their own purposes. And I can understand people feeling upset and dissatisfied with the system. And there’s a very full reason for this as I’ve quite often said it’s hard to think of any one problem confronting Australia, probably many other countries, hard to think of any one problem confronting Australia, which is weren’t created by politicians has not been made significantly worse by them.

Professor David Flint (31:06):

And we have to have a system which overcomes that. Australia is in a particularly poor position because in Australia, we have a situation where a rigorously controlled two-party system has been captured not by the members, but by cabals of power brokers who control pre-selections. Who are making quite often a lot of money out of government transactions. It is much more controlled in Australia, for example, than in the United Kingdom. Just take for example, question time in the house of representatives and compare it with question time in London, at Westminster.

Professor David Flint (31:49):

At Westminster, it works properly, real questions asked. In Australia questions asked from the government side are written by the whips, the officials in the party, the ministers know of them in advance. And they say, “Thank you for the question without notice.” And they know it’s not a question without notice. It is a choreographed third rate theatre, unlike the situation, in west minister, where quite often you get it in the house changes among the party members who just cannot abide with what their government is doing for example-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (32:28):

Can I jump in for a minute, please Dave?

Professor David Flint (32:30):

Sure.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (32:32):

In fact, members of the Labour party, the Liberal party, the National party have told me that question time is theatre. Much of parliament is theatre. And I sit back, I’ve never yelled out in parliament. And I sit back and I look at these monkeys and I think they are showing so much disrespect to the people, perhaps before we go on to the changes necessary. So what you’re saying about these, the international court of common law is that it’s not real. So who are the sheriffs? The judges that are mentioned are they self-appointed?

Professor David Flint (33:09):

Well, do they exist? There are names there. Sometimes there are names. Sometimes there are no names, but do they exist? Are they real people? And what is the purpose of this? People are being misled, unfortunately. And the solution is very simple as to ascertain whether this is real. Do a Google search or take it to a lawyer and say, “Well, can this be progressed?” And the lawyer will now tell you, “Well, this is not a real document. Quite often as a nice seal on it, but it’s not a real document.” And I cannot understand the purpose of this. We have a problem, a serious problem as this is not the solution. I think that if I may go onto the solution, the solution is-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (33:58):

Prof, before we do it, just a couple more questions on the specifics, please David.

Professor David Flint (34:01):

Certainly.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (34:01):

So someone’s put a lot of effort into creating these documents. What do you think they hope to achieve? And is it an act of desperation and can they get away with it?

Professor David Flint (34:09):

No.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (34:10):

They claim to be charging people under fake court orders.

Professor David Flint (34:14):

Well, you’ve got the declarations that they found a number of governors and premiers and the prime minister guilty of treason. And others, guilty of misprision of treason that is of hiding treason or letting people get away with treason. Now that’s a very serious offence that would involve life imprisonment in Australia, along with the death penalty but’s very serious. These just do not exist. There have been no such trials. There are no such courts. It is being run for some purpose, perhaps it’s somebody using this to try and get votes, to get into parliament. We don’t know what it’s all about, but it is not true. A few years ago, there was a similar thing where, because the government is registered on the financial markets in New York and it has the state as a corporation.

Professor David Flint (35:14):

This led to a great debate that the government had turned itself into a corporation. That the wrong seal was being used because the seal had changed. That the queen’s title had become the queen of Australia by legislation, which is perfectly proper. All of these were pointless, and they would’ve carried no water in any competent court. And it was very difficult to see for what purpose this was being undertaken? People have to do something about the serious problems that we just lived through, but they won’t do it by being sidetracked by this nonsense.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (35:53):

So these people are essentially misleading for potentially political purposes. Well as significantly they’re wasting politicians time. They’re wasting the public’s time. They’re wasting the people’s time. They’re diverting valuable attention, time, resources, and cruelly. They’re giving false hope.

Professor David Flint (36:15):

That’s the worst thing.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (36:17):

And to me, I know that a simple definition of fraud is the presentation of something as it is not for personal gain. So if people are doing this for political purposes and to mislead people and to scrounge votes, then this is fraud. And that’s very, very hurtful fraud.

Professor David Flint (36:34):

It is. It’s because people are being lulled into believing that there is a simple solution and there’s no such solution. This is fabricated. And as you say, this is a fraud and it should be ignored because it is such a fraud. And if the police are involved, they should be involved about the fraud. I noticed there’s a script there to go along, see your policeman, what to say about your police-

Senator Malcolm Roberts (37:00):

There is a script in this so-called international court of common law summons.

Professor David Flint (37:06):

You take eight people along to the police and you say, “Go through the script.” Now this it is unfortunately nonsense. And understandably. If people fabricated a statement concerning medical treatment, well, I wouldn’t know what it was all about, and it could well be fraudulent. And that would be just as bad because this is fraudulent. It has no effect and it will cause no advantage and it won’t solve anything.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (37:37):

And as a member of the federal Senate. I agree completely with you that our country has been dragged down. To me there is not a problem with the constitution, but with the way the processes outlined in the constitution are not being followed bypassed. You’ve already talked to us about two of those. Most decisions are being made by politicians on the spur of the moment. Secondly, for the political benefit. Thirdly, by regulations at a time when the Senate doesn’t sit to disallow. So you’ve already mentioned those. You’re going to mention a few solutions now. Could you tell us the solutions because understanding is our constitution is a wonderful document, but it’s not perfect. What would you do to make it perfect?

Professor David Flint (38:26):

Well, and if I may refer to it, I do have a petition on this. May I refer to the short title for that, that’s change.org/takebackyourcountry, change.org/takebackyourcountry. And firstly, people must be very careful in elections. The major political parties are under the control of cabals of power brokers, and people should be very careful how they vote. And in particular, which parties they give their first preferences to. And it would be a mistake I suspect to give your votes to the major parties, at least your first preference votes, who should be looking at the smaller parties who offer sensible solutions, that’s important.

Professor David Flint (39:22):

And the second thing is we desperately need significant change. We do need to make the politicians accountable. And the best way to do that is to demand that a convention be elected by the ordinary people of Australia, whereby certain important changes could be made to the constitution. The most important change is to empower the people so that the politicians don’t have to face the people quite often in confected election. The elections are confected because the pre-selection are often prearranged and people by habits tend to vote for the major parties.

Professor David Flint (40:07):

It’s not like the United States where there’s much greater flexibility in relation to choosing candidates. In Australia the choice of candidates is controlled very much. In America, particularly in the Republican party it’s a wonderful system. And that allowed Donald Trump to emerge as the dominant candidate in the last presidential election, because the control of the pre-selections is not in the party bosses because the selections are done not only by members of the party, but also registered supporters of the party. So you get a very democratic way of choosing candidates we don’t have them in Australia.

Professor David Flint (40:51):

What we need in Australia is we need a convention like the choral war convention, which wrote and founded our country. We needed a convention, an elected convention for the people to review the constitution on the Corowa principles. It’s all set out in my proposal. This is very important because if we don’t make changes to the constitution to block the politicians, to make accountable 24/7. You know, Malcolm in most jobs as you would know, you’ve held jobs, you’ve had real life experience. Unlike most politicians, who’ve only had a political life.

Professor David Flint (41:36):

You’ve had real life experience and you know as I know that in most jobs, in most businesses, you’re subject to accountability, you’re accountable to your customers, your clients, to your bosses and so on. You’re accountable, 24/7. The politicians aren’t, they’re only accountable in these elections. And when they confect the elections where the pre-selections are done by the party bosses, you’ve got a situation where the people’s voice is not there because of the habit of voting for one of the major parties like we desperately need change. And I’ve suggested in this petition, the changes which the convention should make to the constitution.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (42:21):

Are they the five Rs?

Professor David Flint (42:24):

Yes. The five Rs. And very briefly I set them out in that petition. The five Rs are that at this convention, we’ve got a return to the constitution because we’ve got a way for the constitution. Our high courts, like the American Supreme courts has too often indulged itself with the judges deciding that the constitution means what they want it to mean. And we’ve seen several cases of that in America, where the Supreme court has written things to the constitution that are just not there. For example, a constitution right to abort.

Professor David Flint (43:04):

There’s nothing in the constitution about that. They invented that. So firstly return to the constitution. Secondly, reduced Canberra’s powers and taxation because Canberra powers have been expanded beyond that in the constitution. The high court has given Canberra powers the people never agreed to. And I went through a number of powers. I was looking at them and I found sometimes the people had refused to give the federal government a power up to five times in referendums. They refused to give them that power up to five times.

Professor David Flint (43:45):

And what’s happened is the high court has given them that power, which is completely wrong. Then we’ve got to reform the political parties. The political parties get enormous advantages, financial they get a money for each vote. They get exemptions from a number of pieces of legislation, electoral privacy and so on. In return for that, they should have to be open, transparent and democratic. They don’t want to be open, transparent, and democratic and run by the members. Then they wouldn’t get all of those advantages. The third R is reform the political parties. The fourth is recall elections. We’ve got to be able to give the people the power to create an election as they can in California.

Professor David Flint (44:35):

We’ve got to have the same power in Australia, whereby petition there can be a vote on whether there should be an election. And finally referendums initiated by the people. The people should have the power to initiate referendums, to stop legislation, to initiate their own legislation, to initiate regulations if they wish. All sorts of things that the people should have the power to do. And we should give that power take it away from the politicians and give it to the people.

Professor David Flint (45:06):

This is what we must do, and that can only be done through a convention. And the politicians will only allow a convention to be elected with appropriate powers. If there’s an enormous demand for that, they’re not going to give the people of Australia any extra power they’re going to hold onto it and abuse it and use it for their own benefit.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (45:31):

Well said, well said, that’s exactly what happens. The everyday Australian though provides a conundrum because David, the people are responsible, ultimately. Who we vote for determines the composition of our parliament. And that means that we ultimately responsible for the mess and which our country is now in. However, what you are saying is that the system has been corrupted and the people are being bypassed. You’ve said that with the people being hoodwinked and bypassed yet the yet… Sorry, the people are quite smart.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (46:13):

We as voters are quite smart, we’ve knocked the politicians back on their changes to parliament on the changes to the constitution. Yet we are bypassed by the high court. So I just realised we’ve only got seven minutes left and I’d like you to take it right to the end of the programme. So let me go through a summary for people now. And then I’ve got one question and then let you continue. Your petition is at change.org/takebackyourcountry. The major parties you said are under the control of cabals of power brokers. That is exactly what is happening.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (46:51):

I know from being inside parliament, that is ex exactly what’s happening. So therefore what I’ve been saying to people is, and pretty much your message, put the majors last. You want a constitutional convention, elected by the people for representatives attended should be reelected by the people. I’d like to get your views sometime about Trump. You mentioned the key in all of this accountability, and that’s been missing in federal parliament. Pauline Hanson. And I try to get accountability. We held them accountable verbally at times, and we get the message through.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (47:29):

Yet it is so difficult being the only two that are really doing that. We need to return to our constitution. It’s been bypassed, undermined, we need to get back to it. Professor David Flint provides solutions with the five Rs. Return the first of all return the government to the country. Return the government of the country to the principles set out in the constitution and agreed in our old constitutional system. Get back to our constitution, return. Number two, reduce Canberra’s powers and excessive taxation, which is part of the first return to our constitution. Now, number three, reform the political parties.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (48:12):

Number four, recall elections. Number five referendums that is comprehensive. David before getting onto whatever you want to close the show with for the next five minutes. Could you tell me effectively we are a Republic already? Aren’t we? I know we’re a constitutional monarchy and as a young man, I didn’t want the British to be running out country. I realised they don’t. And When Malcolm Turnbull’s dreadful referendum proposal was put up, I listened to three high court judges, including Harry Gibbs, who was at the time, the chief justice, I believe. And I immediately changed my mind and protected this constitution. And I have been ever since. We’re effectively a Republic. Are we not or?

Professor David Flint (49:03):

Yes, we are. And even Britain in 1688, the Glorious Revolution that was referred by Montesquieu as a disguised Republic, because the idea of the king having great powers disappeared in 1688. But we have in Australia effectively, a crown Republic. If we’re anything, we’re a crown Republic. In fact, we are a constitutional Commonwealth. We chose the name Commonwealth, which is the English word for Republic. And if you look at the definition of Republic and the Corel dictionary, the Australian dictionary you’ll find that we fit in with easily most of the definitions of Republic and argument, certainly the other one.

Professor David Flint (49:49):

But the point is that the we’ve chosen the Westminster system. There was an option at the time. Not many people know about this, an option at the time during the conventions, there was a proposal that the governor general be allowed to develop into effectively, a president elected by the people that was a proposal. And that was rejected strongly, not because of a debate over monarchy or Republic. It was because our founders decided that after experience the United States and in the United Kingdom, they said it’s better to have a collective executive rather than a one person executive, who’s very difficult to remove. That was their argument. And sometimes I think that’s probably better, but when Margaret Thatcher lost office, I thought, “Well, that wasn’t so good.”

Professor David Flint (50:44):

When Donald Trump was elected, I thought it wonderful because I didn’t know anything about him. You asked me about him. I didn’t know anything about him, but when I looked at his Gettysburg address and I saw what he was going to do. I thought if he does a third of that, he will be wonderful compared with his predecessors back to Ronald Reagan. And I wrote two pieces for the Sydney daily Telegraph for, and received an email, for example, from a friend in Thailand saying, “Have you lost your marbles?” But I thought that Donald Trump would be a brilliant president. He turned out even better than I thought he was. And this is one of the problems we’ve got you.

Professor David Flint (51:20):

You talked about the people voting the wrong way. Well, the problem is the press, the media, the media supposed to be there to exercise their vast powers and liberties to tell the truth, to inform the people. But we saw in the United States, the mainstream media joined up with those power who wanted to get rid of Trump, who that they, for example, they suppressed with the social media, all the information that people ought to have known about Biden and his role, the Biden family in their role in selling access and influence when he was vice president to foreign oligarchs. And that was an outrage and a new book has just come out by Peter Schweitzer, who points out that the Biden family has received 31 million.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (52:21):

I’m going to have to interrupt you there, David, because we are getting to the news break. Would you come back, please?

Professor David Flint (52:29):

Certainly.

Senator Malcolm Roberts (52:30):

Thank you very much. We have a lot of more territory to cover. This is Malcolm Roberts. I am staunchly pro-human and believe in the inherent goodness of human beings. We need to care for and love one another and remain proud of who we are. We’ll be back after news with another guest to apply what David is telling us.

Transcript

Speaker 1:This is a Malcolm Roberts Show. On Today’s News Talk Radio, TNT.  
Ian Plimer:Today’s News Talk Radio, tntradio.live.  
 This is Senator Malcolm Roberts from down under, fresh from my COVID bed. Yes, I had COVID. Now I have the world’s most powerful immunity, natural immunity.  
 Thank you very much for having me in your car, your lounge room, your men shed, picnic. I hasten to say that I’m not contagious. I know that some people think that telemarketers and telehealth people have to get injected before they can speak over the phone, but I can assure with 100% confidence that you will not catch anything from me over the phone, other than a dose of the truth and some outspoken speech.  
 My session on the radio is governed by two things, freedom. Specifically, freedom versus control. That is basic for human progress and livelihoods. And we’re going to have a very special guest today to talk about that.  
 The second thing that drives me is personal responsibility and the importance of integrity. That’s the basics for personal progress and livelihood.  
 Before getting to our guests, let’s just cover my show’s aims, themes, and the focus. I’m fiercely pro-human. Yes, you heard that. I am fiercely pro-human. I believe in humanity. I am tired. I’ve had a gutful of the media and politicians ragging on humans and humanity. I am proud to be one of our planet’s only species capable of logic, and capable of love and care, and quite often giving that love and care.  
 I’m also fundamentally positive. I get excited by good things that are happening, and I want to contribute to that. While we are dealing with issues that people face today, and they’re concerned about, I will encourage guests to provide solutions, lasting meaningful solutions. Instead of what’s wrong with politics, what’s needed in politics? Instead of what’s wrong with politicians, and there’s plenty, what we need in politicians? Instead of what’s wrong with the media, what’s needed in media? And we can start that with the truth.  
 We will get to the core issues, whats and all to develop solutions, because it’s only by getting into the real issues can we have real faith in the outcomes.  
 We’ll cover the human aspects, strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities, failings, highlights. What makes people real?  
 The second thing about anything I do, it’s got to be data-driven. It’s got to be factual, truthful, and honest.  
 And the third thing, be blunt. We will be speaking out, calling it like it is. And I’ll be welcoming talkback callers in the near future. Currently, tntradio.live is betting down many systems. This is a truly global operation. It’s a gift to the world from the world. We’ve got hosts all over the globe, broadcasting from Belfast, London, Los Angeles, New York, Tel Aviv, Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, The Bush in Australia.  
 And I want to express my deep and sincere appreciation to Mike Ryan for restoring integrity to media and to politics.  
 This radio network, this global radio network will serve the people, not control and con the people. We will serve with truth, and we will be blunt.  
 Before getting to my first guest, let’s just cover a couple of things that have happened today in the news. First of all, right around Australia, to all the people taking part in freedom marches, whether it be in Newcastle din-making, or people in Brisbane, people in Melbourne, people in Sydney, people all over, country towns, regional towns, thank you very much. And, Robert F. Kennedy, and your supporters in Washington, D.C. tomorrow on their freedom marches.  
 I have brothers-in-law coming from the Southern United States and the Northern United States meeting in Washington. They’re going to tell Biden what we think about his mandates and his coercion.  
 I’ll see people in Maryborough tomorrow because we’re having a peaceful protest in Maryborough.  
 I want to express my condolences to the family of Meat Loaf. Meat Loaf was a big part of my life. He had such a wonderful voice. He could go down so low, and then belt it out so strongly, so powerfully. He brings back many, many fabulous memories of my time listening to his music and with friends.  
 For those listening outside Australia, you probably don’t know that it’s Australia Day this coming Wednesday. That’s when we celebrate our country, or some people try to.  
 A friend of mine sent me this. “On the Mornington Peninsula, this year, they have cancelled Australia Day celebrations, yet they have not cancelled the Invasion Day celebrations. Invasion day events …” he goes on to say, ” … are free for the indigenous and $39 for the non-indigenous. They’re setting up two countries, one against the other.”  
 Another news item. China coal production in the month of December alone, 384 billion tonnes in one month. China is by far the world’s largest producer of coal now, and it’s thriving because of it. Australia producers just under 500 million tonnes in a year. Our production is around 11% of what China’s is, basically, one tenth, yet we’re trying to gut our economy, thanks to the Liberal Labour Nationals and Greens. What the hell is going on? China will produce 10 times as much coal as we will. And our politicians want to gut our country. This is ridiculous. And my first guest will be talking about this and many other things.  
 Then we’ve got news that the Bureau of Meteorology has, wait for it, remodelled Australia’s official temperature record for the third time in nine years, and found things to be warmer than thermometer readings had measured.  
 The Bureau did not announce the changes, but details of them were published on the Bureau’s website. So we’ve got to sneak around trying to catch them out, because they won’t talk about it boldly.  
 Jennifer Marohasy, a noted scientist in this country, a fighter for truth has said this, “The bureau has now remodelled the national temperature data set three times in just nine years.” Do they have no confidence in their own revisions and modelling? They have to keep cooling the past and warming the present? Why aren’t they doing an independent open transparent scrutiny of all of this work that they’re supposedly doing to fabricate global warming?  
 My first guest, fittingly, is a true scientist and a remarkable human being with a remarkable sense of humour, and engaging lively real personality, and a wicked sense of humour. He’s won many international awards and recognition, but this man is no ivory tower preacher, no ivory tower academic. He’s a real world man, who gets down in the mud, wrestles, argues, debates in the bush, pubs, exploration camps, politicians offices, street corners, corporate headquarters, media, academics, anywhere. He’ll take on anyone anywhere. This man, Professor Ian Plimer has dismantled frauds wherever they appear. Welcome, Ian.  
 Well, thank you for having me, Malcolm.  
Malcolm Roberts:Always a pleasure, mate. I’ve known you for a few years now. I always start with something, and we’ll talk about the reasons for this later, what do you appreciate?  
Ian Plimer:Being alive. I’ve had many chances to die, but I think the devil has taken a good look at me and thought, “My God, the competition’s too great, so I’ll leave that one.”  
Malcolm Roberts:Right. Now, you are famous as a scientist, and as a speaker, and as a fighter for humanity. What is science?  
Ian Plimer:Science is married to evidence, and that evidence comes from experiment, it comes from observation, and it comes from calculation. It comes from, basically, collecting data. Now, that data, if it’s collected in Peru, or Poland, or Chad, or Canada, it makes no difference. It is data. And that data has to be reproducible. It has to be in accord with all other validated data.  
 And if it’s not in accord, then any conclusions based on the data are rejected. So science has a habit of rejecting old theories and building stronger, more valid theories. It is a way of understanding how the world works. And it is very much different from religion, which is an understanding of the world within, and science is an understanding of the world without.  
 And scientific ideas are always challenged. There is no such thing as consensus in science. There is no such thing as agreement in science. There are fads, and fashions, and fools, and frauds in science, the same as in any other area. And just because someone arrogantly struts around with a white lab coat, stroking their beard, and trying to look intelligent, doesn’t mean that what they’re promoting is correct.  
 Now, science is always changing, and so, to have a scientific concept wedded over time is non-scientific. And I argue that there are many things in today’s world that are not scientific.  
Malcolm Roberts:Well, Ian, fabulous discussion by the way. But perhaps we can bring it back to every-day lives these days, because a typical person today living on welfare, a welfare recipient … that’s not being denigrating, that’s someone saying is down on his luck at the moment, or her luck … a typical person on welfare today lives better than a king or queen did 200 years ago, longer lives, easier lives, healthier lives, safer lives, more comfortable lives, more entertaining lives, more diverse lives. Science gave us this, didn’t it?  
Ian Plimer:Yes. By every measure, we are living better than we did hundreds of years ago. The world’s gross domestic product and per capita GDP has gone up. The global population in absolute poverty’s gone down. The food supply has gone up. The tree cover’s gone up. The global urban population has gone up. Democracies, a number of democracies around the world has gone up. The deaths from natural disasters has gone down. And the list is a very, very long one.  
 We are living in far better times now than our great-grandparents did. And the reason for this is, that we’ve created potable water, we’ve created good sewage systems, we’ve created employment such that animals and humans don’t do the backbreaking work, that we have machines to do that now.  
 And so, we are living in an age where we have benefited from science … and you are an engineer, trained as an engineer … and from the application of science, which is engineering. And we are living in a far, far, better world than any generation has.  
 Now, we’ve had about 20,000 generations of humans on planet earth, and it is only the last four generations, where we’ve had an increase in longevity, and that is due to better science. But, not only medicine, due to the fundamentals by having a sewage system, by having drinking water that doesn’t kill you, these are the fundamentals.  
 And for people that moan and grown about how terrible the planet is, and how we’ve ruined it, should actually take a look at history. We have never, as humans, lived in better times, we’ve never eaten better, we’ve never had more shelter, we’ve never had more ability to travel. And that doesn’t matter, whether you live in Africa, or India, or the West, we are living in the best times ever to be a human.  
 And, yes, we have plenty of humans that need to be dragged up to the level that those in the West have, but the best way to get out of poverty is to get wealthy. And one of the ways of getting wealthy is to have a very cheap and reliable energy system. The West has done this, the UK, the U.S., and Europe have all gone from miserable poverty to living comfortable lives by having cheap reliable energy.  
Malcolm Roberts:So, science to me is something profound, something beautiful. It’s done, not only what you’ve just said in terms of our health and our opportunities, but it’s given us something even more fundamental, and that is freedom through objectivity. It is fundamental for freedom, isn’t it? Science.  
Ian Plimer:I think so. It provides you with the absolute tools that you need for freedom, and that is criticism, analysis, argument, and these must be unconstrained. And this doesn’t happen in some areas of science today. And we see that with the science on COVID, the science on climate. There is no freedom there. There is no ability to be able to express different views. That’s what we had in the past.  
 And we saw that with Lysenko, in Russia. Lysenko was a peasant. He managed to get into the establishment, and he established a concept called vernalization, and this is where seeds of plants must be persuaded to take on the communist characteristics, where they’re all equal.  
 And Stalin absolutely fell in love with this idea. The end result of that was that tens of millions of people died in famines. Those people who were engaged in genetics, those people who were engaged in trying to create better plant yields by using science were banished to the Gulags, some of them were killed. And this is a very good example of where science has not allowed freedom, where we’ve had one concept rule, and the end result was poverty, and tens of billions of people starving to death quite unnecessarily.  
Malcolm Roberts:I think we’re going for an ad break now, Professor Plimer, and we’ll be back in just a minute or so.  
Malcolm Roberts:This is Senator Malcolm Roberts, coming to you from Gold Coast in Queensland’s remarkable playground. And I have with me a special guest, Professor Ian Plimer.  
 Ian, science is more than just a word, it’s a process, a method, and as you’ve said, it never ends. We used to have science-driven policy, we now have, as you alluded to, policy-driven science, can you explain why that’s dangerous?  
Ian Plimer:Well, I think it’s extraordinary dangerous, because you do not get an independent conclusion on reality. And a lot of policy is driven by fairly young people in government offices who have gone straight from university into a government office, or into a union, or into a political office, and these people have absolutely no life experience.  
 And science is a constant questioning. Once you have a policy set in concrete, you are incapable of questioning it. The system doesn’t allow you to do it. And we have that with a couple of aspects in today’s modern world. So I very much reject the idea of policy-driven science. I would rather have facts, and I would rather have facts that are underpinned by the scientific method.  
 Now, policy-driven science is, in fact, having an opinion. I don’t have an opinion, I don’t have an opinion at all. I have facts. And if you want to challenge me on the facts, then we come to an argument about how we collected those facts, who collected those facts, where they were collected, what instruments were used, what was the order of accuracy? What corrections might have been used in collecting these facts.  
 So, I think we are facing fairly bad times when we are not looking at facts. When we have one group of people saying, “Oh, well you have your facts, and I have my facts.” I’m sorry, facts. There’s only one thing. It’s a fact. And that fact is reproducible. That fact can be validated. And if it’s not validated, then it gets thrown out. That is the basis of science.  
 And we have abandoned the scientific method in so many areas of our life. Medicine would be one of them, climate change would be another one of them. And if we had policy-driven engineering, you can imagine how many bridges would fall down, or how many aeroplanes  would crash. I mean, this is just absolute nuts.  
Malcolm Roberts:So you’re a scientist of the real world. Now, you are one of the most qualified scientists in the world. You’re esteemed. You’ve been given awards. You’ve been showered with praise for, not only your scientific integrity, but your guts, because you are a scientist who gets out in the pubs, and actually talks to people, listens to people. Above all, listens, because that’s another form of observation. You get into debates … you don’t hide from these things … you get into debates, where you flesh ideas out. What are your greatest qualifications, life qualifications, Ian?  
Ian Plimer:My greatest life qualifications is that I’ve worked underground. I absolutely love working in underground mines. And, there, you’ve got safety constantly in the forefront of your mind, but you are dealing with real people, and you can’t afford to be dealing with anything else. But, reality, when you are underground, these are real people, these people know how you convert a rock into money. It’s the same as if you’re on a farm, you’re converting soil into food or fibre. These are the real people. And I spent a lot of my time with real people.  
 Yes, I spent a lot of my life in the academic world, but that was also pretty uncomfortable because I was a square peg in a round hole. And none of the academics loved me, but the students absolutely loved me because I told it as it is.  
 So, when you’re underground, you’re in a totally different world. It’s a three-dimensional world. If you want to find some more oil, you have to use basic principle of physics, and chemistry, and geology. You have to understand how the rocks move. When you’re underground there’s always a bit of noise, the rocks are creaky and groaning. The miners say the rocks talk to you. So that was probably the greatest learning experience for me.  
 The other was working out in the bush and getting my hands dirty out in the deserts. And I have a great affinity for desert. I have a couple of places, houses out in the desert, and I absolutely love the desert. And this is unforgiving, if you make a mistake, you are dead. If you make a mistake underground, you are dead. If you make a mistake as a climate scientist, you get promoted.  
Malcolm Roberts:What an absolutely amazing explanation. And I share it with you, because when I graduated as a mining engineer with honours in 1976, I decided I better go and learn something. So I’ve worked as an underground coal miner and one open cut mine, but mainly underground around the country, mixing with people, learning about people, learning about underground.  
 And it is such a challenging place to be. It is such a wonderful teamwork environment to be. Surface mining, large open cuts, that’s just dirt shifting, Ian. We know that. But underground, that’s real mining.  
 And where did you learn to have your love of argument, because you just love argument. I’ve seen you run away from nothing. Why do you love an argument?  
Ian Plimer:Well, that, of course, goes right back to my childhood. I was always a little bit of a rebel with a number of things. I had relatives, and grandfathers, and great-grandfathers who were scientists, but also quite argumentative.  
 And my life was opened up when I was married, and my wife saw the potential, and gave me the freedom to argue and to fight. And this is how freedom, and argument, and science all come together.  
 Now, in terms of having debates, the one group of people who will not debate me are climate scientists. They will not debate me because I don’t use political policy, I don’t use opinion, I use facts. And you cannot get a climate scientist to stand up in public, and debate me, and then face questions after the debate. They will not do it. And I know why, because they are being funded to pursue the biggest scientific scam we’ve ever seen in the history of the planets.  
Malcolm Roberts:Correct. And I saw you and Viscount Monckton dismantle two members of the media in Brisbane several years ago. I think one of the poor fellows, Graham Readfearn, I think that was his name, just absolutely hopeless, you just tore him to shreds, so much so that his employer, The Courier-Mail, I think sacked him not long afterwards. Absolutely disgraceful presentation from him.  
Ian Plimer:But he’s still employed. He’s employed by The Guardian, and still writes the same codswallop that is going on with there. So there is the warning, no matter how hopeless you are, there is always something for you. And if you’re really hopeless, the left will look after you. If you’re absolutely extraordinarily unbelievably hopeless, the extreme left will look after you. And that’s what’s happened to Graham Readfearn.  
Malcolm Roberts:That’s absolutely so accurate, what you’ve just said. You have mentioned empirical evidence, the hard data, the observations, because your advice sometimes leads to the expenditure of billions of dollars, and your employers are not happy if it’s wasted. And you are held accountable because you’re working in industry, you’re working in academia, and you’re working in the community at large. You’ve worked in the global community.  
 What we’ve seen now is that science has been reduced to a label. It’s no longer a process, it’s no longer a methodology. It’s a label to justify policies that contradict hard data.  
Ian Plimer:Well, let me give an example. We have had trillions spent globally dealing with human-induced global warming. And what you do in science, is ask really simple questions. You don’t need to use nomenclature, you don’t need to use complex words, you don’t need to hide behind a lab coat and pretending you’re important. Just ask a simple question. And you’ve got to be polite. The simple question is, can you please show me that the human emissions of carbon dioxide drive global warming?  
 Now this has never been shown. You have pursued that in senate’s estimates committee meeting with Australia’s premier scientific organisation, the CSIRO.  
Malcolm Roberts:Premier?  
Ian Plimer:Well, they were ones-  
Malcolm Roberts:Bloody hopeless on climate, Professor Plimer.  
Ian Plimer:They were once a premier organisation in things like genetics, and wheat, and water, but they have now suffered from being woke, and they have suffered from being dragged into getting extra funding by following the climate line.  
 Now, that question, can you please show me that the human emissions of carbon dioxide drive global warming, it has never been answered. I have asked people who claim to be scientists, just give me half a dozen scientific papers showing that? I have asked journalists, can you please show me that? They can’t.  
 Now, of course, the next question is, if they could, you would then have to ask the next question. And 3% of all emissions of carbon dioxide are from humans, the other 90% is natural. And you then have to ask the next question, can you please show me why the 97% of natural emissions do not drive global warming? So it’s checkmate before the game even starts.  
 Now, these people who call themselves climate scientists, and these can vary from anything, from influencers, to lawyers, to sociologists, to historians, to mathematicians, and on we go, the whole basis of human-induced global warming has never been challenged. And as a result of that, we’ve had this massive waste of trillions of dollars.  
 Now, what flows on from that are these monstrosities like wind turbines. Now, to make a wind turbine, the amount of energy to make that is more than it will ever deliver in its workable life.  
 The second thing is, that the amount of carbon dioxide to make it and maintain it, is more than it will ever save. So why bother? And then when you’ve got these wind turbines, which have a fairly short life of about 15 years, they need to be disposed of after their working life.  
 And when you dispose of turbine blades, you start to contaminate the environment with some dreadful toxins. So you cannot claim that these burden, bat munching, scenery destroying monstrosities have anything to do with the environment. And the way to understand the way that climate industry works is follow the money. Just have a look at who is behind these wind turbines. If one country starts with C and finishes with A.  
 And then we look at the solar PV systems. Now these destroy huge amounts of [inaudible], and you have to clear a lot of [inaudible], that’s surely not environmental. To make them, again, use far more energy than they will ever release. They also emit, in the making of them, more carbon dioxide than they’ll ever save.  
 You can’t have solar power 24 hours a day. We can, but I’ll come to that in a second. When you dispose of those, you start to contaminate the environment with all sorts of toxins, of gallium, and germanium, and arsenic, and selenium, and tellurium. All the things that, of course, make your hair curl and kill you.  
 But just to show you what a scam, the whole business is, we have solar power generation in Spain at night. Now, the Spanish are absolutely wonderful, but to generate solar electricity at night? And you scratch yourself, and you think, well, how the hell do we do that?  
 The answer’s simple. In Spain, the solar panels are illuminated with floodlights from diesel generators because the subsidies are so great that they can make money out of generating solar power at night. And that demonstrates that we have got a total scam in solar and in wind power generation. Now that scam is coming towards the end of its subsidy life and solar and wind power don’t generate electricity. They generate subsidies.  
 And towards the end of the life, now the boys have got to think of something else. So they’re thinking of offshore wind, which is wonderful, you reduce the life of the equipment even more with the saline attack. You also now see people saying, “Hmm, I wonder if we can use this gas, hydrogen?”  
 Now people have tried to use hydrogen 100 years ago and it failed. It failed for three reasons. First, it’s super expensive. Secondly, there’re massive energy losses in making hydrogen, which doesn’t occur in large quantities naturally. And, thirdly, it has to be transported at -253 degrees Celsius and 700 times atmospheric pressure. Now, that is a bomb waiting to happen.  
 So the same people who are scamming on wind and solar, are the people now who are shifting into hydrogen saying, “Oh, we’ve got to try this wonderful new fuel.” Well, it has been tried and it has failed.  
 And in my latest book called Green Murder … and check it out on greenmurder.com … in my latest book, I go into all the details on this and other scams.  
 And this is how we’ve wasted trillions of dollars, and it’s been a slimy approach, every single person who’s paying an electricity bill gets a little slice taken off, and that goes to the scamsters. And this ends up in trillions of dollars in subsidies, trillions of dollars getting paid to people who are only interested in making money rather than providing long-term stable electricity.  
 And if it’s cheap, then it generates employment. And if you have employment generated, then you have less people on the dole queues. And if you have fewer people on the dole queues, then your economy thrives. It’s pretty simple. And we have been conned because we’re so wealthy, because we’re so comfortable, and people have said, “Oh, I can afford to pay a few more dollars because it makes me morally feel better.”  
 And in this book, Green Murder, I argue about the morality of The Green position. And I will give you just one or two examples. For example, if you are wanting to put in wind or solar, then the solar panels have a very good chance of being made by slave labour in China.  
 The wind companies and wind turbines are made by Chinese companies who are destroying the long-term, stable, cheap electricity, be that nuclear, be that coal, be that gas, be that hydro, and replacing it with what they call renewable energy, and I call it unreliable energy, because we once had cheap reliable energy. So there is a scam. And that is weakening the West, and it’s seriously weakening countries like the U.S., and the UK, and Germany.  
 And we can see now the disaster that has occurred in Germany. This is one of the G20 countries, yet we have people getting cut off from their power source because they can’t afford to pay the exorbitant prices. They are now going foraging in the forests to get wood, to keep themselves warm, and to cook. That’s in Germany.  
 In England, you have a choice, do I have a hot shower, or do I heat the house, or do I have a warm meal? I can’t have all three, I can only have one of them. That is a G20 country that’s committed suicide on this green murder path they’ve chosen.  
 And if you, as a wonderful Green, if you think, oh, I want to save the environment and drive an electric vehicle, well, start to look at the resources you use. We haven’t found them yet. And I’ve spent a lot of my time in exploration in a lot of countries, and we have not found the resources we need to put all of the U.S. hydrocarbon-driven vehicles off the road and have them as EVs. We haven’t found the resources. We haven’t got the copper, we haven’t got the lithium, we haven’t got the nickel, we haven’t got the cobalt.  
 But assume you are living in Los Angeles, and you want to be a moral virtue signaler, and get yourself an electric vehicle, well, you’re only constrained to the city, you can’t drive any further. You couldn’t drive to Nevada in an EV. You just couldn’t charge it up. And if you did, for a 500 mile trip, you’d have to stop 3 or 4 times to charge up the vehicle. It’s just totally ineffective.  
 But if you are going to moralise about driving electric vehicle, you have to ask a few questions. Where does the cobalt for your electric vehicle come from? About 80% of the world’s cobalt comes from the Congo, and it’s mined by Black slave children underground, in conditions that are extraordinary dangerous, and where there are toxins everywhere.  
 And if you want to claim that you are moral in driving electric vehicle, you also have to be aware that you are supporting Black child slave labour in the Congo. You can’t have it both ways.  
 So I argue that there is no science behind The Greens position on climate, and I argue that there’s no morality behind The Greens position on climate. You can’t have it both ways. And so, we have to, I think, be fairly blunt, and fairly robust when we argue with people who claim that they want to save the planet. What are they saving it from? Who are they saving it from? Follow the money and follow the morality causes.  
Malcolm Roberts:Ian, the fundamental thing, as I understand it, for driving human progress, there are eight of them. First of all, is freedom. That is determined by science because science gives us objectivity. The second one is rule of law. Third one is constitutional succession, so that we have a smooth ongoing form of government and elected democracy. The fourth one is secure property rights. The fifth one is cheap, abundant, affordable, electricity, or energy, both forms, hydrocarbon and electricity. The next one is family. A strong family network. The next one is honest money. And the last is, of the eight, that I carry around in my head, is, a fair, efficient, honest taxation system.  
 This climate scam, as you have talked about it so accurately, is an assault on every one of those eight fundamentals of human progress. In particular, what we’ve seen in the last 200 years, last 170 years, in particular, is a relentless reduction in electricity prices and energy prices, to the point where each reduction in real terms leads to an increase in productivity.  
 That was until about three decades ago, when the lunatics in the West fared by China, pumping wind and solar generators at us, have destroyed our electricity sector. Australia has gone from being the cheapest electricity in the world, to the most expensive. That means that we export our jobs to China, our future to China, our independence to China. We become dependent on China. Isn’t it a fundamental travesty against generations not yet born, to destroy our country’s manufacturing capability, to destroy our country’s economy, when the Chinese themselves are pumping out almost 10 times as much coal as we produce in total each year? This is insane.  
Ian Plimer:Well, there’s a couple of points here. We have a coal-rich country called India. And, yes, they have some rather shabby transport systems, but they have a lot of coal. And there has been a huge amount of pressure on India and on Africa not to have coal-fired power generation. And so, people live in huts, they burn dung, and twigs, and leaves for heating and for cooking. And, as a result, there’re millions of women and children, every year, die because of that form of energy. So the cheap electricity that people in Africa and India deserve is denied by moralising greens, who are actually killing people by their policies.  
 The second thing is that, I’m very pleased that countries like China have had the industrial revolution. The UK, the Europe, and the U.S. have had their industrial revolutions that brought people out of poverty, that enabled people to live longer, that gave a lot of meaningful work. It actually created all sorts of new jobs. China is undergoing that industrial revolution, and undergoing it very, very quickly. And, in China, we’ve probably had the greatest movement of people, and the greatest economic rise that the world has ever seen. And I think that’s fabulous for the average Chinese person.  
 But the greens tell us the downside is the pumping out of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Well, have I got news for you? We have had a slight increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 30 years. And satellite information is showing us that the planet has greened up. Our crops have become more prolific. Now, that’s partly due to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because carbon dioxide is plant food, but it’s partly due to better fertilisers, and better farming techniques. So we have very good evidence that carbon dioxide is good for you.  
 We have evidence from the Second World War, from the global financial crisis, and from the COVID crisis, when we’ve had a backwardation of economic activity, that we’ve had carbon dioxide continue to increase. So there’s been less carbon dioxide coming out of industry, yet we’ve had a global increase in carbon dioxide. And that’s telling us that the dominant source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is from degassing of the oceans, it’s not from industry, it’s not from human activities.  
 And, thirdly, in the geological past, we’ve had times when the atmospheric carbon dioxide was up to 100 times higher than now. And what did we have then? We didn’t have runaway global warming, we actually had ice ages. And six of the six ice ages, this planet has enjoyed, was started when we had more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than now. So you cannot ignore that huge body of evidence from the past telling us that in geological times, carbon dioxide was much, much higher, and we yet we had ice ages during these periods of high carbon dioxide.  
 And the fourth point is, ice core drilling, it’s shown on one scale that is a correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature. But when you look on a much closer scale, we see something that we all know from chemistry, but it tends to get ignored, and that is, that, when we have a natural warming event, anything from 650 to 1600 years later, we then have an increase in carbon dioxide. So it’s not that carbon dioxide drives the temperature increase, it’s the exact inverse, the temperature is actually driving a carbon dioxide increase.  
 And this is why I argue, that those who call themselves climate scientists are milking the taxpayer to keep themselves in a job because they’re in effect unemployable. And we are being frightened as humans to accept this concept that we are going to fry and die, yet we’ve had periods of time when it’s been much warmer, yet we’ve had periods of time we’ve had much higher carbon dioxide.  
 And just during the time when we humans, Homo sapiens, have been on the planet, we have experienced many periods of cooling in glaciation and warming in interglacial. And in the last 20,000 years, we have gone from the zenith of a glaciation, where most of the U.S., most of all of Canada, most of Northern Europe, and England were covered by ice. A lot of the southern hemisphere was covered by ice.  
 Those areas that weren’t covered by ice were deserts with howling winds, bring salt-laden air, and shifting sand dunes. And these are the great Loess plains of Asia. There’s a great sand dune country of inland Australia.  
 And we humans have endured that. And we came out of that great glaciation event about 12,000 years ago. And temperature increased, it then suddenly plummeted, and then went up again by about 15 degrees in about 10 years. Now that’s real global warming. Then it stayed static for a while, then it dropped again, then it went up again.  
 And then we had, what was called the Holocene optimum, from about 7,000 to 4,000 years ago. And it was a couple of degrees up to 5 degrees warmer then than now. Sea level was higher than now. And over the last 5,000 years, global temperature has been decreasing. We are coming out of the interglacial into the next inevitable glaciation. We’ve actually been cooling. But during that cooling period, we had warm spikes like the Roman Warming in the dark ages when it was cool. Then another warm spike in the mediaeval warming, then a cool period in the little ice age, and then the modern warming. And we’re coming out of that modern warming into another cool period.  
 So if you ignore the past, and if you ignore all the sciences that deal with the past, you can come up with an unvalidated idea that human emissions drive global warming. I say that is false. I say that the promotion of that is done by people who are modellers, who do not look at the science of the past. And we know, that from 30 years of models, not one of these models is in accord with what we measured over the last 30 years.  
 And if I have the choice as a scientist, between a model and a measurement, I will take a measurement any day because a model is a garbage in, garbage out process. And a model, basically doesn’t deal with the unknown unknowns, whereas measurement can be replicated measurement. We argue about the order of accuracy, but it’s still measurement. So, that’s the answer to your question. God knows what the question was.  
Malcolm Roberts:That was fabulous. I want to remind you of two recent episodes in human history. The first occurred in 2008, the global financial crisis. It led to a downturn around the world. Australia wasn’t hit because we were living off the Chinese minerals boom, but most of the world was hit. And it’s certainly a global recession, very severe recession.  
 So the actual use of hydrocarbon fuels, coal, oil, gas decreased in 2009 compared with 2008 in the recession. That meant there was less carbon dioxide produced in 2009 than in 2008. And yet, Professor Plimer, as you have so accurately stated, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued to increase.  
 Then we marched forward to 2020 when we had a global, almost a depression due to the COVID restrictions, the government imposed COVID restrictions, not due to COVID, due to government-imposed COVID restrictions. We saw, again, a reduction in the use of coal, oil, and gas compared with the previous year 2019, we saw a decrease in the human production of carbon dioxide, and yet the global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide continue to increase, which just shows two things.  
 First of all, we have no say in what is the level of global carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. None at all. We can gut our economy and it will have no effect on it whatsoever. So we can gut the West and let China keep producing carbon dioxide, let India keep producing carbon dioxide because they have a duty to their citizens to lift them out of poverty, and to give them the trappings of modern civilization, there’ll be nothing we can do. And besides that, carbon dioxide, as you’ve said, is a plant fertiliser it’s plant food. It is essential to all life on this planet, is it not?  
Ian Plimer:Yeah. Just to add to that, these two examples you gave are examples of the scientific method. We’ve had two great unintentional global experiments, global financial crisis, and COVID, and these were great global experiments. So it’s not that we’ve done the experiment once, we’ve actually replicated it. And in both cases, we have shown that human emissions of carbon dioxide do not drive global temperature. And in fact, global temperature depends upon whether you measure it on the ground, and if it’s measured on the ground, then what a wonderful opportunity you have to cook the books and change results. And that’s what happens almost universally with cooling the past and warmingly the present.  
 But when you look at the satellite measurements, and there are three basic sets of satellite data, it shows a very different story. So I would much prefer to have a uniform measurement at all altitudes around the whole planet that tell me about the temperature rather than having selected people entrusted with looking after a surface measurement, and then changing it over time. And as you mentioned, the Bureau of Meteorology has done that three times over the last nine years, which creates all sorts of uncertainty about whether they’re worth a million dollars a day.  
 So we’ve had these two great global experiments, which in my mind prove that human emissions of carbon dioxide did not drive global warming. So, why bother? Why bother? Why don’t we, as Western countries, say, we are very happy to look after our environment. And the only countries with good environmental policies preserving the environment [inaudible] have become wealthy due to the industrial revolution.  
 And this thing you can do for our environment [inaudible] what you consider is worth preserving. We should be very pleased China [inaudible] ahead and becoming a wealthy country. As a result, they will [inaudible] pollution. And I think China and India should [inaudible] people.  
Malcolm Roberts:What you’re saying, Professor Plimer, is that, we need to restore scientific integrity to protect freedom, to protect our natural and environment, because scientific development and understanding has enabled us to protect our natural environment.  
 Science also then is vital for sound sustainable policy, which impacts people’s economies, and lives, and livelihoods, and security. And it’s also to protect the human spirit by ending the unfounded climate fear and guilt while restoring our connection with nature.  
 Something I think is really important to human progress is strength of character. You display it in spades. Whenever you speak, you’re fearless, but you’re also passionate. Why are you so proud of being a human, and what traits in humanity, are of concern to you?  
Ian Plimer:You’ve asked me 17 questions there, so let me just comment on a couple of things. You spoke about protecting the environment. I’m a great supporter of that, because I’ve bought a considerable acreage of land to protect it. But I’m not conserving it, because how can you conserve the environment on a planet that’s dynamic and it’s always changing? So we can protect what we have and let nature do its bit.  
 In terms of fear, we, humans, are hardwired to fear that grizzly bear that’s behind you and is going to come and get you. We are hardwired to have an adrenaline rush to save ourselves. This is a fundamental trait of humans and of many, many other animals. So fear is still hardwired into our system. And the fear that has been induced in populations, by governments on matters such as COVID or climate, they have been exploiting that fundamental human characteristic of fear.  
 And in many cases, you fear because you do not understand. Science gives you a method of being able to understand. And if you can understand, then you are not nearly as fearful.  
 Now, I am very passionate because my early life I started being interested in the planet and geology, when I was about four. And I had some very good mentors, and I’ve been guided well through life. And I’m mentoring, I think 8 or 10 people now, giving back the same way it was given to me.  
 But if you can understand how the planet works, if you can understand the past, then this is far more exciting than-  
Malcolm Roberts:We’re going to have to call it off, Professor Plimer. This is Professor Ian Plimer, guest of Senator Malcolm Roberts.  
 

Part 2
 

Speaker 1:You’re with Senator Malcolm Roberts on today’s News Talk Radio TNT.  
Malcolm Roberts:Today’s News Talk Radio, TNT radio.live. This is Senator Malcolm Roberts from the Gold Coast broadcasting globally. Fresh from my COVID bed a week ago, I had COVID, now I have the world’s most powerful immunity, all natural. I want to call out to the people marching around our country today. And in fact, around the world for protesting or reinforcing freedom. I’ll see you in Maryborough tomorrow for the protest at Maryborough. And I look forward very much to being up in Maryborough. I want to express my condolences to the family of Meatloaf who died last night. He brings back very fond memories. I love his music, that the way he can go from something, belting something out to just something so soft and tender.  
 We have Australia Day coming up this Wednesday in our country, celebrating our national day. On the Mornington Peninsula, friends send me this: on the Mornington Peninsula this year, they have cancelled Australia Day celebrations, yet not cancelled Invasion Day celebrations. Invasion Day events are free for indigenous and $39 for a non-indigenous. See what people are doing? They’re setting up division. That’s quite often what’s happening around our planet. The globalists are pushing division.  
 Last hour, I had the honour of having professor Ian Plimer as my guest, a highly intelligent, very practical man. I, now introduce another highly intelligent, very practical man. John McRae, his voice is known all over Sydney, all over New South Wales, all over Australia. He’s even tied up Alan Jones in arguments at times. This man has got the knowledge about our country and about our potential and our history. I have enormous respect for John, his knowledge, his passion for Australia. His memory; it’s like an iron trap. I can remember meeting John for the first time around about 2011 and what a character.  
 He opened up to me Australia’s successful past in so many fields. His memory would just showered me in facts. He gave me an introduction to books from people like Anthony Sutton, who wrote three books about Wall Street and the damage that Wall Street does. Above all though, his diverse stories, his practical knowledge of factories in Sydney, banking, his knowledge of farming, his knowledge of our history, his knowledge and introduction to people like Graham Strachan, who has done so much to publicise what the globalists are trying to do to our country to destroy it. He’s made public presentations informing residents across New South Wales. He’s worked in so many diverse industries. He shares with me a time and working as an underground coal miner. John, welcome to the show.  
John McRae:Thank you very much, Malcolm.  
Malcolm Roberts:Mate, first simple question. [crosstalk] First simple question for you, John, what do you appreciate?  
John McRae:I appreciate what you’ve just done. One thing, what you’ve just done a moment ago, having that brilliant man on radio, expanding the truth, the fact and the science, as opposed to the lies and the deceit that we are being fed from parliament and from so-called academics that are on the gravy train payroll. And he exploded all their theories and I enjoyed it immensely. I should have been brushing up with my own memory, but I enjoyed it. You’ve got to get him back on. You’ve got to advertise it, that he’s on there, so people can get the truth.  
Malcolm Roberts:John, you’ve always been pushing the truth. You just like professor Ian Plimer. You never run away from an argument. You know how to deal with people because you apply same basic strategy that Ian does. You use facts and data. Could you tell us something about past accomplishments? I’m thinking particularly about the Kalgoorlie pipeline and look, mate, we know that sometimes Sydney Radio tries to shut you down because you’re just too good for them. I want you to talk. I want you to spill the goods on this country. So, just do what you’re doing. Just tell it as it is. Away you go, mate.  
John McRae:You want to know about the pipeline from Perth to Kalgoorlie?  
Malcolm Roberts:Yes.  
John McRae:Firstly, I’ll say this. Australia is the richest country in the world with 75 of the 77 minerals our world requires we’ve got them in abundance, but we’ve a crazy wombats running the joint. The Perth to Kalgoorlie pipeline exemplified that. 1896 to 1903, it is still regarded as the greatest hydraulic achievement ever in the world. They pump water from Perth to Coolgardie originally, because a bloke, they found gold at Coolgardie, but then Patty Henon found it in 1892 at Kalgoorlie. And that started the gold rush. And people came from everywhere to get money out of the gold rush and people were dying because they had no water and things like that. So, they were condensing water and it’s replication of what’s happening in Australia today, the money people started condensing water to supply the people at the goldfield, but it was wasn’t enough because it needs a thousand gallons of water to refine one tonne of ore.  
 So, they were opposing the pipeline, the men that come up with this idea , John Forest. So John Forest was the premier and he borrowed money from England, 2,500 Pound… 2,500,000 Pound. Now remember that figure because I’m going to give you a figure later on as we go, that’ll shock you. And they got Alberton O’Connor to do it. He was an Irish engineer and they brought him over to do the railway lines. And they said, “We need water.” Now you’ve got to get over the Flinders Ranges into Barron land desert, but it’s not desert. It’s rich, red basalt soil. Let’s say you’re up in Queensland, you’ve got black basalt soil, that’s the indication of the volcanic reaction and the formation of Australia.  
 He then put together some smart people. This is 1896. It’s got to go 500 kilometres and the first pump up was 390 metres. In actual fact, Kalgoorlie is about four or 500 feet higher than Perth. So it’s going to be pumped all the way over the Flinders Ranges. 3000 people worked on it. Population of Australia was about four and a half, 5 million. So they had 70,000 plates of steel was imported from England and Germany, but what he had to do was build the harbour first to get the ships, in the sailing ships and the steam ships with all the supplies, then he had to design and build the dam, then they had to manufacture the pipes. Then they had to get the pipes from Perth all the way to Coolgardie. But then they found out that they can go to Kalgoorlie, and this whole pipeline was built on budget and on time. So away they go. It all has to be done by man, pick and shovel, horse and cart and camel train.  
 Now, the dam has to be built first and completed first before the rest of the pipeline is completed and the pumping stations and everything. 5,000 boxes of pump parts came out in containers and had to be built along the way. The pipe were built in two halves, 180 degrees, you know a full pipe and cut in the middle, you’ve got two pipes. They had to be sealed. And that’s where the Australian inventor started.  
 They invented the ceiling sleeve that goes along it. Then you’ve got to seal it. There’s no welding back then, only rivets. But this is what people got and said, “No rivets, no welding, no dynamite, only black powder. And you’ve got to build a dam, extract rocks out and everything else.” So they’ve got to make these ceiling machines, make this sleeve.  
 Three Australian… Me and Ferguson, Hodson, and a fellow from Sydney called John Hoskins, the start of the steel mills in Australia. The first steel plates of steel were built down in Murgon, there’s a park built there, Fitzroy Park. That’s where Fitzroy Steel started. He made the first plate steels in Australia and the first piece of plate of stainless steel. They got together and invented how to bend the steel by making the pipes. They had this steel bending machine and they redesigned it. They were making the pipes in the finish in 11 minutes, put the ceiling sleeve on it, it was sealed by lint and rope. And blacksmiths had to make the ceiling rings. They tested them between 320 and 400 pound PSI. The pipes were 23 foot long and 3 feet in diameter. Now that’s the pipe bit going.  
Malcolm Roberts:Excuse me, John. Excuse me, excuse me, John. What you’re really saying there, and I want you to get back to your story as quickly as possible, but what you’re really saying is that they started this project with a vision and with no understanding of how to do some of the details? They relied upon their intuition to come up with solutions and dammit, they did.  
John McRae:They did. They did. Hey, hey, listen, in the overall scheme of things, what I’m about to tell you about doing the dam, that they’d nearly pile into insignificance. So, they’re going to build the dam, they’ve got to build the dam. In the meantime, everyone’s against him because of the sale of the water. Now, there was two senators in the government, on the 26th of the 6th, 1898, G. T. Simpson said, “It is the height of madness to mortgage the future of our state with two and a half million Pound for just one silly project. The gold will run out and we’ve wasted all the money.” And Alberton O’Connor said, “This is rich fertile soil. So who’d want to go there?” The next bloke Wilson said the same thing. No government can justify pledging so much money to plunges into debt, for this.  
 So, they’re going to build the dam. So this is all done with pick and shovel. So they’re building the dam, and when they’re building the dam, they run into what they call a floater. Now, when you get the sandstone bedrock, that’s where you start your foundations. You can’t be on slippery, shifty ground or shifty… They’ve got to get this grounded boulder out. They had to dig down 90 feet further than the original depth. 90 feet hand, pick and shovel, hand drills, and everything else. Out they came again, stopped the project. “This bloke’s an imbecile. You can’t have this going on. It’s going to be further behind time. We’ll never get the job done, or anything else.”  
 What did he come up with? He’d come up with a carbon arc light. That’s the same as what you do with the search light, carbon arc. He rigged it all up. They worked 24-7. I’ve got photos of the vicarious stuff out, how they did it. They dug that granite out. I’ve sent you a photo of them down in the hole. You can hardly see the blokes down in the hole.  
Malcolm Roberts:Yeah.  
John McRae:Nd there’s no shoring up between the granite sandstone that they dug down. They extracted the granite boulder out, crushed it all up, reintroduced it back as the foundation with the carbon arc. How’s that for ingenious? How is that?  
Malcolm Roberts:Mm.  
John McRae:There’s no electricity over there, no Boeings to get an extension cable and a generator. None of them existed. And they got it back on time. They worked 24-7, and that’s what they did. If he hadn’t done that, they raised a dam wall, remind me to tell you about how they raise a dam wall. So, that dam had to be built, that pumping station had to be built because where the dam is, is 24 kilometres away from Perth, where they’ve got to pump the first pump over the Flinders Ranges. So there’s two pumps there at the dam to go to the pump at Perth, the reservoir in Perth to pump it.  
 Then they’ve got to get all the pipeline going. Then the first lot of pipes that were delivered, were delivered by horse and cart and camel trains. Then he built the railway line and then they could go on the railway. Now they had to… There’s an invention, how he got the rock out. He built a ramp for a steam shovel. You wouldn’t pass his test today because they’d say it would fall in, but they did it. No dynamite, no dynamite. I know they had black powder then, but I don’t know how they would… There would’ve been hand drill, one bloke held the drill and wriggle it, another bloke banged with the sledgehammer, they dug it out.  
Malcolm Roberts:So let me just reframe this for people who’ve just joined us, this is in the days of horses and carts, camels, predated the railway to some extent in some areas. And it was the man who proposed it was vilified for his 2,500 Pound investment. Are you going to tell us about the success of this investment?  
John McRae:Well, the 2,500,000 Pound, it was built in… This only took six years with no machinery. What do you think we could do today? What do you think we could do? We could do it overnight with the will of Australians, because they had the will do, can do and want to. The 2,500 million Pound they borrowed, three years after it was finished, the goldfields, the water, they made 25 million Pound.  
Malcolm Roberts:So that’s 10 times as much. So not only that, John and I’m talking with John McRae here from, used to be Sydney, now it’s central New South Wales Coast. They opened up the gold mining, which continues to this day in one of the richest gold mining areas in the world-  
John McRae:Recognised the biggest goldfield in the world, and it opened up the whole mining industry of this country that we’ve benefited by for all those years. And we still are, but we’re not getting the value that we should have, as Ian Plimer has just told you, we’re not getting the value, we just kept holding our arms up and let them rape us for our money.  
Malcolm Roberts:Didn’t they also open up a farming area?  
John McRae:Oh, there’s 8,000 kilometres now a pipe, 8 million acres of cropping land, sheep and wheat and everything else. And when the English migrants came out here, they put it on the share market and there was a stampede to get shares in this joint and Kalgoorlie mine and everything else. The English migrants come in, they said, “You could grow anything here.” They’ve grown vegetables, everything, everything there.  
Malcolm Roberts:So, so let’s-  
John McRae:You only need heat and water. That’s all Australia needs, water and electricity as we were supplying the whole world commodities, the whole world.  
Malcolm Roberts:Thank you. Thank you, because energy is the key to productivity, which is the key to prosperity, which is the key to wealth generation for everyone in the country. And what we are doing, we’re destroying our energy. But listen to some of these figures, I’ll go through them again. I noted them as you were talking. John McRae, the initial cost was 2,500,000 Pounds.  
John McRae:Yes.  
Malcolm Roberts:Within two years, it was 10 times that much paid back.  
John McRae:Yeah. Because you have just identified the component that we need was energy and water is energy because their whole body is 82% of water.  
Malcolm Roberts:Yeah.  
John McRae:So don’t worry about the water out in the grass. The water in your own body is 82% to give you the energy. So all these wombats that are running around, talking about climate and everything else that the climates just destroyed, they better go back and read this. It’s not very hard to read. I’ve never been to university, but I can read. And most people can read. Don’t listen to the crap they’re telling you. And when they start telling you all this say, “Don’t tell me, show me.” And they can’t.  
Malcolm Roberts:No, they can’t. And we’ve had that repeatedly. Now in addition, they had to lift that water 390 metres to get it over the range. [crosstalk] They then had to continue pumping it uphill for 500 kilometres to Kalgoorlie. I mean, this is in 1896 with no machinery. No machinery. And we can’t even do that now. This would be, with the technology we’ve got these days, John, that would be so easy. Why can’t we do it?  
John McRae:Oh, oh, look, look, Malcolm. It is equivalent to you driving around T Model Ford as opposed to a Mercedes-Benz. That’s the advancement. But what Malcolm, I failed to tell you one thing, there was eight pumping stations and it relied on the push-and-pull system. The same as the sewage does. So sewage is not done with pumping, it’s done with suction. So to get to the first reservoir and they held about a hundred thousand gallons, I think. And then it might go downhill to the next bit, now it’s got to be pumped up to the next reservoir. It’s got to go over the Flinders Ranges. If you see the Flinders, it’s more up and downhills than what the Luna park Ferris Wheel is.  
 And they had to do that. They pumped it. There was pumping stations all along, they had to build pumping stations. They had to build schools. They had to build hospitals. They had to have nurses and everything else going along there. And all the people in the town that were getting money out of this water condensers, they were jumping up and down because they’ve lost their gold mine. Their gold mine was water. They were more interested in water than gold.  
Malcolm Roberts:They wanted to preserve their monopoly rather and open up the country for Australians.  
John McRae:Of course.  
Malcolm Roberts:Yes.  
John McRae:Same thing. What do you think they do with the Murray–Darling water now? Same thing. It’s superannuation for the fire brigade, superannuation fund in New York and a massive amount of water rise. Who did they get the water off in the first place to sell to?  
Malcolm Roberts:John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull and John Anderson.  
John McRae:Yeah but they’re about as helpful as ashtray on a camel.  
Malcolm Roberts:Yeah. Water Act of 2007, thanks to Malcolm Turnbull, John Howard and John Anderson. And we’re still crippling.  
John McRae:And under our constitution, no one is to be denied water. And that’s what the thing should be taught in the school, our constitution and our rights, our civil rights and what you’ve just been speaking about, it’s music to my ears.  
Malcolm Roberts:John, John, you’ve always impressed me with your knowledge, your depth and your passion for this country. You’ve also struck me, I mean, you’re not a technically educated man. You’ve got a trade certificate. There’s no doubt about that. But you’ve read widely. Where did this love of humanity, this inquisitiveness, where did it come from? Was it your mother? Was it something happen in Kids?  
John McRae:It was my mother. Malcolm, what happened to me when I was little, I got polio and I was crippled. And you are ostracised by society back then, this was in 1948, 49. People didn’t want know you, even my own cousins were not told I had polio because people think you could catch it. You can’t catch it. You can breathe on, you do what you like. You’ve got to ingest it. And it comes from poor hygiene, exactly what Ian Plimer was talking about, poor hygiene. You got to lift people out, give them water and lack of water and end and lift them out of their hygiene standard and their living standard. Look, they are saying, pulling hands and juices a lot of times teach. Give a man to feed of fish today, he eats it. Teach him how to fish and he’ll feed himself for life. Now that’s what you’ve got to do.  
 We’ve got to get the hygiene and everything. Anyway, what happened after that? I crippled up and they operated on me, but I had the most beautiful mother that anyone could ever have. She was talented and not only talented, she was a good looker. Fair Dingham, she looked like, it’s either Susan Hayward or Vivien Lee, one of them, she looked like a one of them. She was a concert pianist, dress maker and milliner, and then become a psychologist. And I went to a lot of her, I was in lucky, I went there. But anyway, one of my grandfather’s best friends was Sir William McKell, the Governor-General. The man that got us-  
Malcolm Roberts:Tell me about that because you have a lot of respect for McKell, why?  
John McRae:Oh, it’s unbelievable, man. Unbelievable. He started off as a five and six fiddly a week boiler maker because his dad, they come from down the South Coast and he was a butcher and his dad died. They lived at Redfin and he detested people calling Redfin congested areas-  
Malcolm Roberts:John, I just want to point out, we’re going to an ad break fairly soon. So I might have to cut you off suddenly, but we’ll come back if I do, so please continue.  
John McRae:That’s okay. That’s okay.  
Malcolm Roberts:Please continue.  
John McRae:Anyway, he started off as a five and six fiddly boilermaker of Maud Stock. That was the place where they first shipped the fresh meat, the over frozen meat to England. Then he went to Eveleigh Workshops. He educated himself. Then he went and become a lawyer. Then he got into local government, then a pilot, and he became the premier of New South Wales. And he was the instigator through with Chifley and Kurton to get the Snowy Mountain Scheme going. But that person they think was a great bloke, Menzies was verdantly against it because he wanted to, I don’t know what he wanted to do, but he just didn’t want to do that because he said, “You’re going to deny people of water in Victoria, South Australia.” He said, “No, they’ll get more water.” He said, “Well, I’m going to stop you with The Constitution.” And McKell said, “Well, you do your best because I’m going to invoke the Emergency Powers Act and see how you travel with that.” He’s a fellow that explained a lot to me, and he explained the Taxation Act to me and things like that. But he-  
Malcolm Roberts:So, McKell did this for you?  
John McRae:Yes.  
Malcolm Roberts:Wow, wow.  
John McRae:Just after I left school-  
Malcolm Roberts:What a blessing.  
John McRae:In 1953, that Tax Act that was after Robert Menzies introduced that, and I asked him about the Snowy Mountain Scheme, and he was good enough… He got me an introduction to Sir William Hudson, the engineer. What a genius, what a genius. We had Alberton O’Connor, but what people have got to understand, all that project over in Western Australia, all the knowledge and empirical knowledge and-  
Malcolm Roberts:Okay, John, we’re going to go to an ad break. We’ll be back straight after to hear this continuation of your story. Thank you.  
Speaker 4:If it feels like it’s hot enough to fry an egg on a sidewalk, it probably is. When it’s 86 degrees outside, asphalt can reach a sizzling 135 degrees. Hot enough to cook an egg and your dog’s feet. Be safe. Test the sidewalk with your hand. Avoid midday walks and walk in the grass. Bring along water and rest in the shade at the first signs of heat exhaustion, including heavy panting and stumbling. Go to peta.org for help and information on how to keep your dog safe in hot weather.  
Speaker 5:Good day. Fast Ed here. As a chef, you know what I hear a lot? Wow. That smells really good. Is it done yet? For certain foods it’s important to cook properly rather than how they look or smell. Those foods include hamburgers, sausages, chicken, and leftovers. The rule of thumb is pretty simple: cook those foods to 75 degrees Celsius. Listen, I’m no Einstein, so I use a food thermometer and I reckon you should too. That way you’ll know it’s done without guessing. And no one will get sick.  
Speaker 6:A message from the Food Safety Information Council.  
Speaker 7:The bush fire was so unpredictable. It was important to have a plan.  
Speaker 8:[crosstalk] We stayed up to today with our phones and the radio. We knew it was coming.  
Speaker 9:I never thought it would actually happen. I’m glad we had a plan.  
Speaker 10:You have to prepare your property and your family.  
Speaker 11:And there was nothing we could do. [crosstalk]  
Speaker 13:Hence, why I always had a plan.  
Speaker 14:We can all be bushfire ready. Do a five minute Bush fire plan today.  
Speaker 15:Unlike other health concerns, mental illness is not always easy to see. Depression won’t show up on an eye chart and you won’t find PTSD by looking at a thermometer. Sorting out a mental health concern takes professional diagnosis and treatment. Anxiety won’t just go away under a bandage. If you or a loved one has a mental health concern, call 1-8-0-0-6-6-2 HELP for free and confidential information and treatment referral. Learn more samhsa.gov/support.  
Speaker 1:Today’s News Talk Radio TNT.  
Malcolm Roberts:Today’s News Talk Radio, TNT radio.live. And I’ve got a special guest with me, John McRae. John, continue please with McKell.  
John McRae:Okay. I’ll finish that brief thing with McKell because I’ve got to give you some more information on that pipeline. And I was, speak to McKell about politics and everything else and different things had happened. And he explained to me how we were the supplier for the world, which I knew, after the war because I was aware of it, and the great farmers and the great things we’ve done. Then I learned a little bit about the pipeline. He invigorated that in me. Now, and I spoke politics to him. He gave me forecasts of politics. Malcolm, in this pipeline, there was 60,000 joints they had to seal. 60,000, and there was 63,000 pipes and they had to be done, it had to be sealed with cork, with lead and rope, and they invented a corking machine and that invention, this sleeve situation and they couldn’t be done without blacksmiths because blacksmiths used to make this shrink seal that pulled the pipes together onto these two ceiling sleeves.  
 Remember the pipes are 23 feet long anda metre in diameter, three feet. And they had to be all man handled. And they made this with pipe, this steel bending machine, they got one and modified it. They made the sleeve machine. Then they tested them. It’s between 320 and 400 pound PSI. I don’t know how they did that. I’ve lost that documentation. Off they went. Then what was happening, they started the belly ache because when they started to do them by hand, by 1901 they’d only done 90 miles. And oh, it’s going to fail. It’s going to fail. It’s going to fail. Then the three engineers that I told you about, me and Ferguson, Hodson, and another fellow, can’t remember his name, Stuart Sternum, some name like that. And Hoskins, they come up with this ceiling machine. Well, they could do 30 joints a day then. Why, it went like a rocket. Off they went.  
Malcolm Roberts:So John, this remarkable pipeline from Perth to Kalgoorlie basically opened up the west, developed so much for the country as well in terms of our steel industry, the technology we use. But ultimately, there was another dam project, the Snowy Mountain Scheme, which was more than one dam, wasn’t it?  
John McRae:Oh, yes.  
Malcolm Roberts:And McKell saved that from being cancelled by Menzies. Is that what you were saying?  
John McRae:Yes. Yes. What happened, Menzies was against it. Chifley was the prime minister and he gave, well, New South Wales has got snowy mountains in New South Wales, but the Murray, the Snowy river and that filters into Victoria and into South Australia. And they thought it was going to cripple their water supply. And he guaranteed they wouldn’t. And Menzies said, “Fight him on the constitution,” I think section 101 or 190, how no one is to be denied water. He said, “Well, I’ll take you on and I’ll invoke the Emergency Powers Act and you won’t beat me.” And McKell is there, you can see photos of when they first started, he pushes the detonator to do the first blast.  
 He was Governor-General then. He was so brilliant as a Governor-General, he was a labour appointee. When he was appointed Governor-General, by the Labour Party, when Menzies won the election 49, it was a stitch up job that. He still retained him. Then he was going to retire and Menzies said, “You can’t retire. I need you.” This is a bloke that’s fought him in the first place, then he admires him in the second place, because he could see at the end of the section, I’m going to get the brownie points for finishing this job.  
Malcolm Roberts:So, Menzies could take credit?  
John McRae:So Menzies could take credit, but initially he’s against it. There was a big strike there once. I’ll also tell you about Sir William Hudson and what a visionary, he was like that Ian Plimer, like that, and they shut the joint down. So William Hudson went to where the strike was and said, “What’s going on here?” And it’s all up, all hell has broke loose. They said, “The moots blown,” and everything else. And he said, “This place should have fly screens and they’re contesting. Why hasn’t that been done?” That was an interference from parliament. We won’t go into that. You can work out where it had come from.  
 He said, “Get the carpenters wherever they are, the air conditioner. I want it all done immediately, right now. Get them all.” Wherever he was, he went there. “You won’t be docked for your day off. You’ll still be paid. Go back to work.” Menzies told him and he said, “I never want you to do that again.” He said, “Otherwise, I’ll take your commission off you,” because he said, “I’ve got to beat the unions. I’ll get too strong. And I’ll lose the election.” See? Money again.  
Malcolm Roberts:Whereas Hudson, what he wanted to do was fix the workers problems so they just get back to work productively.  
John McRae:Yes, and they did. And by the way, all the big mob come out from America, Utah Mining, and all that. And the other mob and from England and everything else. And they thought we rode kangaroos and all this business here, and we have no chance on doing tunnelling and all this has never been done in Australia before. Four blokes come down from Queensland, their name was Feis. They broke all the tunnelling records and they built 25% of the Snowy, they built the largest earth and rock fill dam ever.  
Malcolm Roberts:And they said it was impossible to build an earth and filled dam that big. And yet they did it.  
John McRae:They did it. It was all done. This is Australian initiative. Look, I could go on for hours with what Australia’s done with inventions and how it’s benefited the world.  
Malcolm Roberts:Tell us about a few.  
John McRae:That is the hardest concrete in the world down there, Malcolm. The hardest. And I said to William Hudson, I was fortunate enough to meet him. A lot of people can meet him, when they had tools, you could go and talk to him. He said, “It was pretty simple. We had the best people.” And I said, “But how did you work out the mixtures?” Because if they had to make their own sand. Now, that sounds funny, doesn’t it? They had to make their own sand. Now, I’ll tell you how they did it. They got sandstone and you grind it up. But in sandstone, there’s impurities like silica and mud and you can’t mix with it because it goes like jelly.  
 So that had to be extracted, which they did. I don’t know how they did it, but they did it. And then they’d have to be mixed. Now, when they were mixing it, they mixed it with hot ice and ice. And they put other additives in it. But the granite and stuff they used there, they worked out what aggregate would be the best. And that’s how they did the formula, working out the earth and rock fill dam and that concrete is the hardest concrete in the world and it made Australia world leaders in concrete and highway engineering and things we’ve done with highway engineering and concrete lead the world.  
 I ask people, “Where’s the largest concrete span bridge in the world?” Because they got all the information from the Snowy, how they mix concrete. 25 countries, they tell you. I said, “You don’t even might know what you’re talking about. It’s in Sydney, called the Gladesville Bridge.” At that time it was built, it was the largest concrete span bridge, reason being, they got empirical knowledge and statistic and science from the Snowy, which they got when they did the Perth to Kalgoorlie pipeline doing the… So, it keeps revolving along, Malcolm.  
Malcolm Roberts:Can I share a story with you, John? I’m reluctant to interrupt you because you’ve just got so much. But when I was in America, I travelled through all 50 states. I was fascinated by the country and I came across a story about the development of their early space exploration. And John Kennedy had just become the president in 1960. And he commissioned NASA to do a study on the chances of getting a man to the moon and back safely by the end of the decade. In other words, by 1969. And I’ll always remember this, I bought a poster of it. It’s in every office I’ve ever worked in. I carry it with me. The result from NASA’s assessment of the possibility of getting a man on the moon and back again within nine years, wasn’t yes, it wasn’t no, it was these words: We have a sporting chance. And with that, and I’m getting a little bit teary here, John F. Kennedy said, “We go to the moon.”  
 And then you think about the technology that’s come out of that from electronic ignitions, from medicine-  
John McRae:Everything.  
Malcolm Roberts:So many things, even Velcro. I mean, so many things.  
John McRae:Yeah.  
Malcolm Roberts:And what you are saying to me, John, is that we had people like John F. Kennedy in this country who had vision, people like McKell, people like Connor. And they said, “Get out of my way and let me get on with the job.” And as a result of that, they had so much technology developed in this country that then gave us our steel industry, our concrete industry, so many opportunities and what we’ve got now, we’ve got this whole thing smashed.  
John McRae:Well, the reason being is because people haven’t had the privilege that I’ve had or ignorant and don’t want to do it. See, when I wasn’t allowed to go to school or to go to the pictures.  
Malcolm Roberts:Oh, that’s right. You had polio with your mother. Yes.  
John McRae:I went to older people and I’d ask questions and that’s what I do all my life, ask questions.  
Malcolm Roberts:Can I just interrupt there for a minute? Just want to interrupt there. I want to just tell the listeners here while they’re sitting at home or in their cars or at the picnic, wherever they are, that John is not exaggerating a bit here. I’ve watched this man. He treats people with enormous respect. If he disagrees, he’ll let you know. But he walks up to people and he takes an engaging interest. Doesn’t sacrifice his principles, his morals. He just takes an imbibing interest and people share things with John. That’s why he’s become such a magnet for facts and data. Keep going, John. I just had to share that with you. You’re you’re so impressive, the way you deal with people.  
John McRae:So I would go and ask him things. And everyone used to say to me, “John, look after your pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.” And the director of one of joints, the directors at the glassworks in Sydney, it’s Sydney in Maude Park, largest glassworks in the Southern hemisphere. He said, “Never denounce anyone.” Even the bloke sweeping the street can give you information and tell you something that you don’t know. And I’ve lived by that. When I was growing up, I’d go into engineering, “Why do you do this? Why do you do that?” I was taught how to read a micrometre at the age of 11. By 13 or 14, I knew how to do dynamic balancing. My mate’s father was an engineer, I’ll tell you his name. And-  
Malcolm Roberts:Dynamic balancing of wheels?  
John McRae:I beg your pardon?  
Malcolm Roberts:Dynamic balancing of wheels, lathes?  
John McRae:That’s nothing. Wheels are nothing. No armatures in motors and things like that.  
Malcolm Roberts:Right, thank you. So complex stuff by the time. So complex stuff by the time you were 13?  
John McRae:Yeah, I could work lathes and everything. I helped the bloke build a speedway engine. At 14, I did all the rough turning and I used to, I asked questions, if I go somewhere… Look, this is off the track. I went down to Stéphanoise and I used to go to Shepherd a lot. And I went to visit, [inaudible] They lovely people, these Italians. And they’d telling me different things. They going over the machines, breaking down. I invented this machine that could extract eight types of oil out of the apricot kernel, eight types of oil and one oil can harness one type of cancer a bit.  
 Guess what happened? John Howard sold it to Pakistan. So, we invented this machine. You should have seen it. Unbelievable. So they’re the sort of things, and I’d say, Charlie Bennett taught us dynamic balancing, when you’re balancing an armature… See I’m going from subject to subject.  
 When you’re balancing armature, if you turn it over and balance one end and then balance the other, it’s out of balance again, because you’ve got to keep the harmonics in unison. No one was doing dynamic balancing this way. He invented a machine that could balance the armature at both ends at the one time. And he balanced thousands. And he did it for the army, the Navy, the Heart Research and everything. We learned all that.  
 The rolls in the paper mills, in the newspaper bill, they get out about… He rectified that for them. How does that work, Charlie? How does this work? I worked on overhead valve at T Model Ford Motors. How does this work? How does that work? How does something else work? And I that’s how I got knowledge, but I’ve been blessed with a memory and I’ve been told that come from polio, but I was blessed with the encouragement of my mother.  
 My father was a violent, alcoholic gambler, so that didn’t give me much of an opportunity in life. So, that’s how I’ve learned things. And I appreciate, and when I see someone like Ian Plimer, I pull him up and I’d ask him a heap of questions. And that had enhanced my knowledge. And that’s what people have got to, interaction. From interaction, you get reaction. From reaction, you get action. And that’s what we’ve got to get. And we’ve got all the knowledge in this country here. I could name a few of the great Australians, what they’ve done, that settled the world on their heels. They couldn’t believe it. And then the medical inventions that we’ve had here. Hugh Victor McKay invented the wheat stripper with Headlie Taylor, feed the world, everything. I could just rattle them all off for you. And I knew Jack Brabham and I’ve even got a photo of myself sitting in the car. And that was a handmade motor in his car.  
Malcolm Roberts:Tell us, tell us more about Brabham because the likes of him has never been seen before and probably will never be seen in motor sport.  
John McRae:Never, never, never. There’s been no one ever. No one ever won the World Driver’s Championship and the Manufacturer’s Championship. In the car they helped build, mate, designed himself and raced himself. Now you’ve got to take into consideration, Australia back then, we were only making the whole motor car. So we’ve got to go up against the world of finesse, Mercedes, Maserati, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Audi, Jaguar, Honda, Lago-Talbot, Elvis, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Renault, Citroen, Peugeot, all European. And how do they get their success? On Grand Prix racing. And they built on that Ferrari win. Michael Schumacher and Pangio, driving the 250F Maserati that Pangio drove and everything like that.  
Malcolm Roberts:So, Brabham’s up against the world?  
John McRae:He’s up against it. And they said, “Where did this billy cart come from? From Australia? It’s got a V8 motor. Where does this the local yokel come from?” The same bloke went to American in Indianapolis with a car under powered and showed him a new trick over there with a rear engine car. They’ve never seen a rear engine car before. And it was underpowered and still finished ninth. Other blokes with their big Offenhausers and everything else. Going back to that motor, when he started in the Speedway, Offenhauser was built especially for… That was a racing engine, especially for the Indianapolis. And they built a smaller motor for Speedway. Now, the Americans come out here with the most beautiful looking cars you’d ever see because all our cars were made out of junkyards and bits and pieces.  
 And this car of his was a little, air cooled motor, a Harley Davidson crank case off a motor bike and you build the rest yourself and it beat the Offenhausers. With that technology and his driving ability, he then transferred that into his car racing thing and with the help of the two Australians, Ozzy and Ronnie [Toranecko] another bloke, Ronnie Ward and Repco of Australia. They designed the engine off the 308 Holden Motor aluminium, designed their own heads and everything else. What did he do? Blew them to pieces. And they said it could never be done. Same as Ken Warby. They said they’ll never, never-.  
Malcolm Roberts:So, who was Ken Warby? [crosstalk] Ken Warby’s World Water Speed Record.  
John McRae:Yeah, 1977. It hasn’t been broken ever since.  
Malcolm Roberts:So, so the World Water Speed Record still stands and it’s held by an Australian?  
John McRae:Yes. And he put the first wind curl on a boat. Then Ben Lexcen then copied it, but hang on, here’s the clincher. He had the Naval apprentices from the Naval College, and University of New South Wales, helping him with technology, science, exactly what you’re speaking about with Ian Plimer. And the science they relied on was the temperature of the water, the atmospheric pressure and everything else when they went for the world record. He still said his only chance his son’s going to have an attempt on it in May. Now, Brabham set a world record with a car, never been equaled, built in Australia. Anywhere else in the world, they had to build an industry around it. But what do we do here? Give it away. Same with what they’ve done with all our minerals.  
Malcolm Roberts:John, speaking of giving away industries, tell me about Sydney. I mean, we drove one night and you took me through an area where we had factories after factories, after factories. And we had seafood canneries and fish canneries in Sydney and all of that’s gone.  
John McRae:Well, look, I showed where the glassworks were, that was Georgian’s bit. That was the biggest glassworks in the Southern Hemisphere. There was Crown Crystal. In that area where I took you, there were seven companies making setda lathes, drill shapers and things, and couple of turret lathes.  
Malcolm Roberts:Hang on, hang on. For people to understand, their fundamental for metal working, which is fundamental to manufacturing machinery, fundamental to making any kind of machinery. And we had all of that technology. In fact, some of our technology was world leading, wasn’t it?  
John McRae:Of course, it was. Yeah. Malcolm, before we go any further. Nothing, you’ve got, you clothes, your car, your cooking, utensils, anything has got to be made… Jigs have got to be made by a tool maker. He’s the man, the upper echelon machine in engineering. And if we can’t make the jigs, you’ve got nothing. And we had all that here. There was seven, there was seven lathes. I can name them for you if you want. Seven lathe manufacturers and machinery manufacturers in that area where I showed you. After the war, all those machinery places were working 24-7, supplying Europe and everywhere else to rehabilitate them. When we could go out near Mascot, Botany, up that way, there was all the cotton mills, the tanneries, the woollen mills and working 24-7. We made milking machines. We made shearing machines. We made wall presses. We made everything.  
 Canneries making the tins, the stuff to go in for the canning fruit. We exported all that. We had all that, but that all went by the wayside when we started to lump ourself in with the United Nations. And we signed all these agreements, especially the Lima Declaration. But we still have, all we’ve got to do is get leadership of honesty and morals and with Botany the attitude, we have done it, can do it and will do it. And all we’ve got to do is get water, forget all of this global business, because there’s no country in the world that can produce rural produce 365 days of the year of every variety, every variation, and of every thing you need, no one. They built the Ord River, there’s more tonnes of rice coming out there than what Japan can do with their special rice for their religious ceremonies.  
 We’ve got mangoes growing up there. They get five or $6 a head, a piece of fruit. We get more tonnes per wheat off our ground than anyone else in the world. No one can grow the variation of Barley wheat, corn, that we can. No one, because the Northern hemisphere is constrained by weather constraints. And we are not here. All we need is the power. And the power is water. We’ve got the place, the farmer, we’ve got the greatest farmers in the world, they know that. Look, they brought the sheep in from the Marino. We get more yield per pound per sheep than what they get. Same as the Hereford cows, the Aberdeen Angus. We get more here. There’s a bloke up there in Queensland, Peter Hughes, he’s got 190,000 breeding Wagyu cows, Japan can’t get over how he’s succeeded. And that’s one of their breeds.  
 He’s worked out how to cross breed them. Australian ingenuity, Australian ability, we’ve got them here. We’ve got the scientists. We’ve got every… We’ve got the best machinists. We’ve got the best of everything. Look at the bloke that built our machine gun. Saved Australian up the Owen Stanley Ranges, 1,500 raw recruits went up with the eight and nine divvy and drove back 7,000 jungle hardened Japanese. Why? Because they had the will to win. They had the machine gun. They had what we built. We built aeroplanes  here during the war. Even in the fifties, we built Sabre jets for the Korean War. And they tell you, we can’t do things here.  
Malcolm Roberts:John, John, Australia has a history of punching well above our weight when it comes to war, comes to industry, comes to inventions, comes to sport, comes to arts, comes to science. We’re punching way above our weight. What the hell happened?  
John McRae:What the hell happened? Because follow the money. Follow the money. See, that’s what people have got to understand. Banks are credit creators and asset strippers. And boy, we’ve got to do this and we’ve got to get into the global economy. We don’t have to get into anything. We’re the only totally self-sufficient country in the world, put a moat round us. And we could trade with one another and live.  
Malcolm Roberts:That’s a really important point I want to jump all over for a minute there, John, because Australia was independent. We could stand on our own. We could make our own armaments. We could make our own ammunitions. We could make our own everything, everything. And yet what happens now, is we are dependent on other countries. [crosstalk] Our politicians have fallen for this crap that says we must be interdependent. That was the con job to get the UN agreement signed, which you can talk about, the Lima Declaration, the Rio Declaration, the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris agreement. All of these declarations and agreements have undermined us. We are no longer independent. We are now dependent because when you are interdependent, you depend on someone else which makes you dependent. We’ve lost our independence as sovereignty, our economic sovereignty, our manufacturing sovereignty, our economic security. Because politicians in this country have sold our soul.  
John McRae:They have, Malcolm. By the way, I should have included this. We built that pipeline for 1896 to 1903. After that, we achieved the greatest achievement, can’t be equaled. The longest railway line in the world from 1912 to 1917 from South Australia over to West Australia, Northam 2,500,000 railway slip, hand cut.  
Malcolm Roberts:2 million?  
John McRae:140,000 tonne of rail line, all hand laid. Start at one end, start at the other, and they said they won’t meet. It wasn’t even a half inch out. On the 17th of the 10th, 1917, the last secure inch spike on the place that held the dam was put in. Five days later, the train arrived in Western Australia. They never even put a test run on it. They tell you we can’t do it. We built all the trams in Sydney for the tram service in Sydney, it was the largest tram network in the world. We built 2,800 trams. We built the buses and everything else. We built the ferries. We’ve done everything.  
 Now we’ve got to buy more off China and they’re not worth three and six pence, they can’t ever be used. And they tell you we can’t do things. I’ve got a history of stuff. I wish I could get a chance to debate some of these wombats because I’d blow up the pieces, because we’ve got the greatest people with the greatest initiative. And we’ve got the greatest will to win and achieve. All we need is the opportunity to exhibit it.  
Malcolm Roberts:Well said, well said, John McRae. Well said. What we’ve got is we’ve got the people. We’ve got the resources. We’ve got the energy resources, the metal resources, the climate resources, the soil resources, the water resources. What we have is huge potential. We have huge opportunity. We have got the world’s biggest market on our doorstep to the north. And what we’ve got is parliaments that have abandoned the people in favour of UN agreements, seeded our sovereignty. The parliaments no longer work for this country. John, I’m convinced of that. The state and federal parliament have abandoned the people. How do we get them back to serving the country?  
John McRae:For a start, we’ve got to fix up our voting system and our taxation system and our voting system is rigged so that you can tell lies and fraudulent. The best, we could go into that another day. But here’s what we did with our industries. Now, not everyone signed this Lima Declaration. That was in 1975. Whitlam was the bloke that in inaugurated Malcolm Fraser. Malcolm Fraser ratified it in 76.  
Malcolm Roberts:Okay, John, we’ve got one minute to go.  
John McRae:Okay. This is Section 35, that Australia transfer technical and financial resources, as well as capital goods to accelerate industrialization of underdeveloped countries. As Ian Plimer said, “All they do is go into those other countries and rape and build, then walk off.”  
Malcolm Roberts:So basically, the UN’s Lima Declaration that Whitlam signed as Labour prime minister in 1975, and that the liberal national’s prime minister, Malcolm Fraser ratified the following year 76, basically said, “Take our technology, take our leadership, take our manufacturing prowess and set it up overseas and gut our country.”  
John McRae:Well, the bottom line of that is, Malcolm, liberal and labour, it’s either Tweedle Dumb or Tweedle Dumber.  
Malcolm Roberts:And we might just leave it on that because the core message, John, you’ve just told me the answer, and we’ll explore that. I’m going to have you back. We’re going to explore that is fix the taxation system that favours foreign countries’ companies at the moment and fix the voting system. So this is Senator Malcolm Roberts. I remind you how I opened the first show this morning. I am staunchly pro-human. I am proud to be of service to you. Remind you, be human, be proud, be loving, care, listen, and appreciate. Thank you very much, John. We’ll have you back anytime. Thank you very much. And thank you for having us as guests in your living room, car, factory, wherever you are today. Thank you so much for listening.  
John McRae:Thank you, Malcolm.