The Great Barrier Reef Is Not Dying

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I spoke on Green Senator Whish-Wilson’s motion that the Great Barrier Reef is dying — again. This fear-mongering is used to justify the exorbitant amount of money being transferred from hardworking Australians to parasitic billionaires promising to “fix” the climate. Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef is a natural cycle. Media and politicians are exaggerating the extent of damage to the reef and in so doing, they are causing economic harm to businesses that rely on tourism for their survival.

Human civilisation and the environment are not mutually exclusive and industrial progress, supported by hydrocarbon fuels, has actually benefited the environment by reducing reliance on resources like whale oil and timber. If the Greens want a real environmental cause, they should campaign against the wind turbines that are being built across northern Queensland, which involves blowing the tops off mountains and permanently destroying the natural environment.

This is more than just aesthetics. Green energy is creating sediment that is full of arsenic, which has been locked away in the rocks for millennia. This runoff flows through underground aquifers and ends up in the ocean, poisoning the reef. The Greens are silent on this vandalism to our natural environment and make up rubbish stories about the reef so that they can “pretend” they are an environmental party.

One Nation protects the natural environment – Greens destroy it!

Transcript

Once again those who worship the sky god of global boiling are using their religion to scare the public into holding the line on the great climate boiling scam. Is it still global boiling or have we now moved to global scalding? This fearmongering, this scaring, as I’ve been explaining for many years, involves taking money from hardworking Australians and giving it to parasitic billionaires to fix the climate. 

Senator Whish-Wilson’s latest motion reheats an old, debunked scare: the Great Barrier Reef is dying. In 2016 the Washington Post ran an article titled ‘”And then we wept”: Scientists say 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef now bleached’. In 2022 the Washington Post ran an article titled, in part, ‘Great Barrier Reef has the most coral in decades’. In 2024 they ran an article titled ‘Fatal heatwave strikes unspoiled swath of Great Barrier Reef’. It went on to say: 

Water temperature data suggests the toll of this event could approach that of 2016, when some 30% of the reef’s corals died after suffering through what were then unprecedented levels of heat stress. 

Can’t they see it’s cyclical? 

Hang on. Wasn’t that 93 per cent? No. That’s just the mainstream media scare figure used at the time to appease their owners: the same predatory billionaires that profit from the global boiling scam. It was never an accurate figure, never credible, yet the Greens repeatedly peddled it. 

In summary, the reef had a serious bleaching event in 2016, and within a few years the coral extent was back to normal. By the way: the first scientifically recorded bleaching was in 1926. Scientific records show that bleaching has been a natural part of the Great Barrier Reef cycles and other reef cycles for millennia. That is fact. This is not some esoteric discussion. These Chicken Little claims from the Greens have consequences. Scare stories about the reef dying cause tourists, including international tourists, to cancel their holidays on the Great Barrier Reef, destroying livelihoods in Great Barrier Reef communities on the Queensland east coast. People instead go to a country where the politicians are not scaring off the tourists. Jobs are lost every time the Greens use the Great Barrier Reef as a political football. There’s not even any science behind their claims. 

At times the reef can be a naturally fragile ecosystem. We know that. Certain naturally occurring events can impact it. The greatest danger for the barrier reef is flooding. Tropical cyclones dump fresh water into a river catchment system that carries rainwater hundreds of kilometres onto the Great Barrier Reef. Freshwater plumes kill saltwater coral polyps, and the event is declared a bleaching event—all natural, all cyclical, quite common. 

What did we have three months ago in Queensland? A severe flood event—entirely natural. What do we have now? Coral bleaching—entirely natural. Don’t take my word for it. Please read James Cook University’s article titled ‘Back-to-back cyclones and flood plume impacts on the Great Barrier Reef’, which confirmed freshwater coral bleaching was recorded along the reef. 

Now the climate boiling scammers are trying to blame this on natural climate variability, so let me give you the inconvenient truth about that. I want you to reference the study titled ‘Great Barrier Reef study shows how reef copes with rapid sea level-rise’ from the University of Sydney website. I’ll publish the link. To quote from the study: 

Using unprecedented analysis of 12 new drilled reef cores with data going back more than 8,000 years, the study shows that there have been three distinct phases of reef growth since the end of the Pleistocene era about 11,000 years ago. 

It goes on to say: 

‘We wanted to understand past reef resilience to multiple environmental stresses during the formation of the modern reef,’ said the lead author Kelsey Sanborn, a PhD student at the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney. 

It continues: 

The study was an international collaboration published in Sedimentary Geology, which revealed a period around 8,000 and 7,000 years ago when the reef growth slowed as it was exposed to multiple stressors, including likely increases in sediment and nutrient flux on the reef. 

I wonder what could cause the sediment and nutrient flux that damaged the reef 8,000 years ago. Well, it can’t be coal fired power stations, it can’t be internal combustion engines or people living in freestanding homes on quarter-acre blocks, and it certainly couldn’t have been air travel. What could it be? Of course, I have it, eating meat! That’s it! If the local Aboriginal population had just stopped eating red meat and instead grew soybeans, those tropical storms would not have dumped nutrient-rich floodwaters onto the reef. 

Study co-author Associate Professor Jody Webster said: 

We need to understand the past in order to predict the future. This paper and Kelsey’s broader research examine how sea level, surface temperature, sediment in the water, nutrient influx and energy inputs into the reef system affect its vulnerability to environmental change. 

It goes on: 

The reef system survives because of a delicate balance these environmental factors. 

All natural.  

Whenever the balance of the reef is disturbed, a bleaching event occurs. It’s entirely natural. It’s in a symbiotic relationship with other organisms. There’s no doubt that when an unusually hot day corresponds to an unusually low tide, the reef will bleach, and it will bleach from a cyclone event and many other disturbances. That reminds me, I went scuba diving with some media off Keppel Island. We said, ‘See the corals recovering from a cyclone.’ The journalist said, ‘But you haven’t seen the real bleaching a thousand kilometres north.’ There was a thousand kilometres of reef between where we were, with the healthy reef, and their claimed bleaching event. They just ignore the healthy reef. 

For the Greens to use mother nature to promote their climate change scam is wrong—it’s utterly wrong. For reef researchers to pretend reef damage is due to climate boiling and then ask for more money to research climate change is wrong. It’s dishonest and it’s scientific fraud. The truth is that the ocean is warmed primarily from the sun, with a secondary contribution from geothermal activity—fact. The atmosphere—the thing being blamed for heating up and bleaching the reef—only warms the top millimetre or so of the ocean surface. That’s not enough to cause any harm and, by the way, we can see that in the seasonal impact. 

The climate boiling scammers can blame their sky god of warming all they like. They can demand large homes, big cars, aeroplanes, cattle, sheep, clothing, cheap power and so much more be sacrificed on the altar of their climate boiling beliefs. Saying a lie does not make the claimed science real. Repeating a lie doesn’t make the claimed science real. Our weather patterns are normal—entirely natural—and so are the patterns on the reef.  

If the Greens want to be useful, they should campaign against wind turbines—the installation of which requires whole tops of mountains being blown off mountains across northern Queensland right now, disturbing sediment and arsenic that flow through underground aquifers and winds up on the Great Barrier Reef, making these natural flood events even worse. One Nation care about the natural environment because we value the natural environment. That’s just one of the many reasons why we oppose wind turbines in pristine bushland and, for that matter, near human beings. We oppose industrial solar on farmland and on bushland. We oppose national parks being carved up for power lines, especially the Snowy 2.0 abomination. And we oppose land clearing of old-growth forests for any purpose, including grazing. One Nation is now the party of true environmentalism. And the Greens? Well, they’re the party of promoting the political agendas and the pockets of parasitic billionaires over the best interests of the natural environment. The Greens peddle the United Nations World Economic Forum’s antihuman agenda, which is in turn based on a lie—a false assumption. That lie, that false assumption, is that human civilisation and the environment are mutually exclusive. That is the opposite of reality. 

The reality is that, for human civilisation to have a future, we must have a healthy natural environment. History over the last 170 years shows that the health of the environment depends on human civilisation because industrial civilisation minimises human impact on the natural environment. What has human civilisation produced that is so beneficial for the environment? High-energy, low-cost, ultrareliable hydrocarbon fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. Before these hydrocarbon fuels, humans needed whale oil for lighting, killing whales. Before these hydrocarbon fuels, heating and cooking needed timber from chopped down trees. The area of land in the developed continents covered by forest over the last 100 years has increased by 30 per cent because we’re no longer chopping down trees to cook and to heat. The best friend of whales and the best friend of forests is hydrocarbon fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. 

As a servant to the fine people of Queensland and Australia, I cherish human progress. I cherish human flourishing. I cherish hydrocarbon fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. I admire human progress and human initiative. I appreciate human progress. 

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WHO Dialed Back Its Pandemic Powers – But Not Enough!

The World Health Organisation was late in producing the Pandemic Agreement (formerly known as the WHO Treaty and Pandemic Accord). The WHO was supposed to produce this final draft at least four months in advance yet only published it in mid April leaving little time for government’s to examine the draft. 

The Agreement is supposed to be voted on next month at the World Health Assembly and will be open for signature from July 2024. While it’s true that major changes have been made in line with some of the feedback and recommendations from the International Health Regulations, there are still areas of concern in this latest power grab from the United Nations WHO. 

The IHR recommendations and public outcry have resulted in a draft that’s not quite as severe as previous ones, but it does not go far enough to respect national sovereignty. No government or organisation should enter into agreement with this organisation. 

The WHO should not be making rules for the world. This is a corrupt organisation and exhibited shocking behaviour in the DRC Congo between 2018 and 2020 where WHO staff raped more than 100 members of the public, the largest known scandal among decades of abuses by UN staff. The WHO convened and funded an investigation into itself and none of the staff were criminally charged.

The WHO has removed the binding language, but it still says that pandemic prevention and collaborative public health surveillance is necessary. It gives itself the right to decide what is a pandemic. It can identify public health ‘risks’ including climate, environment and social risks. The WHO is driving this home with the One Health approach for pandemic preparedness. It wants to implement regular ‘reviewing’ of practices in member states and will send in educators to ensure countries are compliant. 

Article 18 is about communication and public awareness and hints at censorship. It has wound back its ‘infodemic’ language which demanded heavy censorship. Yet there are still the elements here to ensure the control of information and behaviours that could hinder acceptance of vaccines. 

The WHO still wants each member state to ensure that the laws in that country will allow the WHO and its One Health approach into the driving seat. This is a five year agreement and taxpayers will be paying for this according to what the WHO decides.

In Section 14, regulatory strengthening would create the framework in each country for the WHO to manage the products available during a pandemic. 

It’s abundantly clear that it is the pharmaceutical interests which are being put first. No need to wonder why when you look at who is funding the WHO.

Proposed WHO Pandemic Agreement

Proposed-WHO-Pandemic-Agreement-1Download
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Taking the Higher Ground – Chalumbin Win for Environment 

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In a win for the environment, the proposed Chalumbin industrial wind project on the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland has been rejected. Communities throughout Queensland are facing similar, environment-destroying proposals.  

This is a great win for the Community who have fought for years against this environmental vandalism. I’ve visited the area twice in the last 6 months, spoken to residents, and then represented their concerns in the Senate on a number of occasions. 

The rejection is a rare win for the environment over virtue-signalling green power schemes that simply do not stack up on an environmental or economic basis.  

Wind and solar are unreliable sources of power, poor investments when you remove the subsidies provided by taxpayer’s money, and terrible for the environment despite the sales pitch of ‘green’ energy, which is disinformation. We’re also seeing these so-called ‘renewables’ projects halting for financial reasons, with investors pulling out of large-scale wind and solar projects both in Australia and overseas, owing to their unprofitability.  

Local environmentalists made a fierce, years long campaign against plans to turn Chalumbin into a wind installation.  

Wind Farm (15/05/22). Top of ridge line that used to be in pristine condition now smashed.

Installing wind turbines is massive environmental vandalism. From grinding the tops off mountains for 250 metre high wind turbines to gouging 70-metre-wide roadways to access them and for the thousands of kilometres of transmission lines that run through national parks and private land. The net-zero plan for wind and solar cannot supply our energy needs and will destroy the natural environment Queenslanders love the most.

Wind turbines create disturbances to the air that prevent soaring birds from flying in the “tail” of these turbines. Kaban wind turbines near Ravenshoe are so large the disturbance interferes with soaring birds like Black Swans, Sarus Cranes and Brolgas for as much as 5 km.

Brolga (a member of the crane family) in flight. This species is found across tropical northern Australia, QLD, and parts of western Victoria, central NSW and south-eastern South Australia

This Labor government, with the blessings of both the Greens and the Liberal party, is accelerating its push to turn pristine Australian bushland into an industrial landscape for the Net Zero agenda. The foreign-owned Chalumbin industrial wind development would have put up monstrous 250-metre-high towers with the third longest blades ever seen in the world. The turbine blades are big bird killers and the noise from these machines is known stop wildlife breeding.

The Hypocrisy of Industrial Wind and Solar

The primary threat to wildlife globally is habitat loss. Koala and other endangered wildlife habitat has been taken. While the Greens talk frequently about saving the koalas, they pick and choose which koalas they care about. This vandalism must stop.

Top of ridge line that used to be in pristine condition now smashed. Chalumbin would have had 146km of new roads like this and Upper Burdekin will have another 150km of new roads

At the end of a mining operation, the mine can be filled in and remediated. In fact, legal contracts require it. This isn’t the case with the destruction created by wind and solar. They are not required to make good afterwards or remove toxic waste. There’s no replacing remnant forests or a mountain top after it’s been blasted off and bulldozed to make way for wind turbines.

The Chalumbin proposal was given a corner-cutting approvals process reserved for ‘renewables’ by the Queensland government. It set its sights on destroying 1000 of the remaining 8000 hectares of the buffer zone between rainforests and open plains to the south. The wet sclerophyll forest is home to the spectacled flying fox and northern great glider.

Chalumbin is not the only wind site needing our protection

As Nick Cater commented in his article in The Australian, 22 April 2024:

“Bulldozers were ripping swathes through hundreds of hectares of remnant native forest at nearby Kaban, blasting 330,000 tonnes of rock and dirt from the sides of hills to build access roads and turbine pads bigger than football fields.

All of this was occurring without a squeak from environmental groups, every one of which appeared to have swallowed the renewable energy Kool-Aid and, in some cases, its cash.”

Nearby Kaban excavations have disturbed arsenic found naturally in local rock formations. We simply don’t know what effect this will have on native wildlife in the years ahead.

The Woodleigh Swamp is an important wetland. Thousands of swans and brolgas normally rest here each year. Locals say that since Kaban opened, only a few kilometres away, the swamp has been almost deserted. Kaban and Chalumbin environmental impact statements make no mention of the catastrophic effects these installations have on uplift capacity for migratory and soaring birds, nor abandonment of natural upland habitat, despite a wealth of papers proving the link.

Sarus Cranes are only found in the far north-east of QLD in Australia

Common sense has prevailed for Chalumbin. Finally, it’s being recognised that you can’t save the environment by destroying thousands of hectares of forests as wind and solar projects will. But what about all the others that are in the pipeline?

It seems impossible that the equally sensitive Upper Burdekin project just 4.8km from the boundary of the Wet Tropics World Heritage area.

There are at least 30,000 hectares of remnant forest still earmarked for clearing across 52 wind farms on the Great Dividing Range in Queensland under current proposals.

This is the disgraceful reality behind the climate change agenda. A reality most Australians never get to see.

How do the Greens feel about vulnerable Greater Glider habitat being cleared in Far North Queensland? Will they say it’s for the Greater Good?

Critically endangered native plants making way for concrete, fibreglass, and steel that will be consigned to the scrap heap in 12-15 years is acceptable by-kill for the Green Agenda? Really?

Destructive projects like the Pioneer-Burdekin Pumped Hydro in prime platypus habitat at Eungella must be ruled out.

This should not be a case of rewarding the squeaky door. Projects like Smokey Creek Solar that were quietly approved against local protests because they didn’t have a talented nature photographer like Steven Nowakowski to tell their story must be revisited and put through the full environmental assessment.

I congratulate the local environmentalists for their campaign to preserve this unique environment. We support Friends of Chalumbin and Steven Nowakowski. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Steven and thank him for his work capturing these fragile and beautiful ecosystems. The environmental movement is waking up thanks to environmentalists like Steven who’re getting out and filming and recording the truth of the destruction of nature.

The government must stop killing the environment to “save it”.

Media Release: Environment Wins Over Destructive Chalumbin Wind Project

The proposed Chalumbin wind project on the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland has been rejected on environmental grounds. This rejection calls the entire net-zero transition and other projects into question. Common sense has prevailed – you can’t save the environment by destroying thousands of hectares of forests as wind and solar projects will.

After local environmentalists made a fierce, years long campaign, which I wholeheartedly supported, Minister Plibersek looks like she is managing appearances rather than the environment.

30,000 hectares of remnant forest will still be cleared across 52 wind farms on the Great Dividing Range in Queensland under current proposals. Destructive projects like the Pioneer-Burdekin Pumped Hydro in prime platypus habitat at Eungella must be ruled out. Projects like Smokey Creek Solar that were quietly approved against local protests because they didn’t have a talented nature photographer like Steven Nowakowski to tell their story, must be revisited and put through the full environmental assessment.

Congratulations to local environmentalists for their campaign to preserve this unique environment. The net-zero plan for wind and solar cannot supply our energy needs and will destroy the nature Queenslanders love the most.

The government must stop killing the environment while claiming they’re saving it.

Media-ReleaseDownload
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Australians Need Houses First!

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In the middle of a housing crisis, why are we handing out hundreds of thousands of visas?

During Question Time, I asked Minister Watt about the number of homes that are required to house the 549,000 people who arrived on permanent visas in 2023, as well as the number of schools and hospitals that will be needed over the next five years to accommodate these new arrivals.

Minister Watt sidestepped my questions and instead underscored the government’s efforts to tackle migration-related challenges, notably reforms to the international student visa system. He once more criticized opposition parties for obstructing housing-related legislation and emphasised the government’s investments in health and education.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs and the Minister representing the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Senator Watt. Minister, what is the number of homes required to house the 549,000 people who arrived on permanent visas in 2023? How many houses? 

Senator WATT: Thank you, Senator Roberts, for your question. I know you asked a very similar question last week, and, as I pointed out to you last week, it is understood and expected that migration levels in Australia have peaked, that they peaked in 2022-23, and they are forecast to drop in half by next year. That is as a direct result of the changes made by the Albanese government to particularly to tackle the rorts that were occurring in the international student visa system that we inherited from the former government. The changes we made late last year are already having a significant and immediate impact, with student visa grants down by more than 35 per cent on last year’s level. 

We are obviously strong supporters of the international education system. It’s a very important export industry for Australia. It provides a wide range of benefits to Australia and the countries from which students come. But the reality is that the system unfortunately was being rorted by a number of companies and that needed to be tackled. It wasn’t tackled by the former government, but we are tackling it and that is having an effect. 

Senator ROBERTS, one of the things I also pointed out to you last week was that it’s a little bit ironic getting a question from a One Nation senator, a coalition senator or, at times, a Greens party senator about what this government is doing about housing numbers, because what we have seen over and over again is a coalition between the Liberals, the Nationals, One Nation and the Greens party teaming up to block action on housing by the Albanese Labor government. We saw it with the Housing Australia Future Fund. Senator ROBERTS, if you were actually sincere in your concern, you would have voted for the Housing Australia Future Fund to build more homes. If you were sincere in your concerns, you would be voting for the help-to-buy legislation that we’re currently trying to get through this parliament but which is being blocked again by the Greens party, One Nation, the Liberals and the Nationals. (Time expired) 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a first supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, what is the number of schools and hospitals required over the next five years to meet the needs of these 549,000 new permanent arrivals last year? How many schools and hospitals—a number, please? 

Senator WATT: It obviously stands to reason that Australia does need more hospitals and more schools in order to deal with a growing population, whether that be a population growing through natural increase or a population growing through migration. Again, Senator Roberts, we are trying to tackle 10 years of under-investment by a coalition government in our health system and in our education system. That’s why Minister Jason Clare has only just recently reached agreements with a number of states and territories to increase education funding to them and why, through National Cabinet in the last few months, the Prime Minister has reached agreements with the premiers about increased funding for health care across Australia. 

Opposition senators interjecting— 

The PRESIDENT: Order! 

Senator Henderson interjecting— 

The PRESIDENT: Order, Senator Henderson! 

Senator WATT: We know that 10 years of coalition government, propped up by One Nation, saw underinvestment in health care, underinvestment in hospitals, underinvestment in our schools— 

Senator Henderson interjecting— 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Henderson, I called for order and I called you personally. I would ask you to come to order and stop being disrespectful. 

Senator WATT: Senator Roberts, one of these days you and your colleague, Senator Hanson, might like to back in a government that’s actually delivering on health and education. (Time expired) 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a second supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, planning for immigration requires planning for the houses, schools, hospitals, transport, food and drinking water that new arrivals need. We won’t let you dump 2.3 million long-stay arrivals on the states and then wash your hands of them. This is the second time this sitting I’ve asked for the numbers and the second time you have failed to provide them. If you have them, please provide them. If you don’t have them then clearly this government is not up to the job of running Australia. 

Senator WATT: Senator Roberts, for starters, I would take issue with your description of migrants as people who are dumped on the community. I think that is an offensive way to describe the contribution of millions of Australians who come from a migrant background. 

Senator ROBERTS interjecting— 

Senator WATT: It’s not funny, Senator Roberts. It’s not funny to talk about dumping people or people being dumped. 

The PRESIDENT: I’ll come to you, Senator Roberts. Minister, when answering the question, please direct your answers to the Chair. Senator Roberts.  

Senator ROBERTS: On a point of order: I’m not laughing at immigrants. I am laughing at the minister.  

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, that’s not a point of order. Minister Watt.  

Senator WATT: I think that is especially the case now that Australia—I think the figures are approximately one in two Australians is either born overseas or their parents are born overseas. We know migrants make a great contribution to our country. The reality is, though, that as a result of the increase in migration after the pandemic and as a result of the rorts in the international student system that were left behind by the coalition, action did need to be taken and that is what we’re doing. But what we’re also doing is investing in the houses that Senator Roberts and his colleagues in the Liberal-National Party and, most of all, the Greens party want to keep blocking. If you want more housing, there is a really simple thing you can do: vote with Labor for more housing, instead of always opposing it. 

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Increased Land Values in Queensland – Labor’s Tax Grab

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I spoke with Daisy Cousens last Friday on increased land values in #Queensland and how the government benefits. As well as Digital ID and the upcoming rallies around Australian capital cities.

Watch ‘The Daisy Cousens Show’ live and on demand Fridays 7pm AEST at ADH TV: https://adh.tv/videos/the-daisy-cousens-show

Transcript

Daisy Cousens: Well, it’s abundantly clear by now that despite trying to con Australians with a $15 a week tax break, Federal Labor is ideologically perfectly happy to rob citizens blind by taxing them out the wazoo. The beginning example of that was the reinstating of the 37.5% tax bracket, which ensures bracket creep will continue in perpetuity. However, in an even sneakier ploy, Labor is now taxing by stealth by increasing land values. Joining me this evening is One Nation Senator, the wonderful Malcolm Roberts. Senator, fabulous to have you here this evening. How are you?

Senator ROBERTS: I’m very well, thanks Daisy and thank you for the invitation. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Daisy Cousens: Well, it’s wonderful, wonderful to have you here. I’m very, very keen to get your take on this Senator. There has been a lot of upset up north about an increase in land value. And look, at first thought this might sound like a great thing for farmers, that their land is now worth more. But when you take tax into account, the tax hungry Labor government, this all you know, starts to make sense from their point of view, doesn’t it?

Senator ROBERTS: Well, I’d love to talk about the tax hungry Labor government, but we also must talk about the tax hungry Liberal opposition and former Liberal government. But we’ll come to that hopefully.

Daisy Cousens: Hmm.

Senator ROBERTS: Inflation, as you quite rightly pointed out, is a stealth tax.  It’s stealthy thing that people don’t see but it reduces disposable income and what we see is land values going up for, and I think an 11% increase in the number of properties that that will be subject to land tax because it’s a threshold of 600,000 and above, but also remember the land valuations are bases for rates and  councils right across the state are under pressure, some through mismanagement, some through mismanagement from the state government. But the systems are so complex and so confusing, and the accounting systems, that local councils will be increasing rates as well.  So, this will slug everyone – it’ll mean less disposable income.  So, people’s stand of living will be going backwards.

Daisy Cousens: Gosh, which is appalling in this cost-of-living crisis. I hate this sort of ideological bit that political parties have that it’s okay just to tax people into oblivion, because as you rightly mentioned, the Liberal Party. I’m always on about how, you know, Labor is so happy to tax citizens, but the same can actually be said quietly about the Liberal Party can’t it?

Senator ROBERTS: It can be. I moved a motion, an amendment, sorry, recently into one of the pieces of legislation that Labor had introduced to the Senate and that was simply to remove bracket creep. It was done properly. The Liberals even stood up and said they commend me for it, they like the way the bill was written, but they’re not going to support it because they love bracket creep and so does the Labor Party. They love bracket creep.  They love seeing people go unconsciously into higher tax bracket, not even doing being aware that that’s the case and that’s an immediate increase in tax and so people don’t realise that they’re being, that they’re having more money stolen from them.

And then Dave Sharma, the new Liberal Senator, when he gave his maiden speech, his first speech in the Senate recently, he said he’s all in favour of removing bracket creep, but just two weeks before he he voted against removing bracket creep.  So, there was nothing wrong with my bill, they said it was well done but they couldn’t do it. So, both the Liberal and Labor Party.  And we’ve also got to remember that net-zero, putting in place net-zero foreign policy, increases energy prices which flow right through the economy. The energy sector is the most important sector in the economy in terms of the foundation for prices of goods and services because they flow right through and when you increase energy prices, you decrease productivity, you decrease wealth and that applies not only to individuals – it applies to businesses, it applies to communities. And the Liberal Party is the one who first said in government that they would support UN 2050 net-zero policy. So, the Liberal government is putting heavy impost on every person who uses electricity and every person who lives in this country.

Daisy Cousens: Hmm gosh! It’s so hypocritical of both the major parties because they both go on this bent, don’t they, pretending they’re for the little guy, or we’re for the workers, we’re for ordinary people, but how can they possibly say that with a straight face when they’re so happily happy to tax people?

Senator ROBERTS: Well, they’re used to the lies that they’re putting out. The climate scam is a lie. The climate fraud is a lie. The whole basis for these energy policies is a lie. And then we see – every major problem, Daisy, in this country comes out of Parliament House, Canberra, every major problem. Some of the problems come out of states, but they’re exacerbated by the federal government. So, we see inflation, was driven by the federal government and the Reserve Bank of Australia by printing far too much money during the COVID mismanagement.  The whole of that COVID mismanagement shut down supply routes, the supply side, so we had fewer goods, which meant that raised prices, and we had more money chasing those fewer goods, which further raise prices. So inflation, which is a hidden stealth tax as you rightly pointed out, is the cause of people going backward in disposable income. So inflation is the number one enemy and it was created by the Morrison government with the Labor Premiers in hand and by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Daisy Cousens: Ohe absolutely.

Senator ROBERTS: So what we need to so is actually open these people up to the truth.

Daisy Cousens: Hmm. Oh no, I agree with you and what people just I think conveniently shove under the rug or forget, certainly the Liberal Party does, was that it was the Liberal Party’s fault when they were in government a few years ago that we are in this inflationary position because they kept capitulating to the states’ demands for money for their ridiculous COVID policies. So, thank you for bringing that up and let’s never forget it. Now, Senator Roberts, according to this chart, the greater the rate of primary production, the higher the valuation increase. Is this justly proportional?

Senator ROBERTS: Daisy, let’s keep flogging everyone who’s successful. Let’s see how many successful people we have left in this country. That’s exactly what they’re doing. So, someone that works their land better, their business better, someone invests in their land, their business, and they have a higher productivity and what do we do? We slug them for it. That’s no way to reward talent. That’s no way to reward creativity and hard work and enterprise. That’s the opposite. It’ll cripple this country and it is crippling this country. That’s what we need to remember. This will do enormous damage to our primary producers and we call them primary producers for a bloody good reason. They’re the primary producers of the whole economy. Everything is based upon agriculture and mining, the two primary production sectors. Manufacturing is based on that. Goods and services in the services sector or the tertiary sector are all based upon it. So, we’re killing the primary sector and what it’s doing is it’s hollowing out the bush – they want us all to move from the bush and into the slums and cities – high density high rise living. Thomas Jefferson said it so well and Tim Ball, the expert climatologist from Canada, echoed those words. You can have farms without cities, Daisy, but you cannot have cities without farms. We are crippling this country.

Daisy Cousens: And that is such a good point. You know they are so important, our farmers, and they’re being treated so shoddily by the government and certainly, think of the cost-of-living crisis, as taxes increase for our farmers, won’t that in turn flow onto our grocery bills? Will they become even more expensive?

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, it will. And we’re seeing the prices increase already, quite dramatically, because of the recent increases in energy costs, which have been artificially driven by basically lies and also by inflation. And also, we must remember that we’re seeing the consequences of previous Liberal-National governments that stole farmers rights to use their land and to comply, that was the Liberal Party government’s way of complying with the United Nations Kyoto Protocol. They said they wouldn’t sign it, but that they will comply with it. The moment they did that they started putting in restrictions on land use. They got the state government involved, particularly in NSW and Queensland to put those land use restrictions in and now we see the Queensland government, two years ago, three years ago, bringing in legislation to cripple the farms right up and down the East Coast of Queensland which, as you know from our states layout, are fundamental agricultural areas.  They’re the richest agricultural areas – all in the name of the environment. And I asked questions in a Senate inquiry of the QLD experts -they don’t have any evidence for it. We must remember that the farmer, the owner of the land, is the most important custodian, the best custodian, because a farmer, if he ignores the environment around his land, his land deteriorates. The farmer is the best person for understanding the management of the environment.  The farmer is the one who’s going to miss out the most if he abuses that or she abuses that because they’re superannuation goes, they have got nothing to hand back to their kids. Whatever they want to do is gone. So the farmer is the best person to manage the land and the environment around his or her property. And what we’re doing is we’re putting it in charge of bureaucrats in Canberra, bureaucrats in Brisbane and bureaucrats in academia that are crippling our agricultural sector.

Daisy Cousens: Oh, absolutely. I mean, they’re just handing it over to people who have no idea what they’re doing. It’s outrageous! Now look, Senator, before we go, I have to talk to you about this Digital ID bill. You have been a real campaigner against the Digital ID bill. What is there left for Australians to do to stop this nightmare becoming imprinted as a reality?

Senator ROBERTS: Well, Daisy, I’m normally a very calm person and I don’t get upset too easily, but on Wednesday night, before Easter, after this bill went through without any debate, not one word of debate.  Amendments were moved and passed without one word of debate. And so that’s the first thing to recognise, the guillotine. So, I was shattered. But on Thursday I came into my office the next morning and found everyone in my office happy and I thought, what’s going on? And they said, Malcolm, the House of Reps was kept back late, the bill was introduced in the Senate and once it was passed in the Senate, it was supposed to go to the House of Reps, for passage through the House of Reps.  Well, it didn’t go to the House of Reps. And we believe that that’s the case because the public kicked up such a fuss, social media gutted Labor, social media gutted David Pocock the Teal, David Pocock the Teal senator and what we think is going on is that Labor is very, very worried about the consequences of passing this bill. And so, what we’re saying is 2 things. Every citizen get out there and hammer your local representative in parliament, in the House of Representatives. Not just the Labor Party but also the Liberal Party. Now the Liberals introduced this bloody bill into the parliament three years ago and I opposed it from the start. But the Liberals have voted with us against the bill two weeks ago in the Senate. So, we know the Liberals are sensitive in the lower house. We know that the Labor Party is sensitive in the lower house and the Teals and the Greens, so get out there and tell your lower house representative, your house representative member to vote against it.

Daisy Cousens: Absolutely.

Senator ROBERTS: The second thing is we saw the public rise up and I must congratulate everyone for doing that. We heard it in Canberra. Now what we need to do is – One Nation put out a petition opposing the digital identity bill. It got 60,000 signatures in the space of two days. Phenomenal.

Daisy Cousens: Fantastic.

Senator ROBERTS: And what we’re doing now based on that strength, we’re running a national protest day on May the 5th, Sunday May the 5th and we’ll be having protests in each of the major capital cities in Australia. So, it’ll be a very important that the public gets out and shows its voice.

Daisy Cousens: Absolutely. Thank you so much for letting us all know about those protests. And Senator, thank you so much for coming on the show this evening. You do wonderful work and I do hope we can see you again soon.

Senator ROBERTS: I look forward to it. Thank you very much and have a good weekend, Daisy.

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How to Contact Your Federal Members of Parliament

Has anyone ever showed you how to find the contact details for your local Member of Parliament so you can tell them how you feel?

Watch this to find out how anyone, anywhere in Australia can discover who their local MPs area and their contact details.

Members of parliament are there to service you — make your opinion heard.

Transcript

Fish says, what is the best way to apply pressure to our local representatives? Call them.

First of all, go to their office and say you want a meeting with your representative. You want a meeting with your representative.

Here we go. Identify where he or she is. Google it. Members. Put in your postcode. Find the MP, click on the MP, go down and get the number. There you have the number. You’ll also have the address of their electorate office. And you’ll have their email. Emails are almost useless.

This is the hierarchy I use. I recommend and I’ve done it myself. Visit their office, knock on their door and say you want a meeting. It shows real commitment from you and real strength from you that you’re turning up in person. Demand a meeting. Be polite, but be firm. They’ll give you excuses as to why the member can’t meet with you. Don’t put up with it. Do it again a second time. Leave your name, give your contact details, you want a meeting.

The second best way is to call them and demand a conversation. Just request it all very respectfully. And then the third one is write a letter, a paper-based letter signed. It doesn’t have to be typed, just has to be neatly written or typed, signed with a handwritten signature. put in the post and sent and if you really have something that you want evidence they’ve received it, put it registered post. It’ll cost a few dollars but that’s what I used to do. I’ve written thousands of these letters in paper and some some people have told me how much they appreciated my letters and some people tell me how much they didn’t appreciate my letters, but turning up is the best way.

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Murders at Bondi Junction Were Preventable 

Joel Cauchi, who stabbed and killed six people and hospitalised another 12 people was a known mental health patient from Queensland. 

With a long history of schizophrenia, Cauchi was living an itinerant lifestyle with deteriorating mental health and apparently not being adequately medicated or monitored. 

How could this disaster have been prevented? Significant questions remain unanswered.

Who was responsible for managing his mental illness while in the community?  

Had he been considered safe to be in the community and how could that decision have been so wrong? 

Had he been lost to the system and fallen through the cracks in the system? 

Was this because the Queensland mental health system is severely under resourced with insufficient trained staff and not enough mental health beds in a failed public health system? 

Was this tragedy a result of the closing of mental health facilities and a foreseeable consequence of a policy of treating mentally ill patients within the community? 

Was Cauchi being treated in Queensland under a Treatment Authority receiving enforced treatment and had he moved interstate to NSW to avoid treatment? 

Did the Queensland mental health system know he had moved out of the state to NSW? 

When was the last time his mental health had been assessed in Queensland? 

Fixing this broken system may help prevent a repeat of this horror story. 

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Disinformation From Labor on Nuclear Energy Costs

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The Labor Albanese Government is destroying proven, low-cost coal power plants under the guise of “retiring them” and replacing this stable, secure, safe and affordable power with land-grabbing solar and wind installations which are proven now to be unreliable, environmentally-damaging and expensive.

If Labor’s ideology means that it won’t consider new generation coal, which China and other countries are busy putting in place, then why doesn’t it consider the nuclear option? Is it so blinkered that it refuses to see the data from around the world which demonstrates nuclear as a proven reliable, stable, secure, safe, environmentally-responsible and affordable source of power?

Why is Labor being dishonest about this? Are the solar schemes and subsidies so important to their mates that they would sell out the regular working Australian families for their mates at the WEF? What happened to the party of the workers?

Transcript

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator McAllister. The government has ruled out adding nuclear electricity to our energy mix based on the government’s calculations showing a higher cost of nuclear energy as against wind and solar. Minister, can you please inform the Senate of the levelised cost of generation of wind, solar and nuclear that informed the government’s position? 

The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Roberts. I will just remind you that questions need to go to ministers, not assistant ministers, so I’m directing the question to Minister Gallagher. 

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council): Thank you for the question. The advice the government has—and I think this is understood by everyone who’s been following the energy discussion—is that nuclear energy is very slow to build. It’s the most expensive form of new electricity generation. It cannot beat renewables, which are the cheapest, fastest and cleanest form of new electricity generation. The analysis that was done showed that there was a significant cost burden. Our position is about cost. We are looking for the cheapest form of energy generation, which is renewables, which includes wind and solar. Australia obviously has a very significant comparative advantage when it comes to that form of energy, with more sunlight hitting our landmass than any other country. We also don’t have a workforce to support that nuclear energy generation. So the time involved means it would be decades before anything became operational and it would do nothing to reduce the energy costs for Australian households and businesses in the meantime. 

So our position—and I think there is a lot of support for that position—is that this transition to renewable energy is the quickest and cheapest path as we shift away from fossil fuel generation. That is the path that the government was clear about before the election. That is the path that we are implementing under Minister Bowen’s and Minister McAllister’s leadership, leading for the government, and we will continue on that path. We will leave the nuclear energy debate for those opposite to convince people of. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a first supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, is the figure for nuclear based on real-world data from the 440 nuclear power stations around the world or even from the last 10 stations completed in the last few years? If not, on what is it based? 

Senator GALLAGHER: As I understand it—and I will see if there’s anything I can provide—the government analysis that looked at the cost of nuclear energy was looking at how to replace the retiring coal-fired power station fleet. That figure resulted in about a $25,000 cost impost on each Australia taxpayer, based off 15.1 million taxpayers. So, according to many of the experts in the energy field, it’s more expensive, going to take decades to build and, in the meantime, will do nothing to reduce the power costs of households, which are clearly going to benefit from the shift to renewable energy generation and technology. That is the path the government will continue on because we are focused on cost of living and a sensible and orderly transition away from fossil fuels to new forms of energy. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a second supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: The government is using a figure for the cost of modular nuclear power that’s not based on any real-world data. Rather, it is mere speculation about a type of generation that doesn’t exist. 

Government senators interjecting— 

The PRESIDENT: Order on my right! 

Senator McKim interjecting— 

The PRESIDENT: Order, Senator McKim! Senator Roberts has the right to ask his question in silence, and I will ask senators to respect that right. 

Senator ROBERTS: The government’s data is based on speculation about a type of generation that does not exist and completely misrepresents the cost of nuclear power. The government is spreading misinformation again. Minister, why didn’t the government use the real-world data from 57 conventional nuclear power stations currently under construction around the world, and why is the government not being honest about nuclear? (Time expired) 

Senator GALLAGHER: I don’t accept the question that Senator Roberts has put to me. We are providing information to the community, and that information is that renewables remain the lowest-cost new-build generation technology. That is clearly a fact. 

We have also done some analysis, and I think you will find it hard to find any expert that says nuclear isn’t expensive or isn’t going to take too long to build, including how you generate a workforce around this and the time it will take to do that based on the work that we need to happen now. We can’t delay this for decades. The transition was already delayed for a decade under those opposite, with 22 failed energy policies. In 18 months we have been getting on with it. We are in that transition. We will focus on renewables as the lowest-cost form of energy generation that will help households with those cost-of-living pressures. (Time expired) 

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Speaking in Support of Community TV

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Community TV provides a vital service to small business, to communities, and to developing future workers in the broader TV & Radio sector. It provides a training ground for emerging talent and provides programmes with heart. If it didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have this ‘free’ hands-on training ground for students.

Across refreshingly propaganda-free community television and radio, 17,000 volunteers and almost 1,000 employees generate $250 million in value each year. The federal government contributes $43 million each year towards the cost, or rather, the taxpayers do. I wish more recipients of government (taxpayer) funding demonstrated such a positive return on investment.

The bipartisan approach of the Lib-Lab Uniparty is jeopardising the future of Community TV. Why? Because mainstream TV desires the viewership, and telecommunication companies covet the bandwidth.

Welcome to Australia, where the power lies in the hands of foreign shareholders of television and telecommunication companies. If the government genuinely intended to counter the powerful financial sway of telecommunication and broadcast companies, it would have supported my amendment, which sought a guarantee that Community TV would always have free-to-air bandwidth.

The impending digital restack will involve moving broadcast television channels closer together to free up a sizable, contiguous band section of bandwidth, which will then be sold to telecommunication companies. Taxpayers stand to make over a billion dollars from the sale, while telecommunication companies will profit significantly more.

Community TV is likely to disappear permanently due to the interests of telecommunication companies and mainstream mouthpiece media.

Transcript

One Nation supports the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Community Television) Bill 2024. Across community television and radio, 17,000 volunteers and almost 1,000 employees generate $250 million in value each year, every year. The federal government contributes $43 million towards the cost—or, I should say, the taxpayers do. I wish there were more recipients of government funding—taxpayer funding—with that good a return on investment. 

In 2017, the national network of community TV stations was attracting more than one million unique viewers a week. Top programs were attracting 400,000 viewers, including off-peak repeats in the week of release. In 2024, those ratings would rank in the top 20 of free-to-air and cable shows. That’s why Malcolm Turnbull destroyed community TV, moving channels off free to air to an online model where a commercial business plan was impossible, thus returning a million viewers a week to commercial television, which was suffering from falling ratings and advertising revenue. Channel 31 and C44 in Adelaide resisted and were saved as a result of work by One Nation and the Greens. Ratings on free-to-air television have fallen since 2017 in terms of the percentage of available screens because mainstream television is mostly absolute rubbish, completely lacking in the creativity and anarchy that attracted such a large and loyal following to stations like C31. Community TV is at times weird and wonderful. Programs with heart and soul have been replaced with commercial programs devoid of those very qualities. 

The small cost of community TV must be considered in the wider context. Community TV provides a training ground for talent, scriptwriters, make-up artists, producers, directors, sound and lighting. The former TVS in Sydney was based out of the University of Western Sydney school of media in Kingswood, offering students both theoretical and practical tuition. C31 is based out of RMIT in Melbourne. The now closed C31 in Brisbane included programming using students from the Queensland University of Technology. Mainstream television look for graduates of community television when hiring staff. If community TV did not exist then the taxpayers would be on the hook for vocational education training places to teach those skills.  

As a result of the closure of all states except Melbourne and Adelaide, small businesses across the country have been deprived of the opportunity to access advertising on broadcast television. Many brands have grown their business and community TV and now find advertising on commercial TV is unaffordable. Often small business can’t even get a TV advertising salesman to return their calls.  

This legislation, which extends C31 and C44 licences into the future is welcome. Yet it’s half a solution. Community TV deserves to get their broadcast rights back in the upcoming digital television restack promise for 2024 and now apparently some years away, so it’ll survive for a while. The restack will involve moving our broadcast and television channels closer together to free up a large contiguous section of bandwidth that would then be sold off to telcos. The taxpayers will make north of $1 billion out of the sale; telcos will make much much more.  

There we have it. Community TV is likely to disappear permanently because the interests of mainstream mouthpiece media and telcos have aligned against it. Mainstream TV want the viewers; telcos want the bandwidth. Welcome to Australia where the power is in the hands of foreign shareholders of television and telecommunication companies, and everyday Australians just don’t matter. Our kids are getting free hands-on tuition in television production does not seem to matter. Having a channel that doesn’t offer propaganda and prurient rubbish doesn’t seem to matter.  

It’s disappointing that Minister Rowland declined to support my second reading amendment, which I had intended to foreshadow to guarantee bandwidth for community TV in the upcoming digital restack. I understand the argument the government is using. There’s an inquiry into the future of free-to-air broadcasting—also called over-the-top broadcasting. Committing to community TV now though does get ahead of the inquiry findings. But, so what? If there was any real intention on the part of the government to go against the powerful financial influence of telcos and broadcast stations, the government would have supported my amendment.  

The government, sadly, is not prepared to guarantee one tiny little bit of bandwidth for community TV. One Nation is prepared to make that guarantee because we are not beholden to the foreign predatory billionaires and their wealth funds. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I urge community TV and radio to continue broadcasting. As the people’s media, you perform a vital service. Thank you.  

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Labor’s Failures in Immigration and Security

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The recent admission by Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O’Neil, that the Labor government has lost control of Australia’s borders is deeply troubling. A government’s primary responsibility is to ensure the security of its citizens and this revelation is a national disgrace.

It seems that the government has ceded control of our borders to the courts. The hasty release of dangerous criminals into the community following a High Court decision last year was a direct consequence of this failure to prepare.

Labor’s mismanagement is further underscored by the recent statistics from the ABS, revealing a record influx of 125,410 permanent and long-term arrivals in January 2024 alone. This represents a 40% increase over the previous January record, placing immense strain on infrastructure and services.

This government’s actions that include reissuing visas to released detainees – murderers, rapists and child sex offenders – demonstrate a profound inability to govern effectively and responsibly. Labor has proven itself untrustworthy and incapable of fulfilling its duties to the Australian people.

Transcript

On immigration, this government is lost. Its failure to prepare for the anticipated High Court NZYQ decision last year enabled the rushed and ill-considered release of dangerous criminals from detention straight into the community. With no backup plan, Labor lurches from one disaster to another. Labor issued invalid visas to the released criminals. Labor charged at least 10 of those criminals for breaching visa conditions. Labor were forced to withdraw the charges because the visas were invalid. Labor then reissued new visas to all released detainees, including murderers, rapists and child sex offenders. It now appears that potentially another 150 criminal detainees will soon be released into the community without appropriate safeguards. Some detainees maintain that, if they do not cooperate with deportation processes, they cannot be deported and should be released into the community. 

The revelation from the Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O’Neil, over the weekend that the Labor government has lost control of our borders is a national disgrace. A government’s principal role is to provide security for its citizens, and the minister’s admission is terrifying and absolutely damning. It appears that the government has relinquished to the courts the power over our borders. 

Most recently, two boatloads of illegal immigrants made it to our shores, getting past border security, making a mockery of national security. There was the rushed issue of visas to Palestinian refugees from Gaza, some visas taking only an hour or so to issue. What about the cancellation of the visas in transit, then the reissue of most of the visas? This is a hopelessly inept government trying to look good, not do good. ABS statistics for January reveal a staggering 125,410 permanent and long-term arrivals. Accounting for departures, the net growth in permanent and long-term arrivals in January was 55,330, 40 per cent higher than the previous January record intake way back in 2009, putting enormous strain on infrastructure and services. This Labor government does not know how to govern. This Labor government cannot be trusted. 

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