Senate Estimates – How much GST are we losing at the border on imports?

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Millions upon millions of parcels flow into Australia every month. Some dodgy operators avoid paying GST on imports by understating the value of the goods being posted. This is a huge disadvantage to our Aussie shops and we need to be doing more to enforce the rules on GST for foreign imports.

Transcript

[Malcolm Roberts] I have some brief questions on border force. How many parcels come through Australian border force each financial year?

So Senator just give me one second. I’ll just get, I might just ask deputy commissioner Saunders to join me at the, the front table as well. In terms of parcels, probably I might describe it slightly differently if I could. So air cargo consignments, if I could start there cause Senator the goods coming into Australia, primarily from a border screening point of view is either sea cargo, stuff that comes in containers, air cargo, stuff that comes in crates in the belly of aeroplanes and international mail. So in terms of air cargo consignments between the 1st of July, 2020 and the 31st of March, 2021 there were 54,340,909 consignments in relation to sea cargo, there’s been a significant uptake. So I’ll give you the numbers for 19 and 20 first of all. So between the 1st of July, 2019, 31st of March, 2020 there were 2,472,286 consignments. Between the 1st of July, 2020 31st of March, 2021, 7,449,539 consignments. The reason for that is because of COVID-19 because of changes in logistics, supply chains, etc, a lot of people shopping from home, smaller consignments and the the freight forwarders need to get it here somehow. And there just isn’t a number of aeroplanes coming to Australia to support all of that coming through air cargo. So a lot of, a lot of the smaller consignments are now coming in containers and that’s led to a significant increase. In terms of international mail you see that data is actually commercially confidential because obviously Australia posts are in competition with you know, freight forwarders and other sort of international supply chain sort of companies. And, we don’t put those numbers out there Senator in terms of Australian international mail.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. But the total number of consignments for the nine months, July 20 to March 21 was 54 million, including air, mail and sea.

Well not including mail, I can’t give you that number because that’s commercially sensitive because Australian posts are sort of a, you know there’s a single commercial entity and they’re in competition with other people in the market. We don’t put that number out there. So what I’ve given you is in terms, sorry, air cargo consignments 54,340,909

[Malcolm Roberts] That’s just for air.

That’s for air, cargo. And for sea cargo an additional almost seven and a half million, 7.449 million.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. Thank you very much for that. How many of these parcels are checked for value and whether or not GST is applied?

I might just call

[Malcolm Roberts] Sorry commissioner, just on that number, the sea cargo is that, how are you quantifying that number?

Consignment, so a consignment is obviously

[Malcolm Roberts] Do you define that as per container or how

No consignment is if you import a good into Australia, that’s a consignment, so that could be an entire container load that you have or if you’ve got lots of lines of goods in a container, so let’s say a freight forwarding company wants to get a lot of consignments to Australia, previously they might put them in a crate in the belly of an aeroplane, whereas now they’re putting them in containers. So we’re getting containers with lots and lots of consignments in them.

[Malcolm Roberts] I see, thanks for clarifying.

Does that make sense?

So it’s an individual entry for an importer of a good and that can be a private person or a commercial entity.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. Thanks.

Thanks Senator Roberts. I might just ask Vanessa Holben here in terms of the, the GST question. If I could, it goes to matters of customs policy.

Vanessa Holburn group manager, customs group, Australian Border force. So your question is related to GST?

[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah. How many of the parcels that come in, consignments, are checked for value and have GST applied?

So I’ll need to take on notice the number of consignments that are checked. What I can give you though, is the dollar value of the undetected, undecided GST detected?

[Malcolm Roberts] The under?

The undecided GST detected. So that’s, that’s where they haven’t obviously claimed GST. So the dollar value, would you like it in the financial years?

[Malcolm Roberts] Yes, please.

So 2019-20, 25,827,753. I can go previous years if you’d like to as well.

[Malcolm Roberts] No it’s fine.

Year to date, so 31st of March, 2021, 411,719.

[Malcolm Roberts] So that’s the, could you say that again? What is that 25 million?

So we determine it, we determine it as understated, GST detected.

[Malcolm Roberts] Understated, GST detected.

Correct.

[Malcolm Roberts] So what does that mean? Understated? So that means only the only the parcels that have been where the GST has been understated and where it’s detected.

Correct.

[Malcolm Roberts] So what proportion of parcels are waved through without checking to see if GST should be paid.

That’s what I need to check on notice for you.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. Thank you. Is there any estimation of how much GST has not been paid per year? It’s a massive task as, as Mr. Adam just told us.

Again, I’ll need to check that on notice.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. How many notices are sent out to call in GST prior to the parcel being released?

I’ll need to check that on notice Senator.

[Malcolm Roberts] What is the estimated loss to Australia per year for the lost or forgone GST?

I’ll need to take that on notice

And senator, we’ll take that on notice, but also we do obviously with GST, recognise other departments have a stake in the GST question, the ATO and treasury. So we will take it on notice, but we’ll, we’ll also link in with our other departments who have an interest in the GST policy.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. What has been done to assist the cost of this forfeit and to implement a remedy. We’ve got to define the problem before we can solve it. With 54 million consignments, I’m sorry, 61 million consignment, it’s a pretty massive opportunity.

Can you repeat the question again Senator?

[Malcolm Roberts] What’s been done to assess the, the loss of revenue the forgone revenue, and to implement a remedy.

We can talk about our audit inspection control programme.

So, so the compliance, we have a compliance programme obviously to detect non-compliance through those avenues.

[Malcolm Roberts] That’s sampling is it?

Correct, yes so there’s targets and there’s profiling. Also we do business engagements, that’s around educating those that are importing to ensure that they are quickly classifying the goods and obviously paying those duties attached to those goods.

[Malcolm Roberts] So there’d be hidden costs, is the government, I don’t know who to ask this question of, perhaps a minister, perhaps Mr. Adam, is the government aware of the hidden cost to Australian manufacturers and retailers who must add GST to their goods, whereas imports bypassing customs do not?

Probably a matter of policy I suggest, and maybe a different department would be best placed to answer that.

I’ll say, we are aware in the general sense of the matters you raise, but I’d need to take on notice the quantum of that.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah, so depends on the size of the problem, I understand that. So is it possible to consider another solution being tax reform? Another way of levying the tax?

Those options are always available to be considered by policymakers.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay, Thank you very much.

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Is the Inland Rail a $24 Billion White Elephant? Australian Rail Track Corporation

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The Inland Rail is a huge project. It is riddled with uncertainty and secrecy. The ARTC won’t release the business case for the project, even though we have evidence that many of the assumptions used for it are completely flawed. The Inland Rail started as costing less than $3 Billion, it is now estimated at nearly $24 Billion. While the head of the ARTC is on $1 million+ of taxpayer money a year, all of the detail should be publicly available.

Transcript

[Malcolm Roberts] First question is, can you list Inland Rail Social Media Accounts, and how much we spend on social media including Instagram in the last financial year. Please

[Witness] Sure, we’ll probably have to take it on notice, so we can give you some idea of quickly, but we found social media to be extremely effective and greatly improve, some of our engagements that was asked about earlier, we find that we have interactive dialogues on a real-time basis with people they don’t have to come to us, we don’t have to go to them. We can provide very technical information, including maps. They can post questions on those maps. So the social media interaction has been extremely effective. Do you want to provide any additional detail to back up?

[Witness] No. I mean, I think we’re finding it as a good value for money medium. And, but yes, we have multiple channels, as you would expect. Again, we can confirm those, but all the ones you would expect Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn, those things are on YouTube, those sorts of things. So, but we can get you the details.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. The business case lists 87 coal trains a week, going into Brisbane every week, all the way through to 2050, I understand that coal reserves that would come down that line run out in 2030. Is that true? And if so, what does that do to your business case?

The first part, we would be speculating on we’d have to take it on notice ’cause we don’t control the coal market.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yes Obviously.

The second part, we have testified previously, that even if coal was to go to zero, and I’m going to ask Mr. Campbell and Mr. Hornsby to correct me if I’m wrong, but even if the coal volumes were to go to zero, that the business case still stacks up and still had a benefit to cost ratio over two

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. The Queensland government only allows 10 million tonnes of coal to be sent to Brisbane port, currently the port handles 7 million tonnes, is this limit of 10 still in place? And rather than 87 trains a week, how many will the remaining 3 million tonnes generate? We make it out around about seven trains a week, not 87.

Yeah. Again, we’d have to take that on notice ’cause I’m not sure the limitations at the port of Brisbane.

[Malcolm Roberts] Is it true that the port of Brisbane can only unload trains for 49 hours a week, being 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday to Friday, ten to two on Saturday and closed all day Sunday? If so, how long does it take to unload a train? The point being, how many trains can the port of Brisbane actually service as against the business case?

So, Senator the business case was primarily a terminal to terminal activity, so from Melbourne to Acacia Ridge. So as far as I’m aware that the business case didn’t really cater or talk to traffic between traffic to and from the port.

[Malcolm Roberts] How then can we assist the viability?

Of

[Malcolm Roberts] Providing the Inland rail if you don’t know the service?

Yeah, so the inland rail is being built as a terminal to terminal, and I think as we heard earlier on there may be more than one terminal in Brisbane, and there is a separate business case analysis looking at that link to the port which is not part of the inland rail project.

[Malcolm Roberts] So if the port of Brisbane is not modelled in that how do we know the impact of the port on the inland rail? The constraint of the port?

I might ask my colleague Simon.

[Simon Orsby] Okay let me introduce myself. Sir I’m Simon Ormsby executive interstate network for ROTC and I’ve joined the bench. It’s okay chair. In broad term, we can come back with the details behind the modelling, when we take that on notice. But in broad terms, the number of trains assumed is broadly similar to the number of trains that are passed through today. But there are longer trains in the business case, inland rail and investments enables longer coal trains, so heavier coal trains to be run than today. So the assumptions aren’t poorly different, in the business case to what happens today, but we can come back to your technical notice and come back to all the data around that.

[Malcolm Roberts] I’m interested in the impact, of the restricted hours at Brisbane port.

Yep, we’ll come back.

[Malcolm Roberts] Is it true that passing loops at Kings Thorpe and Fisherman’s Island can only handle a train, with the length of 670 metres yet your train are 1600 metres, so how do you propose to get your trains in and out of the port?

So Senator it’s not intended at this point, that longer trains than currently operate to the port today will operate to the port in the future. So our 1.8 kilometre trains will terminate at a terminal outside of Brisbane or on the edges of Brisbane or Acacia Ridge. And then there would need to be a different arrangement, than those trains that would take it to the port.

[Malcolm Roberts] Gets quite complex. Isn’t it?

I can’t validate the length of those crossing loops, but what I can say is part of the business case extensive capacity modelling was undertaken, and assume different lengths of trains, because you have a crossing loop or two crossing loops at 600 metres. Doesn’t mean that every train is limited to 600 metres, and there is, there’s quite a bit of double track, so if you’re particularly in running a narrow gauge train, so some of those coal trains may just have a through run without actually utilising the crossing loop.

Can I maybe just help a little bit, what he’s saying is you can give priority to longer trains, so the ones that use the passing loops are the shorter trains. So it doesn’t have to actually match the length of the train that uses the line to be given that priority.

[Malcolm Roberts] Got it.

So that’s one.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. Brisbane trains have a curfew which limits inland rail services to 19 hours a day, which means that the times a train can leave Melbourne needs to adjust to avoid that curfew, there will be a corresponding window in Melbourne, and all along the route, have you modelled how this will affect loads, Once inland rail is fully operational?

So there’s no curfew for trains outside of Acacia Ridge. I’m not, in fact, I’m not aware of a curfew.

[Malcolm Roberts] So you haven’t modelled it?

Sorry,

[Malcolm Roberts] You haven’t modelled it.

No, we’ve assumed there’s no curfew, could say unlimited access between Melbourne, the Melbourne terminals and the Brisbane terminals?

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. The new tunnel ARTC will have to build down from Toowoomba has a grade end of one to 64. The train would need to do 30 kilometres an hour down the tunnel. Once the train exits the tunnel, that limit is 80 kilometres per hour, all the way to the port. Can you demonstrate that this has been factored into the 24 hour transit time?

Yes, and we can give you the train modelling.

[Malcolm Roberts] If we could please, Thank you. The project cost of 14.8 billion does not include anything to do with the tunnel, through the great dividing range outside of Toowoomba. Is that correct?

No.

[Malcolm Roberts] What is the cost?

Of the tunnel?

[Malcolm Roberts] Yes.

So projects as we’ve testified a few times now, for commercial and confidence we’re under procurement right now. So we’re not disclosing project budgets, but the total cost of inland rail, does include the cost of the tunnel down the Toowoomba range.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. Australian Economic Consultants and Peer reviewed by professor Rolf has put the cost of the tunnel at $5 billion plus $3 billion for new rail line between Acacia Ridge, the port of Brisbane, and $1 billion of other work. This puts the current cost of inland rail at 24 billion. How can it possibly recoup these expenses?

Sorry, Senator Roberts, I’d have to expand on those comments. That’s I believe cost of the tunnel to go to the port, and the improvements to get to the port, which is subject to that separate business case, it wouldn’t be additive to the cost of inland rail. It’s a separate project with a separate business case.

[Malcolm Roberts] How can it still stack up? That’s a heck. That’s a matter for government and the business case.

Sir the port connection, isn’t part of the inland rail project

[Malcolm Roberts] Sorry.

The port connection work isn’t part of the inland rail project, and hasn’t been committed to, by any government, then to do the study.

[Malcolm Roberts] It’s additional costs.

Well we were doing a study on what’s viable and what would work with, the Queensland government. And whether or not there is a port connection built will be a matter for future government decision-making.

[Malcolm Roberts] Let’s move on then. In the original discussions around what was then called the north south rail corridor, there was a route that came over the border into Queensland. where it does now near Goondiwindi and then heads north to Mooney before crossing the mountain range at a lower elevation through Mamadoer onto Dalby, and then down to Toowoomba. This allows for a junction at Dalby with coal and bulk grains, going to Gladstone and the freight hub for Brisbane located at Toowoomba. The rest of the trip would be by road using the new $1.6 billion second range crossing which is actually built. Do you have any information on that alignment via Mooney?

Yes. That was looked at some time ago and found not to be economically feasible as an alternative to meet the business case requirements. So maybe I can address the broader question there, which is Gladstone truncating in Toowoomba. The biggest thing about inland rail we have to remember, is the actual business case and the business case was developed over a long period of time between the Commonwealth, the states and ARTC and they all agreed that the way to meet the business case, which was a terminal to terminal to meet the growth demands in Southeast Queensland and Victoria for domestic goods was the broadly the alignment we’re on today. It was not meant to get to port okay. If it was a different business case, it was about getting to the most efficient port, or it was about coal then maybe Gladstone would make a lot more sense. The terminal to terminal is very important, particularly when we look at some of the growth rates in Queensland, if you look at what’s been released in the last month or so out of Southeast Queensland two and a half million people growing to 5 million people, they’re gonna have a lot of needs, and a lot of products and goods and services. And so that is what the supply chain is all about. That’s what inland rail is all about, is getting them the furniture, the food that they need, the beer that they need, the toilet paper that they need. So, sorry,

I said here, here.

Thank you. So trying to divert now and go to Gladstone, it can be an end, but you doesn’t make sense. We have to be true to the business case and deliver on that business case. And that’s what we’re doing.

[Malcolm Roberts] A lot of complexities. In a major project we learn as we start the project, and as we implement the project, there seem to be more and more questions that are coming up.

Yes. And, but that is, you’re exactly right. That’s a major project, and so what you have to do is respond to the learnings, and improve as you go, and have a process that allows you to account for it

[Malcolm Roberts] Could it be that the original business case was not done in sufficient depth quality?

I think it’s one of the better business cases I’ve seen and certainly had a very good benefit to cost ratio compared to other projects. So it’s pretty high quality.

[Malcolm Roberts] Based on early assumptions.

Yes.

[Malcolm Roberts] What’s the benefits to cost ratio?

2.6 originally

[Malcolm Roberts] The AEC found that a route that terminated in Toowoomba and sent coal and grain to Gladstone, including the cost of the extra leg to Gladstone would cost $12 billion total on a return of 1.58 as against the current route, including tunnels and links, which is now at 24 billion on a return of investment at 1.01, will you refer the AEC Gladstone alignment with Toowoomba termination, to the rural and regional affairs and transport committee inland rail inquiry for a full review?

Yeah. So I have to correct the statement, that inland rail not 24 billion. We talked about that earlier today, two different business cases. And the second thing about being cheaper to go to Gladstone, if it doesn’t accomplish the business case, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s cheaper. You know, I had this discussion with my family all the time when they buy something on sale that they don’t need, it doesn’t do us any good. So,

If it’s more productive.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you very much. Isn’t it that the issue really about value?

It is about value, but you have to accomplish. One of the great things is, and I’ve mentioned this a few times one of the great things about Australia, as opposed to other countries, I’ve dealt with large infrastructure, large infrastructure projects are justified based on the business case. We have to be true and honest to that business case, it’s disingenuous to deliver something different other than that business case, without going back and changing it.

/1 Comment/by

BigTech Clamps Down

I talked to Marcus Paul about axing changes to the responsible lending laws, my anti-gender-neutral language motion and vaccine passports on 2SM.

Transcript

[Marcus Paul] Well, tell me what happened with YouTube?

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, Marcus, we had a very good interview last week, as usual, trading facts and discussing the facts.

[Marcus Paul] You and I?

[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah.

[Marcus Paul] Yeah.

[Malcolm Roberts] And we posted it as we always do on YouTube and Facebook. And YouTube banned my post because I mentioned Ivermectin and included some facts, scientific facts, and also said that the doctor successfully prescribed it for me, and I used it several years ago to treat a condition when I came back from India. So it seems factual comments rub Google the wrong way.

[Marcus Paul] Wow, okay, what about Facebook? Is it still there? Because we often share your stuff and obviously because it’s content for our show, but yeah, I know. Oh, okay. Yeah, no gone. Gone.

[Malcolm Roberts]We posted it also on Facebook. It’s still there. But the Facebook censors came knocking on our door for a post I made back in 1st of May which is almost three weeks ago. also proclaiming the facts on Ivermectin that’s been treated it’s being used to treat 3.7 billion doses around the world. It’s proven, safe, etc. etc. And they’ve wiped that one out. So, I mean, always that’s a form of control and always beneath control is fear. These people: Google, YouTube, Facebook are afraid of facts.

[Marcus Paul] All right. Well, Craig Kelly has gone through something similar, as you would know, and that’s why.. Look you mention Ivermectin and the censors go wild. It’s probably because it’s not a part of official government policy. That’s what I’ve been told. And that’s why I was told to steer clear of it and not discuss it. And that’s why I left it well alone, to be honest. But anyway, Malcolm let’s move on. One nation appears to have torpedoed the government’s plans to ditch responsible lending laws. After the parties leader, Pauline Hanson said it would leave Australians vulnerable to predatory banks. After the government last year announced a roll back of laws that affect how banks assess customers for mortgages and personal loans. Senator Hanson yesterday said the government was telling the public to relax and trust the big banks.

[Malcolm Roberts] We are ditching the government’s proposed relaxation of responsible lending laws because it’s wrong. These banks are cutthroat. They’re robber barons and they do not care about people. They care only about making money for the banks. But the Labour Party and the Liberal Party have a history of supporting the big banks. In 2017 Pauline got an inquiry up in to lending to primary production customers. That’s foresters, farmers, fishermen. And she asked me to chair it and we were very strong on it. We worked closely with the National Party, Senator Williams, Wacka Williams, and we had a bipartisan approach. And we went out in to the Bush, got the farmers, supported them, my office, Pauline’s office in particular supported the farmers to make submissions. We supported them. We went out in the bush again before each hearing. We’d got their stories and we told them how to get it across effectively. Very successful. I then held the banks accountable and it was so embarrassing for the Turnbull government at the time that Turnbull and Morrison both said they would not have a royal commission in to the banks. So successful were we at exposing the rorts the banks were doing that we got a royal commission and it embarrassed the government in to it. Now, the point was that we exposed predatory lending and corruption by the banks. Now the Morrison government wants to unwind what we achieved. And we also chase the banks, the Australian banking association, on its own code of conduct. And so we can’t afford to unwind this. We only had a royal commission come down what, two years ago?

[Marcus Paul] Yeah. Yep.

[Malcolm Roberts] This is ridiculous.

[Marcus Paul] All right. Another issue. Maybe the most important of all COVID issues. Vaccine passports. I noticed that from the start you say you’ve opposed vaccine passports that are really vaccine prisons. Tell me about this.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yes. And when we still maintain that position we will oppose a vaccine passport, a digital passport, because they’re excluding people. You cannot force people in this country to inject something in to their bodies. That has to be an informed choice and informed consent. So what it means is that if you don’t have the vaccine or digital record of your vaccine being administered, then you won’t be able to go onto airlines. You won’t be able to travel overseas. You won’t be able to travel interstate. According to some people. You won’t be able to enter a pub, maybe. Who knows where this will end. That’s why I call it the digital prison. It’s a vaccine prison. And it’s a way of forcing people to take the jab. Now, what you’ll notice also is that Ivermectin is a proven, safe, affordable, alternative to a vaccine. We’re not saying one or the other. We’re saying you take your choice. At the moment, we are not giving people an informed consent. They are not giving us informed consent rather to the government. So we’re forcing people, basically, if the digital prison comes in, so you can get a jab. Whereas we have an alternative vac-, alternative treatment in Ivermectin that is proven, safe and affordable. People need to be able to choose what they want to do.

[Marcus Paul] All right, let’s move on to gender language. You’ve attached a motion here. Individuals have a right to choose their descriptors but we cannot dehumanise the human race and undermine genders. It’s stressing out children. We can never deal with men and women’s health issues if we pretend they aren’t men and women say One Nation.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yes. I got this motion up in the Senate a few weeks ago. In fact, the Labour Party and the Greens opposed it. They voted against it. The Liberal Party took a bit of talking, but they eventually came on board and we got it through the Senate. What’s happening right now is that fundamental biology and relationships are represented through the descriptions like mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, boy, girl, grandmother, grandfather, uncle, aunt, etc. Mr. Mrs. What the government has done in the past is it’s taken away these descriptors and put gender neutral descriptors in there. And what we want to do is to make sure, and then we called on the government, to make sure that it returns to proper English, because we reject the use of distorted language. Like if you want to talk about a man, then he’s a non-gestational person. Non-gestational parent, father that is. Instead of father, they want to be called non-gestational parent.

[Marcus Paul] What?

[Malcolm Roberts] Mother is gestational parent.

[Marcus Paul] I’ve got a headache.

[Malcolm Roberts] Instead of breastfeeding, it’s chestfeeding. Instead of milk, it’s human milk. Lactating parent. Menstruators instead of women. Now, this is absolutely ridiculous. And we just want to get back to the simple terms that everyone understands. We’ve got to have correct language.

[Marcus Paul] All right. There’s a bit of a fight brewing. And I spoke to Anthony Albanese yesterday about Joel Fitzgibbon. This story kind of broke a little later in relation to the $600 million gas plants which is slated for Curry Curry, up there in the Hunter. Labour say, no. Well certainly Chris Bowen, Anthony Albanese, they all say no that it’s, you know, the cost doesn’t stack up. And they base it with some data from a number of organisations that say the business case just doesn’t work and we’d be wasting our money. The government though wants to power ahead with a gas fired recovery post COVID-19. And that’s why they are using taxpayers money and getting the snowy hydro people to operate this new gas power station. They promise Malcolm that our prices, power prices, will come down. Of course, this is all because Lidell is closing down. Now. Joel Fitzgibbon, Meryl Swanson, seem to be on one side of the argument here in Labour. Whereas the others, including Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese, oppose it. They’re in a bit of trouble I think, mate.

[Malcolm Roberts] They’re in a hell of a lot of trouble. But they’re not the only ones in trouble. The Liberal Party and the National Party are also in trouble because Angus Taylor, the energy minister, has admitted in public that he is afraid of, they’re his words, he’s afraid of higher prices in the future for electricity. Less reliability. The end of reliability and the end of stability for our grid. When I was a kid, I had first-year high school at Curry Curry. I cycled in from the bush, about four mile, we lived in the bush, four miles out. I cycled into town, picked up a town of Western and then Curry, and we’d picked up mates and we cycled to Curry Curry High School. We went past the Curry Curry Alcan Aluminium Smelter. That was built there because of the cheap coal-fired electricity in the Hunter. Because aluminium smelters need a hell of a lot of cheap of electricity and reliable supply. That plant is now shut. They’ve demolished that plant. That’s where they want to build a gas-fired power station. Now, I understand from the Australian newspaper that Tomago has had three shutdowns in the last week. You cannot shut down an aluminium smelter like that.

[Marcus Paul] Yeah.

[Malcolm Roberts] They’re also forced with high prices.

[Marcus Paul] Sure.

[Malcolm Roberts] We are destroying our industry in this country and shipping it overseas. We have got to wake up. The cheapest form of power is hydro. That’s without a doubt. The second cheapest is coal. Hydro is limited. Coal is abundant in this country. We are the world’s largest exporters of gas and coal in the world. And sea-borne trade of coal in the world. Now, we’ve also got the fact that the third cheapest, way behind coal, is nuclear. Solar and wind which is what both Liberal Party and Labour Party and Joel’s mob, are going for. Solar and wind and batteries. They’re absolutely ridiculous prices. For every, they’ve proven this overseas, for every so-called green energy job, solar and wind, there are 2.2 real industry jobs lost. It is highly destructive what they’re doing. Both parties.

[Marcus Paul] All right, Malcolm. Good to have you on, mate. We’ll talk again soon.

[Malcolm Roberts] All right, mate.

[Marcus Paul] All right.

[Malcolm Roberts] Bye, Marcus.

[Marcus Paul] There he is. One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts.

/by

Weak Joe Biden leads to more conflict in the world

We are seeing more conflicts across the world, from Gaza to Mexico to China, because enemies feel more emboldened when there is weak leadership in the United States. They know they can push the boundaries more than they could before.

Expect to see more of it under a Biden administration. I hold grave concerns with how far China will push the boundaries to take advantage of the weak leadership in the US.

Transcript

[Gary Hardgrave] Well, I think that’s right. I mean, look Malcolm Roberts we’re not going to spend the whole hour talking about Israel, but it’s awful with dozens of people on both sides of the border. When it comes to that Gaza strip aggression into even downtown Jerusalem, they have this Iron Dome of protection, missiles that basically blow up missiles out of the ground… out of the sky.

You know that this is ugly, but Israel is a democracy. Israel is the only democracy in the whole of the Middle East. Israel is worthy of defending. But equally the Palestinian claim on the territory is worth, you know, discussing but surely there’s room for both to live peacefully? If only they’ll give peace a chance.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yes. That’s the first thought that came to my mind when you raise this topic, Israel is indeed the only democracy in the middle East and it needs to stay. And then the Palestinians also have a right to exist. So I don’t think that’s, disputed by sensible people but what you do see when leadership fails, then you start seeing ill discipline coming in and aggression coming because they know there’s less-

[Gary Hardgrave] That’s it.

[Malcolm Roberts] -possibility of a consequence. And look at, look at the Mexican border. Now with the United States people pouring through. Texas now suing. So I read somewhere, Texas suing the Biden administration for being Lax on the border. I mean, it’s all going to custard and what worries me is what the Chinese will do with regard to Taiwan and what the Chinese might do with regard to us when they see a very weak leadership in the what is supposed to be the biggest and most powerful democracy that’s ever existed.

And it’s crumbling, we can see that the United States has really gone South. Thanks to Bill Clinton. Thanks to Barack Obama in particular. There was hope when Reagan was in and there was a lot of hope when Trump was in, but the globalists have taken over and they’re gutting that country. And so we’ll see all the tyrants and the and the despots taking over and playing the games that they can get away with now.

[Gary Hardgrave] Yeah, I think really what’s going on. And it’s awful. As I said, innocent children being killed. Conflict that doesn’t need to be there, is occurring. There is room for everybody to live peacefully. Side-by-side different religions. As I said, Holy land for Jews, for Christians, for Muslims for the Abrahamic faith. Everyone. The people of the book.

And the good sensible Muslims I know, passionate about Palestine understand that, respect that but they also understand that there’s a lot more in common with Jews and Christians, than these sorts of crazy extremists are promoting.

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Make Ivermectin available

Ivermectin has been proven as a safe treatment over 3.7 Billion doses across the world. Why it isn’t at allowed as one option to treat COVID is perplexing. Have the vaccines available sure, but also have the proven safe anti-viral treatments available as well.

It’s no silver bullet, but we should have everything we can get in our arsenal to help save lives.

Transcript

[Gary Hardgrave] And he went different ways. I mean, Malcolm Roberts, that’s the point that it’s like, Oh I sort of joke, You know, we’re not all in this together. Part 53, the latest example, the frequent flyers the people that are able to jet overseas and many times over the last 12 months. Well, good luck to them, I guess because there’s plenty of countries in the world a lot worse off than we are, but they’re landlocked.

They’re connected to other countries, we’ve got that part of it pretty right, there’s no doubt about that. But somewhere along the line this fear factor has gotta be stared down. We’ve got to muscle up and say, well if the celebrities and the highly paid and the really rich and their private planes can jet here and jet there and in their tens of thousands then the rest of us should be able to do it too.

[Malcolm Roberts] What we need, Gary is a plan. On Monday the 23rd of March last year, we assembled for the first for the first simple first single day sitting of the Senate on this COVID supposed crisis. And I stood up and spoke and said, look we’re going to wave everything through. This is, we’ve seen people falling like flies overseas, so we don’t know the scope, the size of this but we’re just going to put, the government giving them everything they need, job seeker, job keeper but I said, we expect you to collect the data.

We will hold you accountable. And we expect you to build a plan. I have not seen a plan. What I’ve seen is lots of fear as everyone has talked about on this show and always behind fear there’s control. And that’s what we see Bronwyn nailed it again, as she always does. We’ve also seen a lack of a plan. In Senate estimates in late March this year I had checked with the chief health officer and the deputy chief health officer for this country.

And I said let me just check that we’ve got the understanding of what’s needed to manage a virus. So the first thing is lockdowns and border lockdowns in particular. And I said, but even the UN world health organisation which I see as corrupt incompetent and dishonest and it’s been proven, such, even they say a lockdown is only used initially to get control. So that means Anastasia Palaszcuk, Mark McGowan and Dan Andrews in Victoria.

And I leave out Gladys Berejiklian because she’s done the best job so far. It’s not a good job, but she’s done the best job so far. That means they’re using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and what they’re doing is they’re admitting they have not got control of this virus. The second thing, and I checked this with the, with the chief health officer. The second thing is testing, tracing and quarantining of the sick and the vulnerable. Testing and tracing to track the virus and nail it quickly. Third thing, individual restrictions things like masks and so on. Yes.

They agreed with me so far. And I said the fourth thing is to have an antiviral treatment a prophylactic, a cure. And they said, yes. Then the fifth thing is a vaccine, if it’s tested and if it’s found to be safe. And they said, yes, and then they added one more. And they said, individual behaviours, things like social distancing. And I said, okay. So I rattled off the six that we agreed on. Anything missing? No. Anything that shouldn’t be there? No.

So my point is what happened to number four, the antiviral treatment? I’ve taken Ivermectin when I came back from India to get rid of a condition that I caught over there. Ivermectin has been given to 3.7 billion people around the world, no health problems.

It’s proven safe over six decades, six decades. And on top of that, it’s cheap. And on top of that it’s now being used successfully with the virus in South America and various European countries and in Asia, why aren’t we discussing it here? I mean, the chief health officer and the deputy chief health officer have said it’s part of the plan and we can open up borders. We can relax a lot of things if we provide what is now a proven, safe cure, in addition to the vaccine, let those who want a vaccine have it. I will take the Ivermectin, I’ve already taken it once for something else. And it worked. And I’m still here mate, I’m not going anywhere.

[Gary Hardgraves] No, I can tell you’re very much so still here. Look before we go to the break,

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Turnbull brought socialism to Australia, what’s changed?

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I ask the Liberal Party, what’s changed since Malcolm Turnbull left? The answer is nothing, not a single policy has changed.

What we see in this budget is a complete lack of vision to enhance our productive capacity with dams, rail, ports and visionary infrastructure. Just sugar hits in the lead up to an election.

Transcript

[Gary Hardgrave] Yeah I mean, Malcolm Roberts, I, for what it’s worth, one of my grandfathers was a truck driver. The other one was a labourer, his last job pick-and-shovel work on the Gold Coast Council. I mean, it’s not exactly absent from my family, that blue collar tradition.

What I don’t get is where Labour and these trendies in the inner suburbs think they can actually relate to the workers and the doers, many of them now forgetting team red and team blue and looking at one nation and other independents, because they want to see real government action when it comes to liberating their right to earn a living, liberating their opportunity to own their own home. Surely you must be hearing and seeing all of that.

[Malcolm Roberts] Oh, well and truly, Gary, you have hit the nail on the head. And perhaps I can go back to something Bronwyn said when I was on with her last year, and that was she was talking about Malcolm Turnbull’s book release, because it’s not just the Labour Party that has lost touch. And she rattled off several things that Turnbull had done.

One was the Water Act, the submarines contract, and she rattled off two others, just so easily as Bronwyn always does. And then she said, “You know the real problem “that Malcolm Turnbull brought to this Liberal party, “he brought socialism here, “and he’s driven socialism into the Liberal Party.” So I ask the Liberal Party, what’s changed since Malcolm Turnbull left?

Nothing, not a single policy has changed. And what we see in this budget is a complete lack of vision to enhance our productive capacity for the future. There’s no infrastructure spending other than trains and, city trains and roads. We need much more than that to restore our productive capacity, to give people a good job.

The other thing, the other point I raised with this budget is that there’s nothing done on the basics. The basics, exactly as you just said, Gary. We need tax reform. Look at, look at a person pays now, the median income in our country is only $49,000 a year. Thanks to Labour and Liberal, our energy costs have gone through the roof. We’ve gone from the being the lowest-priced electricity in the world to amongst the highest in the world. That is destroying manufacturing.

It’s putting cost of living out of the range of families, especially, median income, 50% of the people earn less than $49,000 a year. And electricity is now a huge tax burden. So, and the third thing is fantasy. We’ve got good coal-fired power. We can build hydro electricity, reliable, synchronous, and cheap. What are we betting the house on in the future? We’re burning down our current house and the future house we’re gonna build is hydrogen. We’ve gone from fossil fuels to fantasy fuels. And, you know, this is just bloody ridiculous.

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Ivermectin – 2SM with Marcus Paul

I talked to Marcus Paul last week about our motion to keep our Judaeo-Christian values in our education system and questioned why ivermectin wasn’t available in Australia when it has been proven safe.

Transcript

[Marcus Paul] Tell me about this motion you put in front of me here. I give notice that on the next day of sitting, I nearly said another word then. I shall move that the Senate, what?

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, that the Senate actually makes sure that the national curriculum, includes Judeo-Christian heritage as the basis for our laws and customs.

[Marcus Paul] Right?

[Malcolm Roberts] We want that in the national curriculum, because in 2014, there was a review by two people called Donnelly and Wiltshire, into the national curriculum. And they recommended more emphasis, more emphasis on our Judeo-Christian heritage Because that’s the role it played in Western civilization and contributing to our society and making our laws and our culture. And lo and behold, when the 2020 national curriculum recommendations came out, they had a de-emphasis on our Judeo-Christian heritage and going over a bit more to the, what could you say, the flavours of the month? You know, the fads.

[Marcus Paul] Like?

[Malcolm Roberts] And so what we wanted the basics back.

[Marcus Paul] Hang on. Like?

[Malcolm Roberts] Well they want to emphasise that the First Nations people think that there was an invasion. They want to emphasise that there are other multicultural aspects of Australia. Now we’ve got no problems with that at all but we’ve got to make sure that the basis of our culture the basis of our laws, gets prominence and not, is not removed.

[Marcus Paul] Yeah, or we could just focus on teaching kids how to add up and to construct a sentence.

[Malcolm Roberts] Ah Marcus, that’d be wonderful.

[Marcus Paul] All right. The federal budget, you say that there’s been a lack of spending on visionary infrastructure to improve our productive capacity. We’ve continued to ignore the basics, energy and tax which are vital for manufacturing.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yes, that’s right. You know, we talked many times about tax and about energy costs. The energy costs are artificially high. We went from being the cheapest electricity in the world, Marcus, to being amongst the most expensive all because of artificial regulations that are not needed. We are exporting our coal to China where they sell electricity made from our coal at 8 cents a kilowatt hour. Our cost here, our price here is three times that all because of the rubbish regulations.

[Marcus Paul] Yeah.

[Malcolm Roberts] And so what we’re really doing is we’re exporting jobs to China because our manufacturers leave here and go to China or other places in Asia that use our coal and don’t have our stupid governance. So what we’ve got to do is get back to basics and stop all the subsidies destroying our electricity sector and also fix the tax system because, you know, we talked about that at length last week. So probably don’t need to go into that, but they’re the things that are really destroying our country. And instead of killing jobs, we need to create jobs and we need to build our productive capacity in terms of our infrastructure, things like dams in particular, power stations, so that we have cheap reliable water and cheap, reliable, stable power. They’re the basics for any society. And, you know, we’re letting the UN, Warragamba Dam wall. They wanted to raise that and they’re not allowed because of the UN’s world heritage agreement. Well, I didn’t elect the UN I want, I want to budget for us.

[Marcus Paul] Yeah. Very true. All right, mate, now there’s plenty in there for women’s services in relation to domestic violence, which all of us agree is worthwhile. You say, but nothing for men. What do you mean by that?

[Malcolm Roberts] Yes. And that’s a really good point that you raised Marcus. I know an outstanding group. That’s doing phenomenal work on a voluntary basis and they’re really supporting men and women. They’re not specifying only men, just men and women and also kids and families. Family law system is really crook and it’s devastating people’s lives. It’s the slaughter house of the nation. And what he’s finding is that he can get no support from the federal government in terms of providing counselling services that he is putting on voluntarily and getting volunteers to do. I mean, it’s an amazing network that he’s got. He’s just opened offices in Newcastle, Australian brotherhood of fathers. So, but the point is that we know domestic violence is perpetrated by men on women. We also know that domestic violence is perpetrated by women on men, but only one side of the story comes out. And only one side of the equation gets the funding. So men are vulnerable too, and they need to be protected and need to be funded.

[Marcus Paul] All right, there was plenty of money for mental health, the national disability insurance scheme, aged care. But the reality is, is that the money will never get spent. You say.

[Malcolm Roberts] Much of it won’t get spent Marcus, because we don’t have the professionals. I mean, I was at an aged care rally here, aged care health and safety, health services union on Monday. Sorry. Yeah. Monday morning.

[Marcus Paul] Yeah. Monday it was.

[Malcolm Roberts] Here in Canberra and I mean they’re wonderful people I know from my parents care is they’re wonderful people and they work very, very hard. They’re under extreme emotional stress but they can’t get enough because of the pay rates. But the other thing is they can’t get enough of the professionals and registered nurses and they can’t get enough of the psychologists in when it comes to the NDIS and other professionals. So we won’t be able to have the services anyway. We’ve got to focus on getting these areas fixed.

[Marcus Paul] Okay. Well, I mean, I don’t disagree at all. I mean, the whole thing in particular, in my opinion has been packaged to look pretty good. You know, it’s a, it’s a budget that’s full of plenty of promises, almost like a labor-esque budget if you like, but there’s apparently more money. And this is what, a point I wanted to come to. And this is where I think people like you and Pauline Hanson need to really hold these people accountable in parliament. Apparently there’s some sort of war chest. So there’s billions of dollars that’s been set aside for, you know, the election campaign not too far away. So in other words, they’ve held off on some things and rather than spend the money now or put it toward, you know, extra money toward mental health or extra money toward the aged care sector, et cetera people suggesting that they’ve kept it aside for, I dunno future pork barreling or promises ahead of the next federal election.

[Malcolm Roberts] That could be right. And you raise a fantastic point there because what’s happening is that with both the main old parties the tired old parties, they do exactly what you’re saying. And what voters don’t seem to realise is they’re having an auction with the voters money.

[Marcus Paul] There we go.

[Malcolm Roberts] And the voters are bidding those prices up. So we’re doing it to ourselves as voters but we need to hold these people accountable. And that’s what Pauline and I will be doing. She was, budget papers are very, very thick and detailed. So she was already discussing with me in the Senate in a quiet moment, some ridiculous expenditure. I can’t remember the exact one that, that she raised but it was just outlandish. So they’re the things that we will do in the coming weeks going through the details and exposing them. But you’re absolutely right. We’ve got to stop this budget that puts us on an annual cycle of making promises and stealing money from taxpayers to give to other tax payers.

[Marcus Paul] Some of it, to be honest is borrowed anyway but we’ll deal with that another time. We can’t travel overseas as we’ve learned probably until mid 22. The budget itself, many of the promises and many of the figures announced you know, predetermined on, you know the whole joint being vaccinated in time, et cetera. International students will be let back in in small phase programmes later this year. I mean, and I noticed yesterday in question time in the house of representatives, that we couldn’t get a straight answer from the prime minister. And even the health minister had to jump in and have his say. And he just muddied the waters further. Vaccines and whether or not our borders will be reopened is something that the government just can’t seem to answer at the moment.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yes. And that’s right. And there are too many uncertainties here and too many unknowns Marcus. First of all, the vaccine that the prime minister himself has come out and said it may not stop the spreading of the virus. What, well, hang on. It’s all based on that, and yet he’s admitting that it won’t necessarily stop the spread of the virus. The other thing Marcus, that people may not be aware of, is that there’s a drug called ivermectin. It’s been used for treating people in Africa all over the world. In fact, I’ll tell you someone else who’s been treated by it in a minute. This ivermectin is an antiviral and it’s been used for around six decades, 60 years ago.

[Marcus Paul] This was the stuff that Craig Kelly was spruiking. Yes?

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, he’s just picking it up from overseas. I mean, Craig’s doing a wonderful job that man I can tell right now, every interaction I’ve had with Craig, he’s solid on the data and he doesn’t open his mouth. But anyway, without the data, now, the thing is that ivermectin has been given in 3.7 billion doses to 3.7 billion people. It’s proven safe. It’s an antiviral.

[Marcus Paul] Why then, why then Malcolm is not on the list as a as a well I don’t know, as a as a vaccine for COVID-19. I’ve heard ivermectin, we’ve had we’ve heard all of the stories that was originally criticised as a bit of a conspiracy theory vaccine proposal. I respectfully understand that there are many scientists who agree that it could be used, but I just wonder, I mean we’ve just spent, what we’ve just bought another 25 million cases of a new vaccine, Moderna from the United States. If ivermectin was all it was cracked up to be, surely it would have already been authorised.

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, that’s the real point Marcus. That I was getting to. In many countries now ivermectin is legal and is being used and they’re desperate to get it into into place because it’s very safe. I went to India and developed a condition in India as a consultant over there in the mining industry in 2014. And I was given ivermectin by an Australian doctor here quite legally, I had no side effects. It was fantastic. So we know it’s proven around the world. There are more and more countries that are doing two things, bringing ivermectin in and more and more countries are now stopping the use of some of these vaccines for COVID vaccines because the blood clotting and other issues. So the reason I believe, well we’ve got to ask this question why aren’t we using ivermectin when it’s completely safe? It’s got no side effects. It’s killed no one. And, and it’s also being proven as effective with the virus. Why are we not using that when these unproven, untested vaccines or partially tested vaccines? And when we know so much, so little about them, why are we doing that? Is it because if there is a viable solution in ivermectin that the vaccine makers wouldn’t get their money?

[Marcus Paul] I dunno it could be you’re the Senator. And these are the questions that you will ask. I’m sure. Mate, I’ve got to go. I really appreciate it. Talk soon. There he is. Malcolm Roberts.

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Will there be a sorry day for transgender kids?

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Where do you think our transgender kids will end up? Children who present with a felt sense of being born into the wrong body are given licence to make irreversible decisions that will affect their brain development and scar and mutilate their bodies.

When we start to accept that boys at 10½ can take puberty blockers, girls at 14 can have double mastectomies, and parents can be criticised and shamed when they attempt to counsel their children against these life-altering decisions, then lunacy, neglect and savagery are prevailing.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I raise a deeply troubling issue for all Australians. We know that feelings arise and pass, especially through adolescence. No feeling is final. Yet children who present with a felt sense of being born into the wrong body are given licence to make irreversible decisions that will affect their brain development and scar and mutilate their bodies. This is the life ahead for too many young people on the transgender highway.

There’s been an undeniable explosion of young females presenting with gender dysphoria. A hundred years of diagnostic history indicates this predominantly impacted males, yet in just 10 years we have witnessed a social contagion running rampant through our teenage girls—girls with no childhood history of gender dysphoria. In the United States, females requesting gender surgery in 2016-17 quadrupled. In the UK, females presenting with gender dysphoria over the last decade has risen over 4,000 per cent. In Australia, the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne has seen referrals rise from one in every two years to 104 in 2014.

In spite of the horrendous outcomes for many of these children—and I’ve met some—solid statistics are hard to come by. It seems this area of medical practice would prefer to keep their bad news under wraps. Gender dysphoria, as many eminent medical professionals will agree, overwhelming presents with pre-existing mental health conditions. In today’s highly politicised environment, when a child shares their distress around comfort with their gender, parents are challenged and even shamed if they attempt to take a comprehensive therapeutic approach to help their child. Instead, parents are labelled abusive and accused of harming their child when they refuse to consent to their child’s self-declared transgender identity.

Many of us may not remember our own teenage years, but those of us who have raised children through to adulthood will recall our own children going through adolescence. Parents walk a very fine line between nurturing their child’s emerging independence and supporting their child’s fragility. What we do know is that teens become super sensitive during this time. They hate people looking at them, they often loathe their newly emerging adult bodies or even feel revolted by them.

Everything is magnified, and they’re easily embarrassed. Being part of a tribe is powerful during this time, and that’s a perfect concoction for a social contagion. To make matters worse, the process of neural pruning during this time means their executive function is compromised, which is where we make our most effective decisions.

It’s irresponsible that we’re surrendering these life- and body-altering decisions to our children, putting them on a medical pathway of puberty blockers, sex hormones and irreversible surgery. An adult brain is required to balance the consequences of these life-changing decisions. We’re charging our children and, equally abhorrent, our courts with these enormous decisions. It’s our children, as young adults, that will left to face the horrendous consequences.

The medical pathway for children presenting with gender dysphoria is widely accepted as experimental. There’s no evidence that it’s safe. This is a call to all parents: your children are being used in an experiment where there’s no evidence it’s safe and plenty of evidence it’s not. Overnight, Sweden’s leading gender clinic stopped routine treatment of minors with hormone drugs due to safety concerns, citing cancer and infertility risks. There are concerns around bone density, memory, development of grey matter and cognitive impairment. These treatment are not proven safe, and yet our children can quite easily be prescribed puberty blockers and sex hormone treatment to then land on the operating table for irreversible surgery with grossly inadequate counselling. The counselling instead is left for the parents, for them to come to the terms with the loss of a child of one gender and welcome the emergence of another.

There’s another Sorry Day coming. That Sorry Day will be for all those vulnerable children that struggle through adolescence, as so many do, and we did nothing to protect them. When we start to accept that boys at 10½ can take puberty blockers, girls at 14 can have double mastectomies, and parents can be criticised and shamed when they attempt to counsel their children against these life-altering decisions, then lunacy, neglect and savagery are prevailing. These children will have every right as adults to turn to their parents, medical professionals, hospitals and the judicial system and demand compensation for our negligence because we lacked the courage, we lacked the will, to protect these children when they needed it the most.

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Budget: Government has abandoned the next generation

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The Liberal/National government has handed down a budget that the Labor party would be proud of. The Government is increasing borrowing to respond to a phoney climate emergency. Our ports and much of our power grid are in the hands of malicious foreign owners, and yet there is nothing in the budget to buy back these vital strategic assets.

Defence funding is being spent on wasteful white elephant programs like the attack class submarines instead of caring for our diggers and making sure they have the equipment they need. There is no vision or care for the future in this budget. Only One Nation has the vision to fix the country.

Transcript

As servant to the people of Queensland & Australia I remind the senate and all Australians that 24 years ago Pauline Hanson warned that Australia was heading to a place that we would not recognise as Australia.

The Media devoted much attention to the immigration aspects of her comments, and completely missed the substance.

Today we have arrived at the place Pauline warned us about.

Australians are living with restrictions on association, on speech, on movement, on protest and we even have mandatory face coverings.

Our federation has broken apart, we have seen border checkpoints between States.

The phrase ‘papers please’ which has defined tyrants throughout history, is now life for everyday Australians.

Our police are arresting law-abiding citizens in their own homes for the crime of organising a peaceful protest.

Our police are forcefully arresting a journalist for the crime of reporting that protest.

Dictators have been overthrown for less than this!

In the famous words traced to French, English and American philosophers Montaigne, Bacon and Thoreau, our leaders had “nothing to fear but fear itself”, and they chose fear!

The Premiers and the Prime Minster have surrendered power to ‘unelected bureaucrats with medical degrees’ who have shown themselves incapable of seeing the big picture.

While social media are calling the COVID restrictions on businesses a war on Capitalism, it’s much more sinister.

Corporate Australia have record sales, record profits and have paid themselves higher dividends and bonuses.

The Liberal National Government sent JobKeeper to these same companies who used the money to pay themselves yet more dividends and bonuses.

Now with this budget the Company Tax clawback has been extended to 2023/24. Companies making a loss in 23/24 can claim that loss against tax paid in 2018/18 and the Government will give a refund.

Let me explain the concept of taxation to the Treasurer. The Government is not supposed to take the tax paid by corporate Australia… and give it back to them.

This money was supposed to pay for the things that define Australia as a caring society – Medicare, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, childhood education and social security.

The Treasurer cannot give corporate tax back and then borrow the money to pay for recurring expenditure.

Yet that is exactly what this budget does.

Debt, debt and more debt to pay for profligate spending seemingly with no thought to the next generation that will be left to pay for it.

This is a budget of which Labor would be proud.

When I talk about the Lib Lab duopoly, even their budgets are looking the same.

As a result of coronavirus measures the world’s 400 richest people have increased their wealth by over 1 trillion dollars. We do not need to add to their wealth accumulation.

Much of this wealth is money that was once spent in local communities, in local hardware stores, community supermarkets, gift stores and greengrocers. Now many of those have been forced to close.

Online growth has gone to Amazon whose owner is the world’s richest man.

The real outcome from coronavirus measures has been the largest transference of wealth, from small business to the elites in Australian history.

We expect this sort of thing from the Liberal Party and their sell-out sidekicks the Nationals.

But Labor has embraced the politics of fear and cronyism in Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria.

Shame on you.

Only One Nation is committed to restoring a fair go for working Australians.

As our motion today on the National Curriculum and last sitting on de-gendered language shows, One Nation will continue to defend Australia as a faith-based nation committed to family and community.

One Nation continues to champion the natural environment. We continue to fight for clean air, for clean water, for clean food and for clean medicines.

We leave worshipping of the sky god of warming to Labor, the Greens and sadly now, in their final act of surrender, the Liberal-National Party with their policies contradicting science, common sense and nature.

With this budget the Government is borrowing money to increase funding for a fake climate emergency. There’s no climate emergency and a gutless pandering to the bed wetters on the left is not in the best interests of Australians.

This budget has a black armband view of Australia’s future. The projections for the contribution to GDP from agriculture are based on the assumption that lower rainfall will return and agricultural output and exports will decline.

According to the Government’s own research a drought like this last one has happened 10 times in the last 1000 years. It was not climate change 1000 years ago and it is not climate change now.

Cold weather has overtaken the northern hemisphere with widespread crop failures, reduced harvests and higher prices. This will not change over forward estimates.

Natural climate cycles have given our farmers a wonderful opportunity to grow our agricultural sector and exports.

Foreign influence and ownership in Australia has reached crisis levels and this budget has not done anything about it.

Our ports in Darwin, Melbourne and Newcastle and much of our power grid are now in the hands of a hostile foreign power. Those owners have publicly professed their loyalty not to Australia but to the Chinese Communist party.

This budget makes no provision for the cost of buying these contracts back so one can assume the Government does not intend to act to restore Australian sovereignty over our strategic assets.

Our armed forces are incapable of waging war against any serious challengers. Our subs are in pieces, only 1 sub is combat ready at this moment.

One.

The budget continues the new subs project despite the cost rising to an estimated $200 billion and delivery pushing out past 2030.

On the bright side Mr President, Australia is advancing our space capability.

Later this year an Australian designed and manufactured satellite will be launched into orbit from an Australian designed and manufactured rocket, using an Australian launch facility.

How amazing is that?

This is proof that it is time to get the government out of people’s lives and let free enterprise and Aussie ingenuity fix this mess.

Starting with withdrawing from the United Nations and their sovereignty-sapping, wealth-sucking, industry-killing conventions that make Australia less not more.

One Nation’s alternative budget will recover the freedoms, opportunities and living standards that Australians once enjoyed.

One Nation will cancel the submarine contract and purchase nuclear powered submarines off the shelf to expedite delivery and recover our defensive capability.

One Nation will terminate the clean energy fund and the Department of Climate change while honouring agreements already in place.

Every year Liberal-Labor-Nationals climate and energy policies cost Australians an ADDITIONAL $B13. The Liberal Energy Minister admits he is afraid for future electricity prices and terrified of losing reliability and stability.

Rightly so thanks to Liberal-Labor-Nationals policies starting with John Howard in 1996.

One Nation will abolish all energy subsidies for fossil fuel (except the diesel fuel rebate) and renewables so that free enterprise can build reliable, baseload power of whichever type they consider the most efficient.

This will restore our productive capacity by breathing life into our devastated industries.

One Nation will allow doctors to prescribe Australian medical cannabis to anyone with a medical need.

One Nation calls for a national taxation summit to reach agreement on how our taxation system is failing everyday Australians and destroying our country and to arrive at solutions based on proven principles.

This budget increases the number of public servants by 5000 over the next 12 months.

One Nation will freeze employment numbers in the Federal public service and re-allocate staff away from virtue signalling and pork barrelling projects into productive pursuits.

One Nation will reduce immigration such that our net population growth becomes zero. This will allow infrastructure like roads, hospitals, schools and housing to catch up with the avalanche of migrants that Labor/Greens and Liberal/Nationals have let in over the last 20 years.

A net zero population policy will actually allow around 80,000 migrants to still come in each year to replace the 80,000 who leave each year. We would expect 10,000 of those will be refugees.

This contrasts with a peak arrival rate of 275,000 new migrants annually pre COVID – 3 & ½ times our stable number.

The reduction in demand will take the heat out of the housing market and allow everyday Australians some relief from the extreme inflation we are seeing in housing, education, aged care, child care and medical expenses.

One Nation is preparing a plan that will turn Northern Australia into a growth engine for the whole country, offering a new future for Australia based on agriculture, mining, value adding.

More importantly, based on community.

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Northern Australia left behind by terrible government

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In North Queensland I met local visionaries with commitment, competence and dedication to a better North. But that was matched, sadly, on the other side of the scale by the incompetence of state and federal governments.

The North is simply waiting for good governance, I hope they get it before it is too late.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to relate my travels through the Flinders catchment area, which is the fourth biggest river flow in Queensland. There is rich soil, vast grassy plains with no trees and water: abundant water, regular water yet untapped. The potential is being wasted. I felt excited, supported, encouraged and inspired by the people I met in North Queensland, but I also felt worried and disappointed because of the atrocious state and federal governments that are cruelling that area. My needs in the people were met entirely: commitment, competence, dedication. But that was matched, sadly, on the other side of the scale by the inability of the state and federal governments to meet their needs for support and good governance.

We went to look firstly at the Bradfield Scheme, to do our due diligence. We’ve done it at the Murray-Darling Basin; now we’ve done it in the Flinders. The Bradfield Scheme is a visionary scheme to turn the waters that are flowing to the east and being wasted to the west and into the Thomson. We wanted to look at the Murray-Darling Basin catchment, which we have, and also at the Flinders, and this was a chance to see the Bradfield Scheme source and then to go across the Flinders. What we saw flying up the coast was naturally wet area in the tropics, the coast, Ingham and Tully. We then swung west over the Tully midstream and all the way down the Burdekin River to the Burdekin Falls Dam. We then turned west and went back across the Flinders catchment area, through Charters Towers, Hughenden, Richmond, Julia Creek, Cloncurry. We touched down in Cloncurry to fuel and then went north to Normanton, where there are huge vast plains, and then back south-west to Townsville where we started.

We then spent a week driving on the ground, listening to people, getting the lay of the land and the lay of the people. What impressed us were the locals with vision, real vision, complemented by their energy, their knowledge, their competence and their practicality. It was very inspiring, as I’ve already said. And there was plenty of water. They all said: ‘We don’t need the Bradfield Scheme water here. Let it go to the Thomson, as the original visionary plan from Bradfield suggested.’

In particular, I was impressed with the Richmond council; John Wharton, who is I think Queensland’s longest serving mayor—25 years if my memory is correct; and his very young but very competent CEO, Peter Bennett. They have a plan and a project that the locals are onboard with, called the Richmond agricultural project. It’s very simple: no dams, just divert water to 8,000 hectares of irrigable and rich, fertile soil. With agricultural production comes people and with people come services. Instead of Richmond bobbing around at 900 people, we can get it back up to 3,000, maybe even 8,000, people. It could be a really vibrant area in the north.

We also visited Hughenden, where the same recipe is being followed: water captured not in a dam but in weirs and diverted into storage areas or underground water. We saw Jane McNamara leading her team there; and Daryl Buckingham, who’s had experience in the Murray-Darling Basin and who’s transferring it to the north. We also visited HIPCo, Hughenden Irrigation Project Corporation, with Shane McCarthy. The council sponsored projects there, as I said, follow the same recipe.

We then went to Julia Creek on the ground, and we went to Etta Plains where we saw a very dynamic young Lucas Findley from Findley farms escaping the Murray-Darling Basin and the devastation of the regulations, the bureaucracy and the poor governance in the south. And we saw something fresh.

I could go on, but time will catch me here. What they’re all waiting for is good governance, which the state government and the federal government are not providing. The state government won’t allocate water allocations. They can’t do anything without that.

Ironically, the state government talks about capturing carbon dioxide, which the evidence shows is not necessary, but crops absorb carbon dioxide, and dams create crops that will absorb carbon dioxide. If they were fair dinkum, they’d do it. Ironically, the challenges up north are land tenure, water and energy. While they’re looking for it up north and have it in abundance, they can’t use it, because the same policies are destroying governance in the south.

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