A One Nation motion asking the Government to rule out an appeal to the Federal Court decision that the 2011 Live Export Ban was unlawful, received a majority vote in the Senate today.
Senator Roberts moved the motion after the Government indicated they would appeal the decision.
Senator Roberts stated, “This decision should ensure the $750 million in compensation is paid to farmers whose livelihoods were destroyed by the Gillard Labor Government’s decision to suspend live cattle exports in 2011.”
“I call on the Government to honour today’s commitment and ensure families who have suffered financial hardship receive their compensation without further legal delay.”
Live exports are a fundamental part of our country, our economy and vital to regional Australia.
Senator Roberts added, “No Australian industry should be closed down overnight based on falsified reports, no consultation and with indifference to people’s livelihoods.
“The Government needs to pay the compensation now and restore confidence and security to the live export sector.”
Lib/Labs refuse to investigate our relationship with China – AGAIN. I would like to congratulate Liberal Concetta Fierravanti-Wells who crossed the floor to support the motion.
Transcript
[President]
Senator Roberts.
[Roberts]
Thank you, Mr. Acting Deputy President. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I would like to say that One Nation is very supportive of the motion that Australia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China, be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee for inquiry and preparation of a report.
We wish to commend Senator Rex Patrick, for his seventh attempt to have this or a similar motion, sixth, I’m corrected, to have this motion progress. Mr. Acting Deputy President, Senator Patrick, I can only guess must feel like he’s on the set of Groundhog Day.
And on each of those occasions, Liberal and Labour Parties have joined to defeat all five of his previous attempts. I wonder because, if it’s because Liberal Andrew Robb, when he retired received an $880,000 salary after selling a lease to the Port of Darwin or after Sam Dastyari’s bills were paid by the Chinese or after Liberal Gladys Liu’s contradictions of fact about her associations with China that were never resolved or about Labor’s ICAC revelations in New South Wales.
We keep seeing Liberal and Labor come together to defeat even looking at this very vital, important relationship. It is imperative that Australia and China maintain a mutually respectful and beneficial bilateral relationship.
China is Australia’s largest two-way trading partner in exports and imports representing 24% of total trade with a value of $183 billion. That alone shows significant influence on Australia. Australia is China’s sixth largest trading partner and fifth biggest supplier of imports.
25% of Australia’s manufactured imports come from China. Thermal coal represents 13% of all Australian exports to China, and recently they tried to blackmail us about that. In more recent times, China has embarked on the One Belt One Road Initiative.
This is the Chinese government economic and strategic agenda where Eurasia, Africa and Oceania are more closely tied along two routes, one land, and one maritime. It is intended to facilitate Chinese economic and strategic domination of smaller countries along the routes, indeed Chinese control.
For Australia, we see the growing Chinese involvement in projects from Northern Australia, right through to Tassie, all providing little benefit to Australia, yet substantial benefits to China. We need to understand this relationship. We don’t just let them have an open door.
Other examples of Chinese involvement have been in the funding and support of local academic conferences and seminars. The negative aspects of the Confucius Institute are only just being realised as some universities remove them from their offerings.
Australia has been a destination of choice for many Chinese students to further their education in an Australian academic institution. It’s important to our economy. In 2018, there were more than 166,000 enrollments of Chinese students in Australia representing 43.3% of the total international student cohort heading for half.
A concern noted in some Australian universities is the potential dependence generated by full-fee paying international students on the overall money pool available to university budgets. Should those numbers suddenly diminish, it may leave some of our universities destitute and many university staff unpaid.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, these concerns have come to fruition and Australian universities are bleeding financially. To make matters worse, the Chinese government has just warned Chinese students not to study or return to study in Australia suggesting they would face discriminatory attacks.
Australia has been a favourite destination for Chinese tourists and this is shown again by recent numbers. More than 1.3 million Chinese tourists visited Australia last year, representing 15% of our total visitors. One seventh, this is a clear positive for Australia.
At the same time, there has been a growing boom of Australian tourists around 700,000 heading for China. This may also change rapidly as the Chinese government has recently warned off Chinese tourists from visiting our country through recent directives to their people.
One of the ongoing issues of concern relates to regional and global security. The growing tensions between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China in terms of imposition of trade tariffs is placing Australia in a challenging position, given the importance of Australia’s relationships with both countries.
More recently, the Chinese government has imposed an 80% tariff on Australian barley without explanation, and refused to accept meat from four of Australia’s major meat abattoirs, again, causing concern to Australian producers.
These actions by the Chinese government appear to be in retaliation for being called on by Australia to allow an independent investigation into the cause of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan China, what I’ve referred to as the Chinese Communist Party and the UN virus.
How dare we want an independent investigation? The Chinese still denying being the source of the outbreak of the worldwide pandemic remain uncooperative in dealing with this just as Liberal and Labour remain uncooperative in dealing with any, any inquisition or any inquiry into our relationship with China.
The Chinese actions and or inactions likely indeed certainly made the pandemic far worse than it could’ve been. And their behaviour in China is responsible for the loss of tens of thousands of lives. Indeed, hundreds of thousands of lives.
The views taken of China’s growing military influence in the South China Sea remain of concern to our most important ally, United States of America and therefore, necessarily of concern to our country as an established ally of the US.
Regionally, China is having a growing influence by funding infrastructure projects for some of the Pacific Island countries, and our and very near neighbour, Papua and New Guinea, just over the horizon from Australia. This runs the risk of changing the whole dynamic between Australia and our near neighbours.
Given the potential for military and strategic use of these bases by China and the potential for resource extraction at some future time, there is need to consider this factor when examining our relationship with China.
We already feel this is at home with the outrageous decision to lease the Port of Darwin a strategic Northern gateway to China for 99 years. This is the home of our local naval presence. What on earth was the government thinking?
I point to Dutton, Mr. Dutton, Mr. Hastie, Senator Kitching who have raised valid concerns, both Liberal and Labor MPs and senators just as Senator Patrick mentioned.
Indeed it was reported, Mr. Dutton was reportedly stated as in 12th of October, 2019, one of the Morrison Government’s most senior figures has taken a direct swipe at Beijing accusing the Chinese Communist Party of behaving in ways that are inconsistent with Australian values.
The key points emerged, Mr. Dutton said that federal government would call out state actors if it was in the national interest. Well, let’s see an inquiry, Mr. Dutton said he wanted universities to be free from foreign interference. So let’s see an inquiry into that foreign interference that he acknowledges.
The Home Affairs minister, a very powerful minister, senior minister also criticised China’s Belt and Road Initiative and defended the ban on using Huawei to help build Australia’s 5G network. So it goes on to say in a newspaper article, “Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton warned Australia “would call out” quote “foreign and interference “in universities, as well as cyber hacks “and theft of intellectual property, “insisting it was the right thing to do.
“It represents,” the newspaper said, “some of the strongest language “yet from a federal government minister “on threat posed to China.” But we need more than language, we need more than inferences, we need an inquiry into the relationship.
The Chinese Communist Party behaves in ways that are inconsistent with Australian values and Western civilization. Recently in Queensland, my home state, a university student was suspended for daring to make pro-democracy statements about the suppression of students and demonstrators in Hong Kong by the Chinese government.
The University of Queensland appears now to be an agent of the Chinese government, which seems to have bought out an Australian university and is enabled by the university to oppress an Australian student for standing up for democracy.
And when I get to the point of quoting Clive Hamilton, then we know things are serious because Clive Hamilton to his credit has written a book calling out the issues that we have with China, raising serious threats and concerns to our country and our country’s security.
My issue, I must make clear is not with the marvellous Chinese people, including the amazing Chinese community we have here in Australia. We have the Chinese influence from North Queensland through the gold rushes in the 19th century, right through to the Southern parts and Western parts of our country.
And they made a marvellous contribution. My issue is with the Chinese Communist Party. The Communist Party of China and the policies that are inconsistent with our own values. And they have undue influence in Australian politics, values communities, and way of life.
Human rights is an area where China and Australia have vastly different views. Australia is the democracy and a signatory to many international agreements that preserve basic human rights. China is a Republic following a communist regime that is very rigid.
It is a controlling machine with little room to question the state and having limited rights for the individual. Watch the demonstrations for freedom happening in Hong Kong to see how that goes down? Many Australians remember the appalling and tragic events at Tiananmen Square where many people’s lives were sacrificed in the name of democracy.
A prime minister cried over that. And understandably so yet we can’t even have an inquiry into that relationship with China. Tiananmen Square was not merely an incident as recently reported in the media. It was one of the earliest signs in the West of this serial breaching of human rights and suppression of their own people in China.
The detention of those whose views differ from the regimes is a continuing disgrace and worthy of further review. The government and Labor have sold out Australia’s inheritance. No wonder they don’t want us to have a review of this catastrophic relationship, potentially catastrophic relationship.
Will the Liberal Party and the Labor Party will a Lib-Lab duopoly look beyond their Chinese donations to their parties and do the right thing by our country? These actions by China would appear to threaten the relationship of mutual respect between the two countries and are worthy of inquiry.
Actions of Lib-Lab MPs in governments handing control of essential services like electricity for goodness sake, our ports, our food producers to the Chinese Communist Party is insane. Why are we doing it? And why aren’t we bothering to look into it?
These deals threaten our honesty, fairness, and humanity, and our national security. One Nation supports the call for such an inquiry into a nation exerting powerful influences over our nation with potentially far more powerful influences on our nation’s future and on our people’s security. Thank you, Mr. Acting Deputy President.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/China.png?fit=550%2C306&ssl=1306550Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2020-06-11 11:58:002020-07-09 12:24:23Lib/Lab refuse to investigate relationship with China
The Premier Hon. Annastacia Palaszczuk PO Box 15185 CITY EAST QLD 4002
Email: thepremier@premiers.qld.gov.au
Dear Premier
The recently introduced Queensland legislation regarding residential tenancy changes, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, have removed property owners’ fundamental ownership rights and will create additional economic instability.
Many Queenslanders are rightly concerned at this level of government intervention into people’s lives. These tenancy changes will:
negatively impact on the value of people’s homes and properties;
expose the entire property market to the risk of property owners exiting the rental market;
leave a shortage of rental properties, increase rents and make it harder for tenants to apply for leases.
These residential tenancy changes will have a catastrophic impact on the economy and on the already stretched state budget. Many property owners are self-funded retirees and are highly vulnerable to loss of rental income. More needs to be done to protect them.
I also seek your support for the reduction of rates imposed on property owners when their capacity to pay has been curtailed and that is providing more hardship with limited relief.
Commercial tenants are now asking for rental relief even in circumstances where they should not be entitled. I am advised that Tabcorp is one such company, whose share price has climbed 20 per cent in the last month, has asked for rental relief.
I ask that you reconsider the residential and commercial tenancy regulations by winding back unnecessary government intervention, restoring the full rights of property owners and mitigating any needless economic ruin as a consequence of this legislation.
It’s #NotQandA! Join the conversation with your comments and questions LIVE as we discuss Lawfare by Extreme Green & LGBTIQAX+ activists, Planet of the Humans, does the ALP have “Australia first” policies, what’s China hiding, & the toxic reality of puritanical political correctness. Panellists include Senator Malcolm Roberts, Bernard Gaynor, Marcus Foo, James Macpherson & host, Dave Pellowe.
I spoke in favour of the creation of the Office Of An Inspector-General of live cattle exports.
The purpose is to provide certainty that the welfare of the animals is being respected while at the same time ensuring the commercial viability of the cattle export trade.
Animal welfare is crucial to farmers because farmers care for their animals.
That’s why farmers have poured tens of millions of dollars into educating people who handle their cattle overseas. I was following, in the speaking order, a vet who said that core to the farming business in cattle and sheep is weight and that farm animals lose weight under stress. It is in the farmer’s financial interest and their own moral and ethical interests to look after animals.
That’s why farmers care for animals.
Transcript
As a servant to the people of Queensland in Australia, I want to speak in favour of this bill. Yet while I speak in favour of this bill, I want to explain two core contradictions that this bill highlights. First though, Madam Acting Deputy President, an overview. This bill provides for the creation of an Office of the Inspector General of Live Cattle Exports. The purpose is to provide certainty that the welfare of the animals is being respected, while at the same time ensuring the commercial viability of the export cattle trade.
Firstly though, animal welfare is crucial to farmers because farmers care for their animals. That’s why farmers have poured tens of millions of dollars into educating people who handle their cattle overseas. I’m following in the speaking order, a vet who’s just said that the core to the farming business in cattle and sheep is weighed and farm animals under stress lose weight. It is in the farmers’ financial interests and their own moral and ethical interests to look after animals. That’s why farmers care for animals. That’s why farmers have poured tens of millions of dollars into educating foreigners on how to handle cattle, Australian cattle overseas.
I can think of people like Bryce Camm that I’ve met in Central Queensland and in Darling Downs – bright, experienced, knowledgeable, committed. He points out things like export competitors, sophistication of farming these days. This is not just a simple matter of putting a few cattle on a boat, it is a very scientific business. Thinking of Linda Hewitt in Central Queensland – energetic, savvy, dedicated, and knowledgeable again, and similarly concerned about government interaction or interference in the business.
So Madam Acting Deputy President this bill is importantly not just about farm products, farm animals, it is about confidence in the cattle industry. Because with confidence graziers invest. With confidence graziers employ. With confidence graziers earn export earnings right across our country and that benefit comes through in the wealth of our nation Madam Acting Deputy President.
Some background facts. The live cattle trade generates $1.2 billion in export earnings, with $620 million being returned to the local economy. This employment is critical to local economies from TI in the north to Thargomindah in the south-west, from Cooktown in the north to Cunnamulla in the south-west. This employment is critical to local economies and in particular the Northern Territory and the northern parts of Western Australia and Queensland. Yet it’s important right across the country, not just in the Territory as Senator McMahon has just talked about her own state, but right across the country because the flow-on effects, as I’ll discuss in a minute.
But in the Kimberley for example, 700 local Aboriginals are provided with jobs by live cattle exports. Even the ABC noted that this job is “All these blokes know.” The live cattle export allows Australia to breed tropical, heat-resistant breeds of cattle in Northern Australia to be exported to Asia where they are generally grown-on locally. A lot of countries to which are live cattle and sheep are exported do not have refrigeration and people need to buy their food daily. And that means we’re looking after a need of theirs in their country. So this means the live cattle trade helps our economy, but it also helps economies right across Asia and the Middle East. It helps them with employment and also with domestic herd quality. It helps these countries overseas to help themselves.
Madam Acting deputy President, the graziers and employees like these Aboriginal stockmen loved these cattle. They respect these cattle because their income comes from the cattle and because they are living creatures as well. The demonization of the live cattle trade is an insult to good and decent and caring people. There is another perspective here that I want to add. As chair of the Select Committee on Lending to Primary Production Customers, I learned firsthand of the damage the banks and receivers do to so many cattle and so many rural producers. Yet I learned of more. I learned of government tipping farmers over the edge due to government interference in the Murray-Darling Basin, stealing a farmer’s property rights, the live cattle export ban, that flowed right across our country. It didn’t just affect the north. It affected the old cattle producers right around the country.
Prime Minister Gillard’s knee-jerk reaction, her capricious reaction in cancelling the live cattle trade after footage of foreign workers abusing our livestock emerged, caused terrible losses in the industry. These are now the subject of a $600 million class action lawsuit. Gillard’s reaction, Prime Minister Gillard’s reaction was to the ABC’s fabrications and sensationalism. It’s a pity that our farmers aren’t media savvy, because they would have been countering this a long time ago.
Yet farmers around this country are waking up. One thing that farmers won’t do though, unlike the Greens and the activists, the farmers will never tell lies. They’re using facts. And I want to commend their dedicated families, the communities that were cleaned out by the banks as a result of government facades. And now we’re entering even more dangerous territory because when a drought hits, it is often necessary to export cattle in this manner to save them from being put down. That option must available to farmers. This is, live cattle export is actually an animal welfare benefit. So One Nation are committed to ensuring live cattle and sheep and all animals are treated with the same respect overseas as they are treated in Australia and that’s why we support this bill. Farmers livelihoods, as I’ve said, requires care of animals. Yet the Green ideology says the reverse. I’ll discuss that further later this afternoon.
I got further now though because we are committed to ensuring not only farm animals but farmers and all Australians are treated with respect. So let’s consider the Liberal-Labour legacy that’s devastating agriculture. Here are just some of the things that I can list. The stealing of farmers’ property rights in 1996 under a Liberal government done with a deal with the Borbidge National Party government in Queensland. The Liberal federal government and the Borbidge state government. That was done as a result of the UN Kyoto Protocol. It was based on no data that the UN produced and it was based upon later implementation through the Labour party in the state of Queensland, a Liberal-Labour duopoly.
The lack of investment in water infrastructure is crippling our industry. We can see that now everywhere. A prominent Liberal, who I won’t mention, for whom I have some respect, was asked by a friend of mine just last week, “Why didn’t the Liberals invest in building dams 10 years ago?” And the answer was staggering. “Because we didn’t need them 10 years ago’,” was the answer. What rubbish. We need investment now to protect the future. Talking with a farmer in southern Queensland, who was talking in turn with a Chinese buyer in Japan, that’s how the international connections work. He was being told by the Chinaman that the problem with the Australian agricultural product is a lack of consistency. Not quality because our quality is better than anywhere else in the world. It’s the consistency of delivery, and this drought now stands as a beacon for that. So we need investment in water infrastructure, we need proper allocation of water.
Then we think about and some of the allocation has been affected by the UN’s Rio de Janeiro Declaration, which was based not on data, which has been implemented by the Labour government, followed by Liberal governments, and that was 1992 onwards.
Then we have energy policies, we have a drought and as I’ve said many times we have farmers in central and southern Queensland and north Queensland not planting fodder in a drought because they can’t afford the water prices. We’ve got cane farmers similarly worried about their energy prices affecting their farming, and the energy that’s crippling our country, the energy prices that are crippling our country are due to the UN’s Kyoto Protocol, the UN’s Rio de Janeiro Declaration, and the UN’s Paris Agreement – all based on no data, all due to the UN, and all implemented by both the Labour Party and the Liberal Party.
And now we have an insane government action in Queensland where the state Labour government is putting in severe penalties and restrictions based, again not on data, but on UN Protocols and on a consensus statement. Not science, a consensus statement. We’ll have get a cup of tea or a few beers and come up with a consensus statement.
Then we talk about the fishing that’s being decimated. Fishing industry decimated right around our country following UN Kyoto Protocol, following Rio de Janeiro Declaration in 1992 from the UN again.
Forestry, the same, no data to back it up, but now the Queensland Labour government wants to smash the forestry industry in south-east Queensland.
And then they’re just the specifics that are hurting agriculture in my state. And then we look at tax, we look at economic mismanagement, budget cycles now becoming ways of getting favours. And as a result, we see rural and regional Queensland being smashed. It’s not foreigners doing this, it is decades of the Liberal-Labour duopoly government.
Madam Acting Deputy President, we need real action, management and vision for the farmers of Australia. As I said, from TI to Thargomindah, from Cooktown to Cunnamulla, rural areas need the support of these restrictions, these artificial government imposed restrictions removed. Thank you, Madame Acting Deputy President.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screen-Shot-2020-05-05-at-10.16.06-am.png?fit=2706%2C1510&ssl=115102706Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2020-05-05 10:21:512020-05-05 12:58:25Create the Office Of An Inspector-General of live cattle exports
I spoke with Peter Gleeson on Friday about how we need to rebuild our economy once the COVID19 crisis is over.
What is the biggest hurdle? The liberal and Labor parties who have been adopting United Nations directives since the 1975 Lima Agreement up until the Paris Agreement.
These globalist agreements suck the wealth out of our country and leave us vulnerable.
Transcript
[Peter]:
Queensland senator, Malcolm Roberts is rallying behind Australian made and manufactured products, and is urging others to do the same as the pandemic continues to hurt the economy and decline business productivity. It has highlighted the need to revamp the country’s manufacturing industry.
The One Nation member believes it’s time the government does more to help reinvigorate that particular sector. He joins me now from our Brisbane studio. Senator Roberts, thanks for joining me.
Look, I see this, I mean this is obviously a very tough time for the globe, for the entire planet, of course Australia as well, but surely there’s an opportunity here to reassess, to recalibrate what we do when it comes to manufacturing, and that we don’t rely on the Chinas as much as we have in the past.
[Malcolm]:
You are absolutely right Peter. It’s something that we’ve been saying very strongly for many years now, not just since the virus. But the virus has well and truly and blown open the exposed, the core issue, which is the lack of security in this country. We’ve been led by wombats in Canberra, for about, since 1944 they followed the UN policies.
One of the Liberal Party Premiers in Western Australia, Richard Court, wrote this fabulous book, “Rebuilding the Federation”. On page three of the book, he outlines a process that the governments have followed in putting in place the UN governance over this country.
So, my point is, while we see a security problem, because we don’t have adequate manufacturing, can’t build the essentials for our medical protection, our military protection, our civilian use, we don’t get anywhere until we reverse the UN’s policies over us.
The UN’s Lima Declaration, which substantial countries did not sign in 1975, was signed by us, and what it meant was the deindutrialization, the demanufacturing of our entire manufacturing sector.
And it was worsened, and that was the UN’s Lima Declaration in 1975, the Whitlam’s labour government signed, and the following year in 76, Fraser’s liberal government, National Party government signed.
Then it was followed by the Paris Agreement in 2015, but in between, we had the 1996 UN Kyoto Protocol. All of these are UN protocols. We also have, a friend of mine, managed to get these 7000 treaties as of 1996, I don’t now what the hell the number is now, but those treaties have destroyed our sovereignty.
So, before we can really bring back manufacturing we have to get rid of the UN’s control over our countries. We need to get the hell out of the UN. Not just the World Health Organisation, but the whole UN. I called on that, I called for that in 2016 in my first speech. The UN has been destroying our country.
This crisis has exposed our lack of governance, our lack of sovereignty, the destruction of our productive capacity, the destruction of our economic resilience, and Peter, it has shown us that the globalist elites that are pushing interdependence have really made us dependent. We have lost our independence.
Because once we’re interdependent with someone else, it means we are dependent on them. We’ve got very little manufacturing, our electricity prices are the now the highest in the world. 10 years ago they half what they are now. Sorry, yeah, 10 years ago in 2010, they have since risen 90%.
That’s now a big part of manufacturing costs. We won’t compete with the Chinese who we send our whole productivity coal to at cheap prices, if we then inflate the price in our country due to stupid UN regulations driven by liberal labour governments since 1944. We have got to wake up and put Australia first.
[Peter]:
Malcolm, how important then, based on what you just said, is project like the Bradfield Scheme for our water, copper string, to halve our electricity costs, how important are these projects right now in this country?
[Malcolm]:
Absolutely vital, but the key is to make sure we restore our constitution, or rather compliance with our constitution. Our constitution is fabulous, I could talk for hours on it. But we need to restore our compliance with it.
Because it doesn’t matter if we haven’t got, it doesn’t matter if we have a Bradfield and the water is being distributed according to UN policies. The 2007 Turnbull-Howard Water Act repeatedly states throughout policy, throughout the legislation, that one of the critical aims of the Water Act is to implement international commitments, international regulations, what a lot of crap.
We should be looking after Australia. So we need the Bradfield Scheme, we need so many other projects looking after our energy. We need a new coalfied power station in this state, and many in this country. That is the cheapest form of electricity. We have got to get back to basics, back to basics a return to reality, Peter. And then build these projects that are so necessary for restoring our productive capacity.
[Peter]:
The other opportunity I see, Malcolm, is getting rid of red and green tape. You know, big projects, there’s a big project out at Cleveland, in Brisbane at the moment, the Tudor Harbour Project, it’s ready to go, the developer’s ready to pump cash into it, but he’s being stymied by the fact that there’s green tape that is costing that project the opportunity to go ahead.
In this particular economic climate, when things are so tough, surely we should be just saying, “All right, you need to comply with these environmental regulations, get on with the job. Create the jobs.
[Malcolm]:
You make so much sense, mate, so much sense. Overregulation is killing us, but it’s not just the red and the green tape, mate, it’s also the blue tape. The red tape being bureaucracy, the green tape being stupid environmental regulations, we need some but not the ones we’ve got now, the blue tape quite often drives the red tape and the green tape.
The blue tape is the UN, and I’m speaking specifically of Agenda 21, that was signed by the Paul Keating’s government in 1992. Look at it, just a whole bunch of regulations that our shoved through our parliament, sometimes with no understanding of the parliamentarians, it’s been going that way under both the liberal and labour party since 1992. We have got to turn this mess around.
And the overregulation is due to the UN blue tape, due to red tape and green tape. But that’s the key thing, our tax system is atrocious, we don’t tax 90% of our large companies who are foreign owned and yet we tax the hell out of locals, especially families.
We pay for the infrastructure then we flog it off to them at vastly reduced prices. Why would someone buy an infrastructure asset, other than it would make money? So why are we selling it if it makes money?
This just gets my goat and I can see why Pauline is so damn upset, because she’s been fighting this since 1996. I’ve become aware of it in the last 10 years, 12 years. It’s a disgrace. And our country is being crippled by the wombats and the liberal and labour party hierarchy, the power brokers who’re just pushing this crap from the UN, that’s what we’ve got to root out.
Because that will remove the overregulation, reduce electricity prices and then we need to talk about tax. We have some fantastic people in this country, amazing resources, huge opportunities, and enormous potential. But it hasn’t been realised since 1944 and the formatio of the UN. We have been gutted, castracized and chocked and suffocated.
[Peter]:
Yeah, sure. Malcolm Roberts thank you for joining us tonight on Sky News across Australia, I’ve learnt something, blue tape. I hadn’t heard of blue tape before. But thanks for joining us Malcolm.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screen-Shot-2020-04-22-at-11.01.01-am.png?fit=1116%2C626&ssl=16261116Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2020-04-21 00:59:522020-05-01 11:57:50United Nations agreements stand in the way of our economic recovery
Welcome back to Rural Queensland Today. 8th of April on a Wednesday morning, so much still going on with COVID-19. We know that the line is flattening, the curve is starting to flatten, but it’s still a long way to go. Senator of One Nation, Malcolm Roberts, joining us this morning on Rural Queensland Today. Malcolm, good morning. Thank you so much for being with us.
The federal government’s COVID-19 stimulus package needs to be addressed so more Australians can be more [inaudible 00:00:28] on food production. Now, One Nation has called for a guarantee of water for farmers to plant essential crops this month and this would go a long way to feeding the nation in very tough times.
Malcom Roberts:
Yes, and good morning Ben and thank you for the invitation to join your show. Yes, we have asked for that because farmers are needing a drink of water for their crops by April 15th, sorry, by May 15th so that they can get their winter crops in and going. That’s needed and that’s not going to be a subsidy or anything like that, Ben. That’s going to be pure wealth created just out of water that’s natural. It’s just been withheld from farmers mate and we need to give it back to them.
Ben:
Well, I mean there’s so much has changed. I mean Vietnam have banned exporting their own home grown rice to Australia and so we actually need to prioritise our food production for Australians because we’ve seen now what a risk to our health by letting anybody into this country. And I don’t want to in any way, I’m not trying to be racist, I’m not trying to be, but our biosecurity failed us and now is, more than any time, is where we need to shore up our food and shore up our buyer security, if ever there’s been a time. And this would go a long way to growing essential crops for the nation.
Malcom Roberts:
You’re exactly correct. We had a very strong rice production in Southern New South Wales and that has been decimated by the stupid and corrupt practises that have been going on with regard to water in the Murray-Darling basin. And that has been a fault of the Turnbull Howard government that brought in the 2007 water act and that has destroyed agriculture right across the Murray-Darling basin and it sent water to corporates and taking it away from family farmers.
And family farmers, Ben, are the guts of this country. They’re the core because they’re the ones who know that if you look after the land because you give it to your kids eventually or you retire or you sell it and use the retirement to go and live somewhere else. They’re being destroyed. And that’s what we need to bring back, family farming in this country because that’s where the communities are.
Corporates, global corporates, large Australian corporates don’t give a damn about communities. They don’t give a damn about rural Australia. They don’t give a damn about food security. It’s all a profit. And so what we need to do is restore our communities and their rural sector. There is an ideological assault on rural Australia and it starts with water policy, it continues with energy policy and it’s most of all, it’s about the stealing of the farmers rights to use the land they have bought. I don’t know if you know of Dan McDonalds-
Ben:
Yeah, sure.
Malcom Roberts:
I mean, Dan has said that every input, the farming these days is controlled by some bureaucrat. So farming has been nationalised. It’s no longer a private enterprise business. It’s been nationalised. It’s being destroyed and that’s what we need to protect because this Covid virus has exposed huge gaps in national security. We haven’t got enough face masks. We haven’t got enough ventilators. We haven’t got enough basic stuff. And yet we shifted all the production of this to overseas starting with the UN in 1975, the Lima Agreement signed by the Whitlam’s labour government and then ratified the following year in ’76 by Frazier’s liberal government.
The UN has just, we’ve taken it all off shore and we are now vulnerable. We don’t make masks, we don’t make ventilators, we don’t make cars. We make [inaudible 00:04:05] and we need to get that back into this country. We need to restore our economic productive capacity and their economic resilience. Mate, that’s really been highlighted by this.
Ben:
I agree with you. I mean we need to start building things back in Australia. There’s no two ways about it. Industry needs to happen here and for too long we’ve been relying on doing it cheaper from overseas and bring it in here.
But let’s just get back to what you’re talking about with the Murray-Darling basin. Now we know Queensland New South Wales, Victorian farmers received zero general security water allocation for irrigation over the last three years. That’s a fact. There’s no two ways about-.
They’re trying to get it under control, but big business and foreign owned companies have bought up all the allocation at different stages. They’ve sold it. It’s traded as a commodity. It’s been an absolute mess. Now how would you go about fixing it and can you get the numbers in the Senate to make some change?
Malcom Roberts:
Getting the numbers in the Senate is difficult because there are only two of us at the moment and that’s the big mess. [crosstalk 00:05:02].
Ben:
But there are people who are willing in the LNP and the national party to try and see farmers get more food secure and get more food security here in Queensland and New South Wales and Victoria.
Malcom Roberts:
There are also people in the LNP protecting the corporates and protecting the water act. And that’s what’s caused the disruption of farming in across the Murray-Darling basin, Ben. It’s not everyone in the liberal national party. It’s not for the land.
For example, have a look at Senator Matt Canavan and Barnaby Joyce. They were once the best speakers in parliament against this climate crap. And then they both got in the cabinet and their lips were sealed. And then even Senator Matt Canavan even spoke in favour of this climate nonsense.
And then now that One Nation is making inroads into their vote because we’re supporting coal, because we’re supporting land use being given back to farmers to control, Matt’s come out now he’s talking like one of us, but he still votes with the Trent Zimmermans and the Zali Steggles and the Graves, the same policies that are destroying land use, that are destroying farming, that are destroying [inaudible 00:06:12] in this country.
We’ve got farmers who have been told in North Queensland, I spoke to one personally, Central Queensland and Southern Queensland, who would not plant fodder during the drought because electricity prices were too damn high to pump water. I mean this is insane. That’s where we’ve got to with the policies that the liberal nationals have pushed. We’ve destroyed our farming sector [so] that John Howard [could] comply with the Kyoto protocol, which he proudly discussed, has stolen the land rights, the land use rights of farmers in this country. They’ve stolen the water through the water act, which was Turnbull and Howard, and then Howard complying to the Kyoto protocol and the liberal nationals complying with UN agreements, including the Paris Agreement, has wrecked our energy sector.
I mean there’s nothing more fundamental than being able for a farm to buy his or her land and then use it as they want. There’s nothing more fundamental than water. Then there’s nothing more fundamental than energy. Energy prices were decreasing for the last 170 years, relentlessly decreasing in real terms, Ben, and with the policies of the labour greens and liberal nationals party in the last 20 years, they’ve doubled. That’s the reverse of human progress. This is insane what’s going on in this country.
Ben:
Yeah, I think a lot of people are frustrated and clearly you are as well.
Malcom Roberts:
And angry.
Ben:
Yeah, and that’s the big thing. Do you think that they’ve offered enough the government as a stimulus package to try and get this back under control with COVID-19? Was it too little too late? I do know that now is not the time to politicise things, but do you think they’re doing enough?
Malcom Roberts:
Well, I think they are doing enough financially. They’re not doing enough health-wise. The countries that are leading the way and around the world are the East Asian countries of Taiwan and South Korea especially, and to a lesser extent, Singapore.
Now what’s happened is that in the West we’ve tried to balance health and the economics. That is not working. In East Asia, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, they made health number one priority. They got it under control, had rapid testing, very widespread testing, not only tested for Covid virus in people but tested for temperature because they would basically say, you’re coming into work today, Ben. Here, take your temperature. Mate, you’ve got a hot temperature over here and then we’ll test you for Covid virus. If you have got no temperature, then you go to work.
When they test you for Covid virus, then they say, “Ben, you’ve got Covid virus. Isolated. Off, away you go.” Or if you’re free of Covid virus you get a little note saying Ben Dobbin has got a high temperature today. He’s free to go to work.
What they did was they isolated the sick and the vulnerable, the elderly, the people with chronic disease problems. They isolated them. And Taiwan has had hardly a blip in its economy. South Korea got off on the wrong foot to start with. It went down Italy’s track and then it quickly copied Taiwan and then they got the back and so got everyone back to work.
What we’ve done is we’ve isolated everyone. Instead what we need to do now that we’ve got it starting to get it under control, Ben, we need to see the triggers in the government’s plan for changing our strategy to isolate those with the virus, isolate those vulnerable to the virus and let everyone get back to work. That time could be coming soon, but the government has not focused on that.
What the government is focused on is compromising health and economic activity. And you can’t do that because you end up undermining the health. What we’ve got to do, Taiwan has got the same population of Australia. They’ve had five deaths and they’ve got it earlier than we did, and they hammered it. And that’s what we need, real leadership, real strength.
At the moment, yesterday, Prime Minister Morrison and his health advisor released the broad statement about their modelling, but they didn’t give us the model. They didn’t tell us what the projections were in the future. We need to know them. They need to stop hiding on that. That’s the other thing they did in Taiwan and South Korea, they gave people the truth, gave people the information. That gives people confidence. It also gives people the sense of responsibility because people who are free to make up their mind usually make it the right way. And that’s what they did in Taiwan. That’s what we need to get to.
Ben:
Fantastic. You said it well. Malcolm, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you so much for being with us on Rural Queensland Today.
Malcom Roberts:
Anytime, Ben.
Ben:
Good on you. Malcolm Roberts, Senator for One Nation. This is Rural Queensland Today across the Resonate Broadcast network.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_0453.png?fit=2301%2C1534&ssl=115342301Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2020-04-08 05:19:462020-04-08 05:19:55Water Security for Farmers and Coronavirus – Rural Queensland Today with Ben Dobbin
I was alarmed to recently hear that licenced dealers and armourers across Queensland were notified by Queensland Health that they must cease trading by close of business on Saturday, 28 March 2020.
I have been swamped with complaints from people who have lost their jobs and livelihoods because of this short sighted decision.
Other businesses such as the retail stores are able to carry on business without onerous conditions. This would appear to be discrimination.
A decision had been made by the Chief Health Officer, a public servant, in conjunction with you, to add all Licensed Firearm Dealers and Licensed Armourers to the list of non-essential business, with few exemptions.
I am told that this was done on the basis of perceived health needs to reduce threats of domestic violence, on the presumption that licenced shooters are likely to commit domestic violence if they can go to a gun dealer’s shop.
This is absolutely untrue and has no foundation in fact.
Queensland already has some of the tightest gun management laws in the country.
There is no evidence in Australia that draws a link between domestic violence and gun ownership, or attending gun shops.
Why were the Weapons Licensing Branch and the police not consulted beforehand?
Why were industry representatives not consulted?
It is not possible to buy a gun over the counter from a dealership and leave with it.
I suggest that this response by the government goes well beyond the power of the State Government to make such a direction based on a health power and is clearly contrary to the National Firearm Agreement.
This constitutes a major employment problem across the State and 22,000 jobs have now been lost unnecessarily.
This has the potential to lead to mass bankruptcies of businesses with a total lost value to the Queensland economy of more than $1 billion.
Many country outlets will have to close down and farmers, who constitute the main users of firearms and ammunition in the State, will be caught unable to deal with the needs of stock and feral management, necessary to be productive in a season of lush greenery.
The most recent Closure Directive (No 4) from the Department of Health is so restrictive to farmers that many are unable to purchase vital ammunition because of the limited Condition Codes on their Weapons Licences.
It will impact on an already overworked police service upon whose shoulders it will be to maintain some sort of security of firearms and fill the gap from the front counters of stations across the state.
Gun shop owners who had ordered weapons and/or ammunition prior to your government’s capricious action would have originally been left in the position of either opening their shop and breaking your directive, or leaving weapons and ammunition in the hands of delivery companies or on their shop front door after delivery. Your government increased the security risk to the community and that risk was averted only through the advocacy of concerned gun shop owners and shooters representatives.
This is an example of poorly thought through and opportunistic government decision making that should worry all voters about intrusive and unjustified governments who can invent a reason to shut down people’s livelihoods.
A legal challenge is likely unless the Queensland Government reverses this dangerous decision that may lead to widespread job loss and the destruction of yet another industry through poor government decision making.
To avoid all these negative outcomes I ask you to please reconsider this decision.
The Farm Household Allowance Bill was on today’s agenda as a matter of importance.
Transcript
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I support this bill. The reform to make the farm household allowance a flat rate paid on current income, helps to reduce the regulatory burden on farms, who already work long hours for decreasing rewards.
These income audits were a massive distraction, so this is a good move from the government, a welcome move, the extension of time for conducting an assessment helps farms involve their accountants, or bookkeepers, in a process that was previously an ordeal.
My concern in light of current events, is that COVID-19 assistance is targeted at urban, and not rural areas. Our farmers have come through the worst drought in 100 years and the drought may or may not be ending.
What we do know is that the rivers are full, but the damns are empty. Farmers are watching this water, this bounty of water, running down rivers and out to sea. General-security water licence holders are still on zero allocation, they have no confidence that irrigation licences will be honoured.
If international trade is being disrupted, we need to grow food, we need to allow more water to be taken for irrigation. The environment has had a drink, a bellyful, from recent rains, it’s now the farmer’s turn.
What good is farm assistance if farmers go broke, because we took too much water for the environment and not enough for food and fibre? And I’d like to talk about the productive capacity of our country, especially the rural productive capacity.
We have destroyed it in the last 20 years. Farmers have had their ability, their right, to use the land taken from them, stolen from them, to comply with international agreements starting with the UN’s Kyoto protocol.
We need that back, or farmers paid compensation for the loss of their rights. Secondly, water, I’ve just touched on water, but we need to have investment in water infrastructure, and make sure that farmers have that water, because its essential for food. And we need energy prices to be lowered.
We have the world’s biggest exports of natural gas and coal, and yet we have among the highest prices of electricity in this country. We have farmers not able to irrigate, because they can’t afford the electricity to pump water in a country that’s blessed with energy.
What is going on? We have to restore the productive capacity of our country, which means getting back to sensible electricity policies, energy policies, so that we have, once again the lowest prices in the world, the best policies, we’ve got now, the worst.
Restoring the productive capacity will involve, also, other sectors, including education, but it starts with land use, the right to use the land that farmers have bought, the right to access water at sensible prices, free of corruption, and the right to electricity at reasonable prices.
I also want to talk about one other aspect, and that is we have fallen for the globalist trap, of interdependence, inter-dependence, and what that really is, is dependence, because when we’re in interdependent on someone else, with around the globe, and they shut down, we’re suddenly dependent on them.
Australia has got abundant minerals, abundant energies, abundant agricultural resources. We’re not using these resources. Australia has enormous potential with its people, with its resources and its opportunities, and we need to rekindle these, and get back to putting Australia first.
No more interdependence, because that is simply dependence We need to become independent, as we were and we were independent we thrived. And that, when we restore our independence, we will restore our economic resilience and we’ll also restore our productive capacity.
So we compliment the government on this initiative, but we need to go much much further to restore the productive capacity, and economic resilience of our country. Thank you, Mr. President.
