Restore our productive environment

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I will say it again. We need our economic productive capacity to be restored, we need our economic resilience to be restored, we need our economic sovereignty and independence to be restored, and we need our economic security to be restored.

Transcript

Thank you madam acting deputy president. As a servant of the people of Queensland and Australia, I support this bill. We need though, to do far more. We need to get manufacturing moving. We need to protect Australia from the risks of sources of imported goods drying up, and we need, as Senator O’Sullivan has said, jobs, jobs, jobs.

Queenslanders and Australians everywhere have heard us speak about the gaps in our productive capacity, the gaps in economic resilience, the gaps in our economic sovereignty and the gaps in our national security. That was before COVID.

Now it’s even more so, especially since COVID revealed that we did not even have enough personal protective equipment to protect our valued healthcare workers and everyday Australians. And now we have to store our own oil, our own oil in the USA because we have nowhere to store it here.

And at first we couldn’t even after COVID, we couldn’t even manufacture ventilators, but thanks to Aussie ingenuity and a personal thank you to all those innovative Australians who did step up to fill this gap. Certainly, we need the skills.

Australia needs the skills and the capability to ensure that we can protect ourselves from future health disasters and economic disasters, especially things like the prolonged border closures of, or international transport closures or blockades cut the sea transport.

And these are possibilities. We see the news of what’s happening in the South China seas. We see the growing confrontation between America and China. We need to think about our security. So this government has presented a bill for the creation of the position of national skills commissioner.

Yet we need to ensure this is not just an advisory role. Just setting up this office for four years is costing taxpayers over $48 million. And I quite often hear Liberal and Labor people and the National saying, “We’ve spend a million here, “we spent tens of millions here, “we spent hundreds of millions here, “we spent a couple of billion here and there.”

It’s not the money that matters, it’s the environment in which that money can be turned into something beneficial for the people of Australia. So we expect a return on that 48 million. A return on investment by giving the commissioner the teeth to ensure that vocational training across Australia is high in quality, consistent and competitively priced.

Training by itself is not the answer. It needs to be good, effective training. So where is the accountability between the federal funding of approximately $1.5 billion a year to the States, to the vocational providers, to ensure that our vocational trainees, get a high quality education and an affordable education that really lands them a job.

If the government is going to invest $1.5 billion per year in vocational education and training, then Australians have a right to ensure that our taxes are well spent. So we need a review of the performance of the national skills commissioner after 12 months, or possibly after three years, we need that review.

We also need to understand that it is not the commissioner who is going to get us effective training. It is not the commissioner who is going to decide what skills are needed. Government, Liberal, Labor, Nationals have shown a very poor track record of anticipating demand for specific skills.

Those decisions must be based upon what the market needs. It’s the men and women in work. It’s the men and women investing, men and women leading corporations that determine the skills we need and actually going beneath that, it’s the market that drives those skills.

And they will tell us what skills are needed to service the market. More importantly, we need to restart manufacturing in our country, and that needs more than training. It needs much more than training. It needs an integrated approach and industry and economic environment, which enables and encourages Australian investment.

How the hell can people afford to invest when energy prices are so high? How the hell can it be that we don’t have reliable, affordable, stable, synchronous electricity? We have the cheapest coal in the world, the highest quality coal in the world.

We export that to China and they produce coal far, far more cheaply at about 40%, they sell it to their manufacturers at 40% of the price we sell it. Why, because our electricity prices have doubled in the last 10 years. Why, because of Liberal, Labor and Nationals policies’ based on rubbish, a climate scam.

That is what’s destroying our manufacturing industry. Labour costs are a smaller component of manufacturing these days than they used to be. Electricity prices are significant. We’ve gone from the lowest price electricity to the world’s highest prices.

And that’s been due to regulations based not on data, but on opinions from the Liberal, Labor and Nationals governments. How can it be that China, takes our coal thousands of kilometres and sells it at 40% of the price that we sell it for?

It’s regulations, it’s government screwing with the market, it’s government screwing with regulations. Listen to some of these factors, all government driven. The renewable energy target, introduced by John Howard’s government.

The national electricity market, introduced before John Howard, if memory serves me correctly, but worsened under John Howard’s government. National energy market is really a racket, not a market. And that’s the people in Australia are paying for the prices that the retail margins are guaranteed in some states at high levels with very little risk.

The networks are gold plated because of regulations. And then we’ve got privatisation. In Queensland, our state, the Labor Party up there, and the state government uses that as a tax, $1.4 to $1.5 billion a year in tax, due to excess charges from the generators.

Privatisation, the sale of assets, is failing around the country. That is an essential asset and it’s crippling our manufacturing. It’s crippling jobs right across. Agriculture, farmers won’t irrigate because the price of water is too high. Price of pumping water is too high.

Second thing, tax, that’s part of the business environment. Multinationals in our country are going without paying tax. Any company tax due to agreements from Robert Menzies’ Liberal Government in 1953, perpetuated with the lack of tax on the North West Shelf Gas that was enabled by Bob Hawke’s Labor Government in the 1980s.

Both sides have done that. Former deputy commissioner of taxation Jim Killaly, said in 1996 and the year 2010, that 90% of Australia’s large companies are foreign owned and since 1953 have paid little or no tax. What that means is that mums and dads, families, small businesses, Australian owned businesses have to pay more tax than they need to.

It also means that the Australian businesses are at a competitive disadvantage of about 30% because they have to pay company tax and large companies have to pay company tax and the foreign companies don’t.

So taxation, we need to set a level playing field by taxing multinationals and reducing the tax burden, simplifying the tax system, having a comprehensive review of tax, because that is one of the most important factors driving the lack of investment from Australians.

We also have an abundance of regulations that are crippling, that is crippling our country. We have red tape from the bureaucracies that state federal and even local level. We have green tape driven by rampant environmentalists. We have blue tape driven by UN, and that is arguably the largest component of tape.

The blue tape, most expensive of all, put in place by Liberal, Labor, Nationals Governments. And then we have economic management. How can companies prepare? How can companies plan for the longer term, which is needed these days when we have governments, making economic management decisions purely based upon electoral electoral payoffs, not just every three years as it used to be, but now it’s an annual cycle.

Budgets are based upon bribing taxpayers to vote for that particular party. Economic management is now 12 month issue, and it’s very short-term and it’s counterproductive to good business environment. We have states now with lower accountability because competitive federalism has been white anted.

The Queensland Labor Government can sit on closing its borders and decimating our tourism, decimating small business in our state. And why, because under the Commonwealth Constitution, we are supposed to have competitive federalism yet in 1943, the income tax was stolen from the States and given to the federal government.

And now essentially more than 50% of state government expenditure is from the federal government, tied to federal government conditions and guidelines, which means effectively that the federal government is running much of what the States do.

The federal government is running much of what the local councils do around Queensland and around Australia. I was in the Balonne Shire council in 19, sorry, in 2017 in February and they told me an answer to a question of mine that 73% of their annual revenue comes from the federal government with strings attached.

Not only does the federal government tell them how to manage their local community, the federal government only has three to five year windows, which means the local councils can’t go beyond that time frame during their planning. How can local councils make a long-term plan?

This is what’s hampering governance in this country. So I plead with the government to make sure that we focus on our economic productive capacity, our economic resilience, our economic sovereignty, our economic security, our economic independence, which has been smashed by the quest for the elitist quest for, interdependence which is really depending upon others, that is a loss of dependence.

Nonetheless, this legislation will help all Queenslanders to improve our state’s economy and to repay the debt hole in which Labor Government in Queensland has buried Queenslanders. We need training, but we need jobs. We need Australian jobs.

We need Queensland jobs, especially in regional Queensland. Training is a minor component, yet an important component. Beyond that, we need to get back to basics to create the economic environment, to drive the Australian investment.

As I said, I’ll say it again, we need economic productive capacity to be restored. We need economic resilience to be restored. We need economic sovereignty and independence to be restored. We need economic security to be restored. Australia has the people, has the resources, has the opportunity, has the potential.

We just need to get back to what we had, get back to the basics. And in the basics, Australia led the world in per capita gross domestic product per capita income in the early years of our Federation. When our constitution was followed and the States behave competitively toward each other.

That’s what we need to get back to a productive environment. Thank you Madam acting deputy president.

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Liberal & Nationals caught faking support for farmers

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In 2011 the Gillard Government banned live cattle exports costing farming hundreds of millions of dollars.

Recently the Federal Court ruled that the ban was invalid and the government should pay compensation to farmers.

Today the Liberal and Nationals tried to introduce a motion claiming that they support the live cattle industry.

Well, I decided to see how firm their commitment was to farmers by introducing an amendment to their motion.

Take a listen and see what happened ……..

Transcript

Hi, I’m in Parliament House, Canberra. And I just wanted to bring you up to date with something that’s happened today. It goes back to the Gillard government’s capricious ban on live cattle exporting that hurt, devastated cattle industry right around the country.

Back, well, almost 10 years ago, 2011, I think it was. Anyway, it was recently ruled by the federal court to have been invalid. And compensation is to be paid to farmers around the country. Which is wonderful news.

So, the Nationals, led by Senator Canavan, it seems, decided to put a motion in the parliament, into the Senate today. And the motion said, “That the Senate “notes the federal government’s commitment and support “for the live animal export trade.”

So, we thought, okay, before that motion gets up, we’ll add an amendment. And our amendment says, “And calls on the government “to rule out appealing the federal courts decision “that Labor’s 2011 suspension of live cattle exports “was invalid.”

In other words, we want to make sure that the government does not appeal it. And so, as soon as I stood to move that amendment, it was denied. I was denied the formality of moving that. And Senator Cormann did that. he’s the leader of the government in the Senate.

He did that. And he said, the reason was because this amendment had only arrived with him and other senators in just minutes before. Well, the reality, the truth is that it was in the Senate chambers on every desk an hour and a quarter before. An hour and a quarter.

Plenty of time to consider it. So, what I noticed was, as soon as I sat down, Senator Canavan jumped to his feet, and said that he wanted to make a short statement. And that short statement said that he was talking with the government about not appealing.

So what we’ve done is we’ve forced them to recognise that they should not appeal. But we’ve had Senator Cormann contradict the truth. And we’ve had Senator Canavan apparently reacting to this. So that’s yet another way we get things done in parliament, even when they tell us to shut up.

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Malcolm Roberts and Peter Gleeson 12 June

I joined Peter last night to discuss opening Queensland borders, #AllLivesMatter and troubles in the fishing industry.

Transcript

[Gleeson]

All right, there’s no doubt the Queensland government’s hard line stance on border closures has caused widespread backlash and anger among businesses in the tourism sector. Joining me now One Nation Senator, Malcolm Roberts, Malcolm, thanks for joining us. What is in the ground from your constituency, when it comes to these border closures?

[Roberts]

I’m hearing that they want the truth, Peter. That’s what they want. And they want to see a premier with a plan. And a premier that doesn’t roll back and just rely upon the Chief Medical Officer and leave her with all the heat.

They want a premier who can come out and tell the truth and I don’t think they’re ever gonna get that from this Queensland Labor Government. It just doesn’t trust people. That’s one of the issues here that we can explore later, if you like.

The lack of trust in the people because countries that have done really well on handling COVID much much better than Australia. Taiwan, for example, has kept its economy healthy, because it’s isolated the sick and it’s isolated the vulnerable and the rest continue to work and they’ve had a fraction of the deaths that we’ve had because they’ve isolated the sick and the vulnerable. Paluszczuk has done the reverse.

She’s isolated everyone, and that’s insane. And so people have had enough of this.

[Gleeson]

Malcolm, let’s talk about your leader Pauline Hanson’s motion earlier today. All lives matter is the motion. Now, it’s caused quite a fair bit of controversy in the Senate, but it’s also garnered a lot of support. What are you saying about that particular motion?

[Roberts]

I say exactly what she said. And that is that the other parties the other politicians in the senate are gutless. They have no regard for lives. Look I’ll tell you something, Peter. Yesterday we were here and we heard so many speeches, Pauline had a matter of public importance.

And it was about this topic and about law breakers who are violating the law by protesting, and many, many of the liberals came out and said “all lives matter.” But today, they were afraid to do that. And we think it’s because the Liberal Party is split some are woke and some are decent people.

Labor Party Senator Helen Polly from Tasmania tweeted “all lives matter,” just a few days ago. She got eaten alive in her party. And she withdrew it from Facebook. I mean, what is the matter with this country? What is the matter with the so called leaders of this country, Peter?

When we can’t even say all lives matter in one of the two main parties and half the other people in the other party are split It is just insane, all lives matter.

[Gleeson]

Malcolm, the Prime Minister has said that anyone who goes out and protests this weekend should be charged. Are you hopeful that police will actually act on what the Prime Minister is saying?

[Roberts]

Why even, Palaszczuk up in Queensland, she encouraged them, encouraged protesters last week, Peter I think she said something like, “You shouldn’t protest, but if you do, “then make sure you maintain social distancing.” I mean, how ridiculous is that?

That is encouraging people to social distance if the top of the state government, the Premier actually actively encourages protesting what hope have the police got of enforcing it? No they won’t, they’re gutless just like Andrews down in Victoria Berejiklian tried but the courts swept away from her.

So no I don’t have any faith in the government system backing the police and when the police won’t be backed, what can they do? The police in Queensland are fine generally speaking, they’re wonderful people, they do their job. They are loyal, and they’re efficient and effective.

But when the top of the tree gives up, then you’ve got anarchy on the march.

[Gleeson]

Just quickly Malcolm, what’s the latest on the fishing reforms that you guys are pushing?

[Roberts]

I don’t know where they’re actually at in the Queensland parliament, but we’re just trying to build up a head of steam by listening to a lot of fishermen. And so what we, for example, there’s a fisherman who has been fishing many many years in Rockhampton.

He’s had a 75% cut in his income before COVID and he’s now trying to survive on $10,000 a year. These people are working their guts out. They know fishing, they’re very practical people, but instead of them running their businesses and instead of them running their industry, bureaucrats in West End in Brisbane are running the industry.

They’ve got excessive no-go zones. They’ve got excessive limited zones. Do you know that in the Barrier Reef according to the World’s Institute for Reef, they say that the limit for a reef like the Great Barrier Reef is 15,000 kilograms per square kilometre catch per year, Queensland has nine kilograms that’s less than 0.06%.

[Gleeson]

Extraordinary

[Roberts]

It’s a fraction of 1%. This is an enormous resource. It’s a renewable resource. we’re importing 80% of the seafood we eat and exporting some of the food.

[Gleeson]

Senator Malcolm Roberts, great to see you tonight. Thank you for joining us, much appreciated.

[Roberts]

Thanks Peter.

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Matter of Public Importance: Different rules for protestors

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This afternoon Pauline and I spoke on her ‘Matter of Public Importance’.

“Allowing activists to breach COVID19 restrictions without punishment, even as the same restrictions are devastating jobs, businesses and lives, is a grave insult to law-abiding Australians.”

In addition to discussing the border closure in Queensland, Pauline used facts and logic to discuss the Black Live Matter Movement and Indigenous deaths in custody but was labelled by Labor and the Greens as a racist.

This tells me that they have no evidence to dispute her so they resort to lazy name calling.

My speech starts at the 5 minute mark.

Transcript

[President]

Senator Hanson.

[Hanson]

Thank you very much, Mr. President. The matter of public importance I’ve raised today, is based on our state government’s, in particular, the weak leadership of Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, for allowing activists to breach COVID-19 restrictions without punishment.

Even as the same restrictions are devastating jobs, businesses and lives. It’s a grave insult to all law abiding Australians. Last weekend, we saw tens of thousands of Australians pack city centres across the nation in protest of Black Lives Matter.

This protest started in the United States with the unnecessary death of a Black American, at the hands of police officers. No one could possibly condone the way in which George Floyd died. But what upsets me, is the attitude of many people black and white, that his death matters more because he is black.

And yet when a white 40 year old Australian American woman by the name of Justine Damond was shot, there was no protest. No one really cared, because she was white. George Floyd had been made out to be a martyr. This man has been in and out of prison numerous times.

He was a criminal, and a dangerous thug. George Floyd had a criminal history of breaking into a pregnant woman’s home, looking for drugs and money, and threatening her by holding the gun to her stomach. It sickened me to see people holding up signs saying, Black Lives Matter, in memory of this American criminal.

I’m sorry, but all lives matter. And if I saw signs being paraded on the day, that said that very thing, we wouldn’t be having this debate. More whites die in Australia and America in relation to deaths in custody than blacks, that’s a fact. But where’s the outrage for white people?

For the majority people in custody, it’s because they’ve broken the law. In other words, they’ve committed crimes against innocent people. To hear brainless comments from people saying that our indigenous Australians should not be locked up, as was the case put forward in 1995, is absolutely ridiculous.

Black and white Australians must face punishment, if they commit an offence or break the law. We cannot allow bleeding hearts, and those on the left to destroy the fabric of our society, and our freedom. The public sentiment calls for those who do the wrong thing to be held to account for their actions.

I’m used to seeing gutless behaviour from political parties. But what I have seen transpire over the last few days, the word gutless doesn’t even begin to describe it. When the severity of the Coronavirus pandemic became apparent, we asked Australians to make some sacrifices.

We asked them to stay at home, to shut down their businesses, we asked people to put their livelihoods on the line, for the well being of every Australian. And they’ve done that, much to their own demise. So after what I saw over the weekend, I don’t blame the 445,000, small mom and dad businesses in my home state for saying they feel betrayed.

And although there were just two new cases of Coronavirus across Australia, the Queensland Labour Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, has kept our state border in lockdown, like a scene out of Germany in the 1960s, when they established Checkpoint Charlie.

And while Checkpoint Palaszczuk claims to be saving Queenslanders from the COVID-19. She authorises a mass gathering of 30,000 Black Lives Matter protesters in Brisbane, which flew in the face of all social distancing laws. Not one person was reported to be fined, or held to account.

Even when someone was filmed jumping on a police car, what an insult to law abiding Australians. We saw the scene played out across Australia, and every politician who turned a blind eye, should hang their heads in shame. People are furious and I don’t blame them.

They want to know how can this happen when our pubs, clubs, gyms, restaurants and businesses are still crippled by the full force of COVID-19 restrictions. They can barely have 20 people in a room. Doesn’t Queensland’s economy matter? Doesn’t Australia’s economy matter?

These activists should never have been allowed to march, and call Australians racist, especially when we can’t even hold a proper funeral for our loved ones. I say shame on the politicians who were too gutless, too scared of losing votes to stand up to the mob.

[Roberts]

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, of all colours. I reinforce the right of people to protest, and speak lawfully. We are in favour, in one nation, of freedom over control.

I wanna address straight away though, and make the comment that Senator Hanson condemned the killing of George Floyd in her speech. It stuns me that Senator Ayres, can so blatantly reverse Senator Hanson’s clear position. That is dishonest.

I wanna refer to Senator Rice who said quote, “Racism exhibited by Senator Hanson.” That too from Senator Rice is a lie. It is false, it is dishonest, it is cowardly. Stating accurate data as Senator Hanson did, in a coherent, logical argument.

Calling for all people, regardless of skin colour, or race to be treated the same under our laws, is the reverse of racism. It is fairness, it is honesty, it is care. Yet out of touch and ignorant policies, such as those of the Greens, artificially raising energy prices, and tossing workers out on the scrapheap.

That is what exposes the Greens fault lines, across our society. These policies of the Greens are hurting all people, and most savagely our most vulnerable and poorest people, black and white. Resorting falsely to labels, shows that Senator Rice, cannot count a senator Hanson’s data, and logical argument.

And I remind the Labor Party, that Senator Polly tweeted, their Senator Polly tweeted, “All lives matter.” And she was slaughtered by her own Labor politicians, she withdrew the tweet. So accordingly, I can conclude that in the Labor Party, all lives do not matter. Now let’s turn to the protest.

I draw people’s attention the protest of activists last week, in breach of the COVID-19 restrictions. They blatantly ignored the stated health concerns, and willfully broke the law. That is the issue.

The protesters have not been punished, yet our law abiding businesses continue to be punished, and livelihoods are being crushed, complying with these restrictions. Tourism and hospitality are key sectors in Queensland, shouldering the burden.

A burden that the Queensland Labor government placed, and continues to place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the community. Well beyond these border restrictions use by dates. The Palaszczuk Labor government, implicitly gave permission for 30,000 demonstrators to turn out for the Black Lives Matter protest.

Meanwhile, Queensland businesses stay closed, restaurants stay closed, and stadiums stay empty. And Premier Palaszczuk remains obstinate, and defers critical distance decisions to Queensland’s Chief Medical Officer.

To add insult to injury, emotional and financial injury, the Queensland Labor government has now callously stated, our border closures and restrictions, have not created financial hardship for our border closures, what? Meanwhile, these economies continue to unravel.

That is Labor’s arrogance, insensitivity, callous disregard for people, dishonesty, weakness, gutlessness, and fear. This cold hearted indifference to the people and businesses of Queensland, undermines any remaining confidence that business may have had in Premier Palaszczuk’s Labor Government, to respond to COVID-19 pandemic based not on data, but on hidden agendas.

This simply does not make sense, and it is not fair to allow businesses to continue to collapse due to government hypocrisy, and cowardice. We all know the reality is quite different, because while some people can congregate and demonstrate, people on the border continue to suffer.

Over the next three months, which is when Queensland’s Chief Health Officer believes it is realistic to open the Queensland border, the Gold Coast will lose a further $1 billion in revenue, on top of the existing losses.

Southern visitors spend three times more than intrastate travellers, so it is not enough to expect that Queensland travellers alone, will save the Glitter Strip economy. The Gold Coast Airport, traffic has fallen 99% this April and May, versus the same time last year.

This is financial hardship, and the Queensland Labor Government, still has not provided the data they relied upon to close the borders in first place. Lifeline is taking calls of distress from people. State and federal politicians who attended the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, broke the law.

The Palaszczuk Labor Government in Queensland has a duty of care to all Queenslanders, and Labor’s blatant hypocrisy needs to stop.

[President]

Thank you Senator Roberts.

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Letter to QLD Premier: Residential Tenancy Reforms

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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:

  1. negatively impact on the value of people’s homes and properties;
  2. expose the entire property market to the risk of property owners exiting the rental market;
  3. 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.

Yours sincerely

Senator Malcolm Roberts
Senator for Queensland

200508-Qld-Premier_Tenancy-Reforms

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Letter to QLD Premier – Licensed Firearm Dealers Shutdown

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200402-Qld-Premier

Full text

Dear Premier 

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. 

Yours sincerely 

Senator Malcolm Roberts 

Senator for Queensland 

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Kick Labor out of Bundamba

Let’s kick Labor out of Bundamba at this Saturday’s by-election.

Here’s why.

Transcript

There’s a by-election for the state, Queensland state seat of Bundamba this coming Saturday, the 28th of March. And there’ll be pre-poll every day leading up to that at five particular booths.

For those who don’t know in Bundamba, the Labor Party has a commitment to make Ipswich into Tipswich, with massive, new incinerators, massive new dumps, super dumps.

One Nation’s Sharon Bell, candidate, opposes that. Labor’s electricity gouging has really hurt Queensland families and individuals and businesses.

It’s exported jobs overseas to foreign countries which burn our coal at a far cheaper rate because they don’t have the government impost and the subsidies for stupid intermittent energies like solar and wind.

So you’re paying for this green fantasy that Annastacia Palaszczuk is driving and taking money out of family wallets, taking jobs out of Ipswich and Bundamba. Sharon Bell will fight to reverse that.

And then the corruption. Everyone knows about the corruption in Ipswich. Labour Council for many years and Jo-Ann Miller was the previous member of Bundamba and she fought very hard to remove that corruption, to expose it.

She spent 16 years and they bullied her and intimidated her. So Labour, is the bulliers. Make sure that people in Bundamba vote to end the corruption in Queensland that extends from Ipswich right through to the Queensland state parliament.

Jo-Ann Miller did her best. She’s fiesty, she’s strong, she’s honest, she’s courageous. But they belted at her. And now, to replace Jo-Ann Miller, Labour is putting up a candidate that is a blow in from Melbourne.

He’s only arrived in the state a few months ago and he was put onto a job, paid more than $200,000 a year on a government agency. How’s that? He’s in favour of the dumps.

He’s not gonna be doing anything about the corruption because he won’t know where to start. And he’s not gonna stop electricity price gouging. Sharon, though, Sharon is just like Jo-Ann.

Fiesty, honest, strong. She listens and like Jo-Ann, she will expose the corruption and she will get stuck into the basic issues for Bundamba. She’ll make sure that we don’t have any more privatisation on her watch.

She’ll make sure that privatisation, by the way from both Liberal and Labour. She’ll make sure, as a mother of three, that she pursues basic education, restoring education standards.

No more political correctness with Sharon Bell. A basic down-to-earth person. So on Saturday and in the pre-polling, make your vote count. Sharon Bell, number one for Bundamba.

And make sure to make your vote count, that it’s formal, that you put two, three, and four in the other boxes. Put ’em in any order you like because you’re the owner of the preferences.

So if you liked Jo-Ann Miller, vote Sharon Bell, number one for Bundamba. If you like Bundamba and its people, vote Sharon Bell for Bundamba. She lives there. She knows the issues. And if you love Australia, vote Sharon Bell, one for Bundamba.

/by