The government is in complete denial that migration has fuelled the housing crisis, keeping Australians out of affordable houses.
518,000 net overseas migrants arrived to Australia in the 2022-23 financial year. In October 2022, the government predicted net migrants would be 283,000 less than that. That means an additional 110,000 homes are needed just for the extra 283,000 arrivals that weren’t forecasted alone, plus all of the other arrivals.
There are 2.3 million visa holders likely to require housing in the country right now, yet the government won’t accept responsibility for causing the housing crisis.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Going back to my questions on immigration numbers—and I acknowledge the Treasury secretary admitted quite clearly that Treasury had made a mistake—specifically, do you realise that the number of people who arrived here above your forecast meant that 100,000 extra homes were needed? You basically got the immigration forecast wrong by 100,000 homes and now we’re in a housing crisis, Minister.
Senator Gallagher: Sorry; I thought that was to Treasury. Please repeat it.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you realise that the amount of people who arrived here above the Treasury forecast error meant that an extra 100,000 extra homes were needed? You got the immigration forecast wrong by 100,000 homes, and now we’re in a housing crisis and working families are sleeping in their cars.
Senator Gallagher: I think the housing crisis and the challenges in the housing market have been coming for some time. I don’t think it’s happened overnight, and so fixing it does not happen overnight.
Senator ROBERTS: I accept that, but why did you get the immigration so wrong? You’re still getting record immigration when you’re adding 100,000 new houses to the demand.
Senator Gallagher: I think Treasury has explained about forecasting, the fact that it wasn’t foreseen and that many other countries have experienced a similar phenomenon in terms of population and pressure on population coming from migration and from people remaining in country. I think that was explored earlier in the day. So we have to do two things One is to get the numbers back to a more sustainable level. That’s happening through a variety of interventions. The other thing is that we have to build more houses—and that is happening as well—to take the pressure off the housing situation in Australia.
Senator ROBERTS: The number was wrong. It means 100,000 more houses needed just in one year.
Senator Gallagher: I don’t know that you can just say that that is the number. I accept there is absolutely not enough housing at the moment and that that is placing people under enormous pressure and we have to fix that. That’s why a big focus of the budget is on homes for Australia.
Recently, I spoke in the Senate regarding the impact of this summer’s flooding on the coral reef. Coral polyps are saltwater creatures. When floodwaters impact the reef, it introduces fresh water, cold temperatures and sediment, all of which cause coral bleaching. El Niño (ENSO cycles) causes a reduction in clouds, resulting in higher solar radiation, higher temperatures, and coral bleaching.
Both of these are cyclical and not caused by human activity. Yet the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) appear to be focusing solely on the “climate change is causing warming temperatures and coral bleaching” argument instead of presenting the broader picture.
I was reassured that the GBRMPA accepts that ENSO cycles play a role in coral bleaching. I look forward to more honesty and transparency on this issue from the BOM, CSIRO and the globalist controlled Australian Institute of Marine Science.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing tonight. Let me start with a simple question: can floodwaters entering the reef from the 28 river systems that discharge onto the reef in a rain event, such as a tropical cyclone, cause coral bleaching, either through fresh water itself, through very low floodwater temperature, or through high nutrient levels or turbidity or sediment?
Mr Thomas: There can certainly be initial freshwater bleaching from flood events.
Mr Quincey: And we did see some of that this year with the cyclones in the north.
Senator ROBERTS: It’s true that corals also bleach from water that is too cold, isn’t it? I can remember that in June 2008 that there were record cold temperatures in various parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory, including southern Queensland, and the southern Great Barrier Reef bleached because of the cold weather.
Mr Thomas: I’m not sure of that particular example. But, yes, bleaching is certainly a stress response that can be triggered by a range of different things. Most recently, though, our biggest concerns have been about warmer waters, not colder waters.
Senator ROBERTS: Was any of the coral bleaching that was evident on the reef in the first quarter of 2024 caused by freshwater and salt intrusion?
Mr Thomas: Yes, as Mr Quincey said. Probably because of flood events prior to and post Christmas in in the north, there would have been some initial freshwater bleaching. I don’t have specific details of that in front of me, though.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Was any of the coral bleaching in the first quarter caused by pesticides or other chemical run-off from farming areas?
Mr Thomas: Direct attribution of those impacts would be difficult for me to provide here today, but we could take some of that question on notice.
Senator ROBERTS: Please. According to a paper from the University of Queensland, simplified: The most devastating mass coral bleaching has occurred during El Niño events … However, El Niño itself does not cause SSTs— sea surface temperatures— to rise in all regions that experience bleaching. Nor is the upper ocean warming trend of 0.11°C per decade since 1971 … sufficient alone to exceed the thermal tolerance of corals. This paper shows that a major contributing factor is El Nino reducing cloud cover, causing ‘higher than average air temperatures and higher than average atmospheric pressures’ and playing ‘a crucial role in determining the extent and location of coral bleaching’ on the reef. Is that a fair statement?
Mr Thomas: I’m not aware of that particular paper. Did you say it was the University of Queensland?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes.
Mr Thomas: I’m not aware of it. I’m sorry. But we would be very interested to read more about it.
Senator ROBERTS: We can get it to you.
Mr Thomas: Yes, please.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you accept natural, cyclical ENSO events play a crucial role in coral bleaching?
Mr Thomas: We would have to defer to climate scientists around the particular localised impacts and how they’ve played out on the Great Barrier Reef.
Senator ROBERTS: Localised impacts, not global?
Mr Thomas: For how those significant meteorological phenomena impact the Great Barrier Reef in particular, I would need to consult with other relevant experts.
Senator ROBERTS: According to the Bureau of Meteorology document ‘124 years of Australian rainfall’, there’s no trend. There’s no pattern. It’s just cyclical. There’s no trend whatsoever, down or up. It’s just natural variation, influenced by cycles. In the last five years, we’ve had three La Ninas. Your website, under the heading ‘What causes coral bleaching?’, makes the comment: The biggest cause of coral bleaching in the past 20 years has been rising water temperatures. On notice if you wish, please provide how much water temperature has increased in the last 20 years, including average and range, showing any spikes that may have occurred.
Mr Thomas: Thank you. We will take that on notice.
Senator ROBERTS: Something like that, maybe?
Mr Thomas: I’m not sure I can reproduce that exactly, but we’ll certainly take that—
Senator ROBERTS: No, I wouldn’t expect you to reproduce it.
Mr Thomas: We will certainly try to take an—
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Have you tested those spike temperatures that may have led to bleaching against the ENSO cycle? Have you correlated them?
Mr Quincey: I couldn’t answer now, but we would most likely consult with our colleagues not only in the Bureau of Meteorology but in the CSIRO and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, who do some of that work.
Mr Thomas: We’re not the authors of some of these reports. We work with those relevant institutions. We pull that information together. We try to synthesise it and make the best assessments we can on how we can hone our programs and better manage the Great Barrier Reef into the future. With some of the specificity and science you’re referring to, we really would need to speak to some of our experts.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. This is the last question. The bleaching impact statement on your website, which you describe as ‘a framework to describe and categorise coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef’, only includes one factor: heat stress, which you attribute to climate change, ignoring these other crucially important factors. Is this about blaming bleaching on climate change, which is well-funded, and ignoring the role of natural cycles, which carries no funding? We’ve heard the United Nations say that the planet is now boiling.
Mr Thomas: Is your question about whether our framework for understanding coral bleaching is limited to heat stress?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, it seems that it’s only limited to heat stress.
Mr Quincey: It has it there as heat stress, but the exposure blocks the subtleties of exactly what you’re talking about—about light intensity and exposure and cloud cover. Also, on our website, we really try to convey that local and regional weather in particular places has a large bearing on the outcomes that we see each summer, and those factors play into that.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/K_nVTjOJQus/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-06-06 10:02:002024-06-10 15:33:54Natural Cyclical Events Impact More Than Human Activity
I questioned the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) about their claims that almost every company in Australia is paying women less than men. Their data doesn’t compare how much a man and a woman working the same job at the same company gets paid. Its completely misleading and doesn’t account for choices, preferences, hours worked, overtime, danger, or the fact that paying women less than men has been illegal for decades, as the WGEA admitted to me.
With 78% of the workforce at the WGEA being female, it sounds like they shouldn’t be lecturing anyone in the country on gender equality while they completely fail to achieve it themselves.
Transcript
CHAIR: Yes. Senator ROBERTS.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing today. My questions are fairly simple. It is illegal to pay men and women differently because of their sex in Australia, isn’t it?
Senator Gallagher: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: How long has that been the case?
Senator Gallagher: It has been since the late sixties.
Senator ROBERTS: Is the data you publish on comparing male pay versus female pay on a like-for-like job basis?
Ms Wooldridge: No, it very clearly is not and it doesn’t intend to be.
Senator ROBERTS: So you could, for example, publish airline employees. The majority of pilots are men at the moment—women are increasing—and the majority of hostesses are female, so it would show it skewed towards the men, because pilots are paid more than hostesses.
Ms Wooldridge: That’s absolutely right; that is the gender pay gap.
Senator Gallagher: That’s the point.
Senator ROBERTS: How is that the point?
Ms Wooldridge: That is what the gender pay gap calculates. It is not seeking to calculate a like-for-like comparison. The definition is—let’s say we are doing an average gender pay gap—the average salaries of all men and the average salaries of all women and a comparison between the two. That is the simple, clear definition of the gender pay gap.
Senator ROBERTS: It’s not a like-for-like basis. It doesn’t accommodate hours. Men tend to work more hours and tend to be in more dangerous jobs, generally.
Ms Wooldridge: Our calculation annualises part-time or part-year earnings to an annualised full-time equivalent basis so that it does account and allow for the differences and make a fair comparison for people who are working non-full-time versus full-time—that is very clear—but it is not a like-for-like comparison, and it doesn’t seek to make that comparison.
Senator ROBERTS: Isn’t it then misleading?
Ms Wooldridge: Not when the definition of what we are calculating is very clear. We are very clear on what the gender pay gap seeks to calculate. As I said earlier, it is not a perfect measure; it is a proxy for gender equality. With the clarity of what the definition is then people can understand what the percentage reflects.
Senator ROBERTS: So if a male pilot and a female pilot had similar experience—number of years—similar qualifications, they would be paid the same; they would have to be.
Ms Wooldridge: Well, certainly that is the law and our expectation. I’m sure the government’s expectation is that companies do fulfil that requirement of equal pay for equal work because it has been the law for more than 50 years.
Senator ROBERTS: Right, so where is the gender pay gap?
Ms Wooldridge: The gender pay gap is driven by a combination of the composition of the workforce and the relativities of the pay for that composition.
Senator ROBERTS: But isn’t it erroneous to say that women are paid less than men if, in fact, for equivalent jobs on a like-for-like basis and hours worked, they are paid the same?
Ms Wooldridge: We are very clear in our communications that we will say women are paid less on average than men by an employer, in an industry, in an occupation, when we describe the gender pay gap.
Senator ROBERTS: I have been to some pretty advanced statistics classes, but you don’t have to do that to realise that averages can hide a lot. Averages can misinform and mislead.
Ms Wooldridge: Absolutely, so, once again, the gender pay gap is a proxy that commences a conversation about what is driving those differences. We talked earlier with Senator Hume about how the employer statement gives employers a mechanism by which they can then say what is driving the differences in their composition or in their pay and remuneration rates, and what things they are undertaking to address those differences.
Senator ROBERTS: So are you trying to drive more female pilots and more male hosts?
Ms Wooldridge: I don’t usually comment on individual companies, but Qantas, after the publishing of its gender pay gaps, did announce a policy to attract more female pilots into its ranks as a reflection of those very high-paying roles being currently very male dominated.
Senator ROBERTS: So the gender pay gap name-and-shame list that you publish doesn’t account for the amount of hours actually worked or overtime, does it?
Ms Wooldridge: As I said, Senator, what we published was the median salary for women and the median salary for men or total remuneration and base salary—we did two calculations and the per cent differences between the two. That was the data that was published for each employer.
Senator Gallagher: It is not a name-and-shame list; it’s the data that is available to WGEA. People choose to use it how they choose to use it, but it’s information that we believe is an important to support the work that’s being done to narrow the gender pay gap in the country.
Senator ROBERTS: So it’s really a tool to use to push an agenda? That’s a-g-e-n-d-a not ‘a gender’.
Ms Wooldridge: It’s an internationally used measure around the world. As I said, the UK government six years ago started publishing gender pay gaps of their employers using a similar methodology. It’s one that has been used in Australia for the last 15 or 20 years in terms of its calculation. It’s a reflection of the relationship between what men and women earn and their responsibilities in the workforce.
Senator ROBERTS: Well, it will only be that—a reflection of what men and women earn and their responsibilities—if it were like for like, and it’s not like for like. It’s misleading.
Ms Wooldridge: I suppose I don’t agree with that, Senator.
Senator Gallagher: I don’t either.
Ms Wooldridge: The calculation is very clear—the methodology used for the calculation—and we are very clear that it doesn’t seek to do a like-for-like. In fact, one thing that we’re very pleased about is that the conversation has moved from a like-for-like comparison—because that is the law, and it has been the law for 50 years, and companies should be complying with the law—to actually get to the differences about the structural inequalities that are driving the fact that we have a gender pay gap, as calculated and as described, across both the nation and in every industry across Australia.
Senator ROBERTS: Do we have a gender pay gap, which implies that we are paying women less than men for the same job, or do we have a gap in skills and preferences for work?
Senator Gallagher: Well, women workers do earn less on average than men, the male workers.
Senator ROBERTS: Not like for like in Australia.
Senator Gallagher: Nobody other than you is suggesting that we are measuring like for like. Nobody is.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s the way—
Senator Gallagher: Ms Wooldridge and I, when we do media on this, make it very clear what the gender pay gap consists of. Nobody is saying that equal pay is not being offered to women—although in some cases we’ve got rid of pay secrecy clauses and some of the other arrangements that did, I think, disadvantage women in that regard. This is about giving a snapshot in industries, in business, about what is actually happening with their workforce. The facts are the facts. And yes, we are pushing an agenda. The agenda is to make sure that women get the same opportunities as men through the work that they do, including dealing with the very gender segregated nature of our labour force.
Senator ROBERTS: Are you concerned that if you actually published real comparable data about how much men and women working the same job at the same company get paid, it would show there is no gender pay gap, because it’s illegal and there would be no need for your agency, so you’d be wound down? I’m serious.
Ms Wooldridge: No.
Senator Gallagher: Nothing would give me more pleasure.
Ms Wooldridge: I’m not the slightest bit concerned about that. In fact, what companies say to us is that they do work hard on the like-for-like pay, and they have to remain vigilant each and every year because discrepancies arise. It’s not a set and forget, and they do work hard on it. That’s absolutely fundamental. It’s a component of the gender pay gap, but it’s not the whole gender pay gap. We need to look beyond like-for-like pay to understand what else is driving the inequalities that mean men and women have a 21.7 per cent differential in their average total remuneration.
Senator ROBERTS: Right, so give me a hand here. You would agree that men and women are not the same and that their differences are things to cherish. If you are a company that employs only men, you are missing out on the talents of women. So isn’t it better, rather than distort the figures, to somehow encourage companies to employ women for the same job?
Senator Gallagher: Nobody is distorting the figures—
Senator ROBERTS: But it’s not like for like.
Senator Gallagher: The figures are the information that’s provided by the employer to WGEA, which WGEA then publish. Nobody is distorting figures. I think employers on the whole, including some I’ve spoken to since their data being published, are interested in this because they see the benefits that come from a more genderbalanced workforce, for sure. But we’re also dealing with a lot of history and choices made about what jobs suit what gender. There’s a whole range of things going on here that WGEA’s publication of this information supports further action on so that we are able to deal with the different components that lead to the gender pay gap in the country.
Senator ROBERTS: What’s the gender breakdown of your agency’s workforce?
Ms Wooldridge: At the moment, we’re 78 per cent women and 22 per cent men. We continue to seek to improve that balance in our recruitment processes.
Senator ROBERTS: You are familiar with the gender pay gap. Why is it so difficult, Minister, for men’s groups and shelters—this is not to do with welfare payments or mental health and such—to get support for mental health for men? Men are stigmatised in that field.
Senator Gallagher: In the area of mental health?
Senator ROBERTS: Mental health support, shelters—it’s almost impossible to get the money for men.
Senator Gallagher: I think that’s probably a question that we can deal with in health when we get there, because they would be the providers. I absolutely agree that responses and support for mental health need to be targeted to particular demographics. Men certainly experience mental health concerns at very high levels. I think there are targeted supports and interventions tailored to men, but health would be the obvious area for that.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll be asking Health and other places. It’s just that I know men’s groups find it very, very difficult to get support, whereas women’s groups find it very easy to get support.
Senator Gallagher: I think both women’s and men’s groups would argue that they are after more support. We’ve been going through that with Senator Waters this morning.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/A0rVyBaB0hg/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-06-06 10:01:002024-06-06 15:48:20The Gender Pay Gap is a Myth – Only Exists in DODGY Statistics
The woke and under-fire boss of Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) has installed 58 electric vehicle chargers at Parliament House, using $2.5 million of your money. This is despite only 2.8% of the vehicles in Canberra (the wokest city in Australia) being able to use the chargers.
I find it concerning that I needed to remind DPS Secretary, Rob Stefanic, that the money he’s using for these chargers belong to Australian taxpayers, not a pot of money that replenishes magically. His “out of touch” attitude regarding the chargers he’s installing and the origin of the funds is troubling.
Transcript
Senator Roberts: Let’s move on to electric vehicle chargers. I’d like to return to the 58 electric vehicle chargers—that’s 58—that you’ve installed, Mr Stefanic, at Parliament House. Can I confirm you haven’t installed any petrol or diesel pumps?
Mr Stefanic: No, we have not.
Senator Roberts: So 2.8 per cent of the vehicles registered in Canberra are electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids. It seems to be a weird policy priority to spend $2.5 million on installation of EV chargers. Do you think your policy is out of touch with the reality of the types of vehicles that are in use in the ACT and Canberra?
Mr Stefanic: Sometimes planning for a future state is important, and, given the take-up of electric vehicles within the country and particularly the rate of take-up within the ACT, I would have thought it to be prudent planning.
Senator Roberts: What is the mix of seven-kilowatt and 22-kilowatt chargers? How many of each are installed?
Mr Stefanic: I’d have to take that on notice. I’m not across the technical aspects of it.
Senator Roberts: Thank you. As to question on notice 114, your cashflow statement is anticipating $160,000 in employee expenses and nearly $170,000 in the following year. Why do Australian taxpayers need to pay $330,000 in employee wages over the next two years for these EV chargers?
Mr Stefanic: The business case for the chargers is a cost-recover over the long term. So, while it is an initial investment of Commonwealth funds, there is a recovery anticipated as part of that.
Senator Roberts: So Commonwealth funds come from taxpayers, or loans.
Mr Stefanic: They come from consolidated revenue, yes.
Senator Roberts: Which comes from taxpayers. It’s a bit of a concern that it seems to be awkward to actually admit that it comes from taxpayers. Charging lithium batteries is a fire safety risk. Who did the assessment of the fire safety risk and mitigation for these chargers? Can you please provide those details on notice.
Mr Stefanic: I know that all the appropriate engineering approvals were obtained, but I can get that detail for you on notice.
Senator Roberts: I’d like to know who did the assessment in particular of the fire safety risk and mitigation. What is the plan if a charging station charging vehicles catches fire? Firefighters are telling us, all over the world, that they are nearly impossible to extinguish.
Mr Stefanic: I believe all relevant risks were considered during the engineering assessment of the charging facility, but otherwise I’d have to take the detail of that question on notice.
Senator Roberts: Yes, please. Are you introducing a fire risk by installing 58 of these chargers into Parliament House, given the difficulties of putting out lithium fires? Perhaps take it on notice.
Mr Stefanic: Yes, I will take that on notice.
Senator Roberts: Given that only 2.8 per cent of the vehicles in Canberra can use these chargers, I think it is completely out of touch to spend $2½ million of taxpayers’ money on 58 of them at Parliament House. There are far more important things to be spending money on.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/otNhoGiYhvs/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-06-06 08:39:082024-06-06 08:39:11$2.5 Million EV Chargers Installed at Parliament House, Serving Just 2.8% of Vehicles
For years, I’ve been trying to get the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to admit responsibility for allowing vaccine mandates on pilots, and the risk of injury that comes with that. I’ve been shocked at how evasive, argumentative and secretive CASA has been over this simple issue, that there is a risk of injury from vaccines, therefore making them mandatory introduces a level of risk into the cockpit.
CASA has lied, refused to answer questions they could have answered, and hidden witnesses from inquiry. As you can see from this session, there is a protection racket in place for this failure of an agency and Australian pilots are suffering hugely as a result.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again. Could I have Dr Manderson to the desk, please. Dr Manderson, I asked you previously about the risk of myocarditis because you claimed to pilots that there was a higher chance of getting myocarditis from COVID than from the vaccine. I provided you with a systematic review that refutes that. It’s entitled, ‘COVID-19—associated cardiac pathology at the postmortem evaluation: a collaborative systematic review’. It was published in the Clinical Microbiology and Infection journal on 23 March 2022. I asked you to provide me with the evidence you had to base your previous statement about myocarditis on. That was in SQ23-004809. You undertook to provide the evidence that you had, but in the answer you simply referred to the TGA, not to evidence you had assessed to make the comment you made. I’d like to ask: did you write the answer to SQ23-004809 or did CASA officials?
Ms Spence: I think we provided a follow-up answer to that and we advised that the response was provided consistent with the requirements of the standing orders around responding to Senate estimates questions.
Senator ROBERTS: Who did you provide that to?
Ms Spence: That was the answer to 00268 from committee question No. 254.
Senator ROBERTS: Who wrote the first response?
Ms Spence: The question was directed to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority provided that response. That’s consistent with the guidelines for officials.
Senator ROBERTS: So who wrote the response?
Ms Spence: I approved the response.
Senator ROBERTS: Is that the guideline to responses that the government has just put out?
Ms Spence: No. These date back to February 2015. I can table that response if that would be helpful for you.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, please. In the interests of time, we won’t go through it now. One of the studies provided by the TGA in what you reference was from Anders Husby et al. It’s entitled ‘Clinical outcomes of myocarditis after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination in four Nordic countries: population based cohort study’. Do you still stand behind that evidence to say that the incidence of myocarditis is lower?
Dr Manderson: Yes, I do.
Senator ROBERTS: When you actually read that study, it says nine of the 109 patients were readmitted to hospital with myocarditis after COVID, while 62 of 530 were readmitted with myocarditis after receiving the vaccination. That’s eight per cent for COVID myocarditis and 12 per cent for the COVID vaccine myocarditis. Fifty per cent more people were readmitted to the hospital with myocarditis after getting the jab than after getting COVID. The evidence you cited doesn’t appear to support your statement that there’s a higher chance of myocarditis from COVID than from the vaccine. Can you explain your contradiction?
Mr Marcelja: I’d like to make an important point before Dr Manderson answers that question. We have tried to explain to the committee on a number of occasions that CASA’s role, when it comes to vaccinations, is purely related to aviation safety. I can tell you again today that there is no link to aviation safety from the matters that you’re talking about. So, while Dr Manderson can express her medical view about the questions you’ve asked, they actually have no bearing on CASA’s role and CASA’s remit when it comes to vaccinating the population.
Senator ROBERTS: They have enormous bearing on Dr Manderson’s integrity.
Ms Spence: I find that commentary quite disappointing coming from a Senator, but we’ll allow—
Senator Carol Brown: The questions do appear to be out of order. Senator ROBERTS’s questions do not seem to be for CASA. They’re not part of CASA’s core duties. So they really need to be asked in another committee. He’s asking about— Senator McKENZIE interjecting—
ACTING CHAIR: Let the minister finish.
Senator Carol Brown: I’m asking the chair to rule whether Senator ROBERTS’s questions are in order for CASA.
Senator ROBERTS: Chair, I would point out that we have received hundreds of calls from pilots. We’ve received emails and letters. We’ve had person-to-person conversations. Pilots from both Qantas and Virgin are absolutely terrified by what the injections are doing to some of their pilots. This is a fundamental thing, and it goes back to Mr Marcelja some time ago and also to Dr Manderson.
ACTING CHAIR: Do you want to make a quick comment, Senator McKENZIE?
Senator McKENZIE: Yes, I do. Nothing the minister has mentioned goes to the standing orders and whether anything that Senator ROBERTS has asked is in breach of the standing orders. Therefore he has the right in this committee to ask public officials, who earn a lot of money—more than most of the people around this table—to answer the questions on behalf of the constituency that he represents in this place. I would expect that the officials are very experienced and are very patient and will be able to respond to Senator ROBERTS’s questions.
ACTING CHAIR: We will keep going with the line of questioning. I was also going to say that, if there are any particular areas that you, as experienced officials, feel are better answered by another agency or another department, please flag that with us here. I don’t think it’s our role to tell senators what they can and can’t ask, but we’re going to leave it to your judgement too. I think the minister’s concern is that maybe some of these questions may be more appropriate in another committee throughout this fortnight of estimates. Anyway, let’s continue. Senator ROBERTS, you have the call.
Senator ROBERTS: Regardless of what’s in that study, is it your academic opinion, Dr Manderson, that a collaborative systematic review can be completely nullified by a single population based cohort study?
Dr Manderson: A single population based cohort study is one piece of evidence within many thousands of pieces of evidence that have been published around COVID-19 vaccines and myocarditis related to that. It would be scientifically and academically incorrect to rely on a single study or even a single piece of information within a single study to be selectively reported and base an entire policy decision or clinical opinion on that cherry-picked small piece of information. It’s a really fundamental part of research and critical analysis that you understand the breadth and the depth of clinical information that’s reported in the literature, how the reporting is done and even the fundamentals of analysis of individual articles relating to things like sources of bias and sources of statistical significance and relevance in that sort of thing. So a single study should never be relied on and a single piece of data within a single study should never be relied on. It is the breadth of information from a range of clinical literature as well as its interpretation and application—it’s called the concept of generalisability and applicability—to a population, as it applies to a group, when you’re forming an opinion, using that information, as to how it applies to your cohort.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I understand all the terms you use, believe it or not. You didn’t answer my question. You went around it with a lot of terms. Is it your academic opinion that a collaborative systematic review can be completely nullified by a single population based cohort study? Which would you put more credence in?
Dr Manderson: A collaborative systematic review—sometimes we call those meta-analyses—is given more weight in terms of evidentiary power, I suppose, than a single study. The more data points you get from the more studies that are published and analysed, the more reliable the evidence will be.
Senator ROBERTS: So you don’t think a systematic review, which I provided, trumps a cohort study in the hierarchy of research?
Dr Manderson: A systematic review is as good as the review process and the way in which it’s done. So there are important academic guidelines on the way systematic reviews should be done. That goes to the inclusion criteria for the articles that they refer to, the way they analyse the data within the articles that they’ve referenced and that they’ve selected to include, and the way that they have controlled for selection bias in choosing those articles. So there are systematic reviews that are—
Senator ROBERTS: Single article-to-article comparison: which is more valid and carries more weight?
Dr Manderson: Unfortunately it’s not as simple as that. A poorly conducted systematic review is not as good as a well conducted cohort study.
Senator ROBERTS: Given equal quality, which one carries more weight?
Dr Manderson: If they’re both conducted with great quality and equivalent quality, then a meta-analysis and systematic review of multiple data points is better than a single analysis—if they are done with the same level of quality.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I’ll move to my next question. None of the studies you referenced from the TGA were actually published at the time you made your statement to pilots about the risk of myocarditis. Did you actually have any evidence at the time you made the statement to pilots in February 2022? That’s what I asked. What evidence did you have? Nothing in your question on notice was available at that time—nothing. So what did you rely on?
Dr Manderson: By 2022, there had been tens of thousands of research articles published into COVID vaccines and the relationship between those and any adverse cardiac events. In particular, there were very large studies coming out of the countries that adopted COVID vaccination quite early. In particular, Hong Kong and Israel published a lot of data. That research was published in globally—
Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me, Dr Manderson—
ACTING CHAIR: Senator ROBERTS, sorry, but we should allow the witness to conclude her answer.
Senator ROBERTS: She’s not answering the question.
ACTING CHAIR: It doesn’t matter.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Keep going.
ACTING CHAIR: Just hear her out, and then you’ll have an opportunity to ask her another question.
Dr Manderson: That evidence was published in globally highly regarded journals: the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal cardiology edition, the Lancet and the publications from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—the CDC. Those source articles formed the basis of the advice that was provided to medical practitioners in Australia by the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the advice from the chief health officer of Australia and the public health authorities of each state. In 2022, all of that information was available, and all of that information leading up to when I did that webinar was what I based that on.
Senator ROBERTS: Your diversion is classically known as an appeal to authority. You put so many appeals to authority, and that’s very, very clever, but I asked you a question—’at the time you made the statement to pilots’. That’s what I asked. You gave me a reference that was not available at the time you made that statement. I asked you just now: what evidence did you have, specifically, when you made that statement to pilots? Secondly, nothing in your question on notice was available at that time. Why?
ACTING CHAIR: I think Ms Spence wanted to add something before too. Ms Spence?
Ms Spence: Again, it goes to the direction that we’re going in with the conversation. I totally respect the importance of you being able to ask the questions, but I would like to put it on the record that every other country, every other national aviation authority, took the same approach that Australia did. We did not work in isolation in this space. I hear you’re talking about the information and discussion that Dr Manderson had with the pilots, but I’m struggling to understand what specific issue there is around the actions that CASA took during COVID, which, to me, would seem to be a far more important issue to get to the heart of. If you thought we’d done something wrong, something different or something unacceptable, I’d like to have that conversation, rather than a very detailed academic conversation around which of the thousand articles that were available at the time Dr Manderson relied on.
Senator CANAVAN: Chair, I would like to stress Senator McKENZIE’s point here. The witness is fine to raise a point of order, but any claim not to have to answer a question has to be grounded in the standing orders, precedents and practices of this Senate. Nothing you spoke about then, Ms Spence, did that. Otherwise, we’re just giving opportunities for people to cover themselves to avoid answering questions. I think Senator ROBERTS questions are perfectly fine. They’re about public statements made by witnesses, and that is definitely able to be asked about at Senate estimates inquiries.
ACTING CHAIR: Not to summarise, but I’m mindful of time, and I don’t want to spend too much time on this. I think the point Ms Spence was trying to make was that they’re happy to keep answering questions from Senator ROBERTS. I don’t think that’s in dispute. I think she was just trying to see if there was more available time, with the time we have, to help Senator ROBERTS answer his other questions. Can we just keep continuing? I don’t know where we left to. Senator ROBERTS, do you have another question for the witnesses before us?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, I do. I have lots of questions. Ms Spence, you, Mr Marcelja and, I think, Dr Manderson have all said that the ultimate responsibility for aircraft safety in this country is with you three. With the COVID injections—that’s where this all started—it’s with you too. Specifically, Mr Marcelja, you told me in one of the Senate estimates responses that Dr Manderson is the chief medical expert. That’s where I’m going. Is that clear?
Ms Spence: Is there a question there, Senator?
Senator ROBERTS: I’m responding to your comment. Was I clear?
Ms Spence: I’m sorry. I still really don’t understand the direction that you’re going in. I’m happy to keep answering questions.
Senator ROBERTS: You don’t understand safety? Alright. Well, let’s continue. Ms Spence, I asked CASA in November 2023 to do a search of the medical record system in question SQ23-004943 for key conditions, and you told me that was not possible. That’s not true. CASA can do a free tech search of your medical records system for key terms, and report the amount of times a word appears. In fact you did exactly that in a February 2023 question on notice SQ23-003267, where you told me: During 2022 … there were 27 instances where pericarditis or myocarditis was mentioned in the clinical notes for a medical certificate assessment. Have you misled the committee on whether CASA can do a search for the terms I’ve asked for in the November question, given that you actually did that in February?
Mr Marcelja: If I recall, I answered that question. And what I told you, and I stand by today, is that our medical record system is not designed to capture those specific conditions and diseases in a way that reporting would be meaningful. While we could search the free text comments of our medical record system for those terms, those terms can appear in free text because a patient mentions them in a consultation because they believe they might have it, because of an actual diagnosis. We stand by the evidence we gave, which is that our medical record system doesn’t capture information on those specific diseases in a way that can be reported meaningfully. If you’d like to give me the reference of your question, I can reiterate the answer that we gave.
Senator ROBERTS: It is possible to do a search in your database for the words I’ve asked for in SQ23- 004943, like you did in SQ23-003267? I understand your comments. And you can provide an answer for how many times they are mentioned in the clinical notes from medical certificate assessments in 2022 and 2023. I’d like you to take it on notice and to provide it.
Ms Spence: If we do that it won’t be meaningful. Again, we’ll take it on notice, but what Mr Marcelja was saying was that any reference would be picked up, but it doesn’t mean that it’s actually related to that particular condition.
Mr Marcelja: I’ve got 4943 in front of me, and at the end of that question we say: Providing the information requested would require a … collation of free-text information from tens of thousands of records and would be an unreasonable diversion of resources.
Senator ROBERTS: Has CASA been provided with the guidebook circulated by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet giving advice on how to answer questions on notice?
Ms Spence: Not that I’m aware of. It’s certainly not been drawn to my attention. I did hear the questioning yesterday, but I haven’t seen the circular that was referred to.
Senator ROBERTS: If we go back to my first question of Mr Marcelja, I asked on what authority did Qantas and Virgin inject their pilots with an untested gene therapy based treatment that had not been approved by the TGA and that had not had testing done by the TGA or by the FDA in America. You said you relied upon experts. I said, ‘Which experts?’ You said, ‘Experts.’ I said, ‘Which experts?’ You said, ‘Experts.’ And when I said, ‘Which experts?’ for the fourth time, I think it was, you said, ‘International experts.’ Dr Manderson, which experts’ advice did CASA rely upon for turning an eye away from the mandated injections of healthy pilots with the COVID injections?
Mr Marcelja: I’d like to correct the statement you’ve made, because what I recall—and if you tell me the date I’ve the Hansard in front of me—telling you we had no role in intervening in the Australian government’s public health response to COVID. We did not intervene to prevent the vaccination of pilots, just like we do not intervene in the prevention of any other administration of any medicine or any vaccination. So if a pilot was to have an adverse reaction to a vaccination, the aviation safety response to that is that that pilot excludes themselves from flying. So that’s what our procedures are based on. We have no role in intervening in public health responses, mandating or not mandating the administration of vaccinations or any medicine, for that matter.
Senator ROBERTS: The Prime Minister at the time, Scott Morrison, said every night for about a fortnight, ‘There are no vaccine mandates in this country.’ That was a lie. But what I’m asking you is not whether or not you’re going to interfere in a vaccine mandate. What I’m asking you is: what were your reassurances that these vaccines—these injections—would not be unsafe to pilots? Did you do any high-altitude testing? What are the results of that?
Ms Spence: Senator—
Senator ROBERTS: I’m asking Mr Marcelja.
Ms Spence: Being responsible for the organisation, we treated the COVID vaccinations the same way that we treat all vaccinations. We do not do our own independent testing. What we do ensure is that the system works such that if there was an adverse reaction the pilot would not fly. I’ll be very clear here: as we’ve said at, I think, the last five hearings, there has not been, internationally, any evidence of any pilot being incapacitated as a result of a COVID vaccination while on duty.
Senator ROBERTS: There are 1,000. I was told by a lawyer working with Southwest Airlines in America that 1,000 pilots have not been able to pass their medical since getting their COVID shots.
Ms Spence: That’s not what I said.
Senator ROBERTS: There are lots of them.
Ms Spence: What I said was that there has not been a single example of a pilot being incapacitated on duty as a result of a COVID vaccination.
ACTING CHAIR: Senator, do you have more questions? I need to move the call around.
Senator ROBERTS: I do have some more questions, but if you move it round and come back to me that’s fine.
During my questioning of the Fair Work Commission, I highlighted the fact that when Coal LSL included casual coal miners, it opened the door to labour hire scams and in collusion with the corrupt CFMEU, cost individual miners up to $40,000 per year.
Labor is now attempting to stifle competition to remove miners’ choice regarding union membership as the RED Union gains traction by supporting thousands whose union fees have historically funded the Labor Party.
I also detailed a series of breaches by the labour hire company and BHP, leading to a compensation claim by Mr. Simon Turner, which the Minister dismissed.
Transcript | Session 1
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr Furlong and your team, for being here again. My first set of questions relates to my recent Senate second reading amendment to a recent Fair Work Act amendment bill. The Senate amendment required the government to conduct an investigation into massive wage theft in the coal mining industry. I’ll read the relevant portions: ‘Clause B—the Senate requires the government to investigate claims that casual miners working under enterprise agreements in the black coal mining industry are and have been underpaid. Clause C—if underpayments are found to have occurred, facilitate the reimbursement of the underpayments’. In regard to this, which is Australia’s largest wage theft case, totalling possibly over $1 billion and involving thefts of up to $40,000 per year per miner for many years and stealing from more than 5,000 miners, we believe, are you aware of the Senate’s second reading amendment requiring the minister to investigate the wage theft?
Mr Furlong: Senator, I can’t speak to the veracity of the claims that you’ve just made there.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s not my question.
Mr Furlong: What I can say is that I am broadly aware of what you’re referring to.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Has there been any discussion between the minister and the Fair Work Commission or any Fair Work Commission officials?
Mr Furlong: No, nor would it be appropriate.
Senator ROBERTS: Between the department and the Fair Work Commission or any Fair Work Commission officials?
Mr Furlong: Not that I’m aware of, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: Has the department received from the Fair Work Commission or made to the Fair Work Commission any instructions on this matter?
Mr Furlong: No, nor would it be appropriate for us to instruct the department on anything.
Senator ROBERTS: Has Minister Burke or the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations discussed with you or Fair Work Commission officials the nature of the investigation the Senate required him to make into the wage theft case involving central Queensland and Hunter Valley miners?
Mr Furlong: No, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: Have any of his staff raised it with you?
Mr Furlong: I might have to take that on notice. There may have been conversations at the officer level, but I’m certainly not aware of any. I haven’t participated in any.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Do you expect any role in the investigation?
Mr Furlong: As we’ve traversed at estimates previously, the role of the general manager, my role, is to assist the president in sharing the functions that the Fair Work Commission perform in an efficient way, essentially. Will there be a role—I can’t envision that there would be a role there for the commission, no.
Senator ROBERTS: Not for anyone from the Fair Work Commission?
Mr Furlong: Well, it’s hard to talk in the abstract on this. In terms of the context, the letter that I sent to you from 11 January contained a significant amount of information about the operations and the functions of the Fair Work Commission that relate to the making and the approval of the enterprise agreements, including the application of the better off overall test, the approval of agreements, the process and the legislative checklist that we’ve discussed a number of times. The letter was four pages, but there were 28 pages of attachments that I provided to you to hopefully assist with your understanding of the legislative regime and the role of the Fair Work Commission in relation to this issue.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Minister, yesterday evening you seemed uninterested in the investigation of workers’ wage theft—the biggest in Australia.
Senator Watt: That is a completely unfair characterisation of what I said. I’ve actually got—part of my career has been spent assisting workers to recoup underpayments. I invite you to have a look at my record on those issues. What I was pointing out was that you have raised pretty much the same issues over and over again at estimates hearings over a number of years.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, and we’ll see why. It’s sad that you have not understood why I’ve continued to raise that. Obviously, my communication needs to improve with you, Minister Watt. Here’s a second chance. What would you expect for a fair and independent investigation? What would the process look like?
Senator Watt: You asked me the same question yesterday, and I said a fair and independent investigation is obviously one that is fair and independent. I’m not trying to be a smart alec in saying that, but we respect the independence of the Fair Work Commission. We’re trying to redress the imbalance in the Fair Work Commission that existed under the former government when they only appointed employer representatives. We’re trying to make it a more even-handed organisation that does have both employer and employee representatives on it. It’s established as an independent organisation and it should be able to operate independently.
Senator ROBERTS: Having said that the Fair Work Commission should operate independently and given Mr Furlong’s responses, what would you think a fair and independent investigation would look like?
Senator Watt: I can’t add anything to what I said today and yesterday.
Senator ROBERTS: Mr Furlong, are you aware that the CFMEU, or MEU or whatever it’s called today, has applied, apparently, under the Fair Work Act same job, same pay provisions for a new enterprise agreement covering a few hundred miners at just two mines?
Mr Furlong: Yes, I’m aware.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. CFMEU/MEU notices in central Queensland and Hunter Valley mines have even used my figures for the amount of underpay per miner per year—up to $40,000. This vindicates my work over the last five years—work that the CFMEU/MEU had, in fact, denied and continues to deny, doesn’t it? Their notices are saying that miners are being short-changed $40,000. They’re making that submission.
Senator Watt: I’m happy to—
Senator ROBERTS: My question is to Mr Furlong initially.
Mr Furlong: My initial response to that is that it’s challenging for me to conflate different circumstances in very different cases.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, perhaps you could answer that.
Senator Watt: What I was going to say is that the Mining and Energy Union has a long and proud history of fighting for mining workers’ underpayments. They were absolutely pivotal to the changes to the law that this government made that you voted against that were about closing loopholes in the labour hire sector which were particularly being abused against mining workers. That has resulted already in at least one case that I’m aware of where those workers have now had their pay rates raised by tens of thousands of dollars. So, yes, the Mining and Energy Union does have a long history of raising these issues. I’ve campaigned with them on it myself, and I think other Labor senators have as well. We’ve now changed the law, and that’s addressing the issue.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Minister. I remind you that I used to be a coalface miner for several years in the Hunter Valley, central Queensland and North Queensland. I also was a very proud member the Miners Federation, because it looked after mine workers extremely well. Minister, do you know that the CFMEU, now the MEU, in its application for improving two enterprise agreements, does not seek back pay? Can you explain why they don’t seek back pay?
Senator Watt: I’m not a representative of that union, so I can’t explain why they included some things and not others in their claim. You’d have to ask the union.
Senator ROBERTS: Would it be possible that the CFMEU/MEU is aware of its support for the previous wage theft and that’s why it’s afraid to raise back pay?
Senator Watt: Well, I’ve already—we had a bit of a chat yesterday about conspiracy theories, Senator ROBERTS. Again, I can’t tell you why a union makes a particular claim and not others. What I do know is that the application that the MEU made involving the Mount Pleasant mine in the Hunter Valley through the Fair Work Commission has resulted in significant wage rises for those workers.
Senator ROBERTS: But they’re not seeking back pay. Minister, your use of labels is a refuge that’s commonly used by the ignorant, the dishonest, the incompetent or the fearful. When you use a label, it shows everyone that you haven’t got the data or the logic or the argument to refute me. So thank you very much for using a label. I’m very happy for you to use a label.
Senator Watt: You’re entitled to have full confidence in your argument, Senator ROBERTS.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister and Mr Furlong, are you aware that the Independent Workers’ Union of Australia has lodged three claims for back pay with the Fair Work Ombudsman?
Mr Furlong: I’m not aware of that, but you have—
Senator ROBERTS: Minister?
Senator Watt: Fair Work Ombudsman or commission?
Senator ROBERTS: Fair Work Ombudsman.
Senator Watt: I’m not aware of that, but they’re entitled to do whatever they want.
Senator ROBERTS: Many miners have joined with the Independent Workers’ Union of Australia in the process of lodging claims with the Fair Work Ombudsman. Are you aware that’s happening?
Senator Watt: No, but people have got a right to join whatever organisation they want. I might just clarify. My understanding actually is that the Mount Pleasant case in the Hunter Valley is ongoing, but agreements have been reached between mining contractors and workers to lift pay on the basis of the laws that were introduced.
Senator ROBERTS: It’s only taken me five years. That’s great to see.
Senator Watt: Well, if you want to take credit for a Labor government law that you voted against, you’re welcome to do so.
Senator ROBERTS: You were so embarrassed, Minister—
Senator Watt: But the record shows that you voted against those laws.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, speaking of conflicts, are you unavoidably conflicted on this matter because of the many millions of dollars from the CFMEU paid to your Labor party?
Senator Watt: No.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, does the $48 million from Abelshore, a 100 per cent owned Glencore subsidiary that went from—does the $48 million from Abelshore to the CFMEU in two recent years further conflict you and your party?
Senator Watt: No. I told you I wasn’t even aware of that yesterday.
Senator ROBERTS: Does it still conflict you, even though you’re not personally aware of it?
Senator Watt: I have no idea what you’re talking about—it’s a bit hard to be conflicted when it’s something that you don’t even know about.
Senator ROBERTS: Let’s continue then. On whom can workers rely, Minister?
Senator Watt: A Labor government which has fixed the laws and delivered secure jobs and better pay.
Senator ROBERTS: Well, they can’t rely on large, entrenched unions in monopoly positions, meaning their union bosses have no accountability to members. We’ve seen the CFMEU, MEU, SDA in recent years, HSU and Craig Thomson—they did deals stealing workers’ wages and cutting workers’ wages. This is the unions themselves—the powerful unions.
Senator Watt: I think it’s well understood that you’re not a big fan of unions and that you’ve voted against every piece of legislation we’ve ever tried to introduce to lift workers’ wages and provide unions with the ability to negotiate on behalf of their members. It’s okay in a democracy to be anti-union. You’re antiunion. I’m not. The Labor government supports the role of unions in negotiating workers’ pay, but you don’t have to agree with us.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, it’s poor form to mischaracterise someone and misrepresent someone. I have strongly supported unions—
Senator Watt: You just rattled off—
Senator ROBERTS: or honest unions, because I think it’s the worker’s right to be involved—
Senator Watt: Well, everyone can have a look at your voting record, Senator ROBERTS, and see how supportive you’ve been of the unions.
Senator ROBERTS: We’ll proceed with that. Can workers rely upon employers such as some of the labour hire firms?
Senator Watt: I don’t think you can generalise, but I think there have been many examples where labour hire firms have exploited their workforce and have been assisted in that by host employers. That’s why we changed the laws to overcome the loophole that labour hire firms and host employers were using to cut people’s pay. Again, Senator ROBERTS, you voted against us.
Senator ROBERTS: And we’ve discussed why. Can they rely upon Chandler Macleod, which is a subsidiary of Recruit Holdings and has contracts for supplying casual workers to your government?
Senator Watt: I’m not going to comment on individual companies, Senator ROBERTS. I don’t know enough about the individual company’s record to comment on them.
Senator ROBERTS: Can workers rely upon the Fair Work Commission that approved the illegal enterprise agreements?
Senator Watt: I think workers can rely on the Fair Work Commission to be an independent organisation, now that we are restoring some balance to it, and that it will operate within the law.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.
Transcript | Session 2
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, I’ve been going through the list of entities or groups of entities that workers can possibly turn to. So far we haven’t found one that they can turn to. What about government? Can workers rely on government?
Senator Watt: Is that a general proposition?
Senator ROBERTS: I’m looking for people who can support workers.
Senator Watt: Senator ROBERTS, you’d have a lot more credibility on this if you had ever voted with the government for any of the changes we’ve made to protect workers. We passed some legislation recently. It was in the name of the bill: it was called the secure jobs, better pay bill. Have a guess what it was about: secure jobs and better pay. Have a guess how you voted: you voted no. We give you opportunities to vote for workers. We are protecting workers and you keep voting against it. You keep voting with the coalition.
Senator ROBERTS: Did you know, Minister, that miners tell me that, in their research on the Hunter Valley and central Queensland wage theft, that, when Mr Bill Shorten was workplace relations minister in Julia Gillard’s government, he made the key step that unlocked and enabled the abuse of casual workers? Did you know that?
Senator Watt: I did not know that some mining workers somewhere said that about Bill Shorten when he was a minister more than 10 years ago. No, I did not know that.
Senator ROBERTS: Despite the Black Coal Mining Industry Award not allowing casual coal mine workers on production, Mr Shorten apparently changed the coal long service leave regulations to allow casual coal miners to receive long service leave accruals. Were you aware of that?
Senator Watt: No, I wasn’t in the parliament.
Senator ROBERTS: That opened the door for the CFMEU and labour hire companies to fabricate the permanent casual rort. That’s why, five years ago, I started holding Coal LSL, the Fair Work Commission and Fair Work Ombudsman accountable. Do you understand now why I started with the Coal LSL agency?
Senator Watt: I’m sure there would be different views on that. That’s obviously your view. It’s a view you’ve pursued relentlessly in estimates committees over many years.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for the compliment.
Senator Watt: The government has done a lot of work in the meantime to assist coal mining workers, all of which you voted against, unfortunately.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, as a result of my work, mine workers watched as the LNP, in my opinion, avoided the core of the issue, but it did do a review of the coal long service leave provisions that may one day lead to improved governance within the Coal LSL. Are you aware of what the LNP did there?
Senator Watt: No.
Senator ROBERTS: Mine workers continued watching in recent years as your government—in the last two years—under Minister Burke, did its best to cover up the permanent casual rort with amendments to the Fair Work Act. Some workers think that was done to protect the CFMEU and its role in the permanent casual rort. Your government has done its best to hide this issue despite support I’ve received from senators, such as Senator Sheldon and Senator Sterle. Why should workers rely on governments—on Labor governments in particular?
Senator Watt: Because we pass legislation called things like secure jobs and better pay that result in—
Senator ROBERTS: Called things like?
Senator Watt: Secure jobs and better pay.
Senator ROBERTS: What about state governments?
Senator Watt: We’re not going to get into state governments in a federal estimates hearing, are we— seriously.
Senator ROBERTS: The Palaszczuk Miles state government—this is very important for accountability of unions, Minister, because I’m a very strong supporter of accountable unions. Indeed, the Palaszczuk Miles government is banning competitors to the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union, such as the Nurses Professional Association of Queensland. It’s banning competitors such as the Teachers’ Professional Association of Queensland which competes with the Queensland Teachers’ Union. They’re banning or trying to ban the Red Union, apparently, in attempts to protect the Queensland nurses union and Queensland Teachers’ Union donations to the Labor Party. Are you aware that’s what’s going on in Queensland? We have legitimate unions being banned by a state Labor government.
Senator Watt: I’m aware of the issue in broad terms, but you’ve got a—the last I heard was that you had a One Nation member of the state parliament. It sounds like a very good issue for him to raise in State estimates, and we can deal with federal estimates and federal issues here.
Senator ROBERTS: We are dealing with this issue. The Red Unions and the new Independent Workers Union of Australia charge around half. In fact, for the Independent Workers’ Union of Australia that’s vying for members with the Mining and Energy Union in the Hunter and central Queensland, 43 per cent of the Labor affiliated union fees—because these unions—the Red Union and the Independent Workers’ Union of Australia— refuse to hand members’ money to political parties. Are you aware of that, Minister? Their fees are less than half.
Senator Watt: I’m certainly aware that there are a number of LNP-backed groups that masquerade as unions and that have been created with a view to undermining the legitimate unions that have been fighting for workers in Queensland for a long time. I know there’s a very strong link between—
Senator ROBERTS: Where were they when the mandates came in and teachers and nurses lost their jobs?
Senator Watt: If we’re going to get into COVID mandates, there’s a whole other committee that you’ve been dealing with that issue in for years.
Senator ROBERTS: And we’ll continue to. Despite the Queensland legislation, are you aware that the Red Unions continue to grow rapidly among nursing and teaching professionals, with a membership now of over 20,000 strong, expanding into New Zealand and into small business, and now it’s expanding into coal mining? Are you aware of that?
Senator Watt: No.
Senator ROBERTS: Let’s turn to another group that’s supposed to—the Enlighten group—and some of its members may be enlightened—that’s supposed to protect workers. That’s the business owner. Mr Simon Turner, who’s a mine worker, has informed me of the following. The company that owned and operated the mine he was employed at directed him to not report a serious safety incident in which he was critically injured. That’s a statutory breach. They failed to report the accident. That’s a statutory breach. They made him come to work while injured. They sacked him while injured. They falsely changed his onsite digital record. They failed to provide correct workers compensation—a statutory breach of state law. They failed to take the correct coal miners insurance policy—a statutory breach. They failed to provide accident pay—a statutory breach. And so on it goes. They failed to comply with the New South Wales mines health and safety act and New South Wales health and safety act. That company is BHP—the world’s largest mining company. Workers cannot rely on globalist corporations, Minister, especially corporations from globalist labour hire companies that do deals with the CFMEU and the Mining and Energy Union. Where can workers turn?
Senator Watt: I think we’ve all known for a number of years now, Senator ROBERTS, that you’ve got a close relationship with Mr Turner. He’s obviously taken his complaint to you. He’s obviously very unhappy with the union that he is or was a member of. I don’t know the circumstances of that. It’s pretty pointless for me to speculate.
Senator ROBERTS: That leaves one avenue left to protect workers: comprehensive industrial relations reform to simplify industrial relations law so that workers and small businesses can see their entitlements, protections, rights and responsibilities—not buried in 1,800 pages of complex law. Why won’t Labor give workers choice?
Senator Watt: About what?
Senator ROBERTS: You’re protecting entrenched unions that are abusing the industrial relations system because they’re members of the IR club. You’re protecting corporate employers. You’re protecting labour hire companies. Why won’t you give workers the choice to become members of the union that they choose?
Senator Watt: I don’t agree with any of the propositions you just put.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/-oX9ppgSKOM/0.jpg360480Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-06-05 19:22:022024-06-24 16:35:37Labour Hire Scams and Union Corruption
My questions to the NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commissioner was primarily about the quality and safety issues that render the system inefficient and hazardous.
It became evident that fraud was rampant, leading to significant financial waste and leaving many recipients’ needs unmet.
While some recipients received excessively extravagant packages with overvalued components, such as massages, fishing trips and cruises, others remained in dire need of basic assistance for eating, washing, toileting and dressing.
Initially, the system functioned fairly well, but it has now expanded excessively, resulting in waste, unmet needs, and dangerous conditions for vulnerable recipients.
Since 2020, the government has guaranteed mortgages with only a 5% deposit.
Given 150,000 Australians were unable to afford a 20% deposit, I was concerned many of them may have been hit especially hard by the RBA’s interest rate rises. Based on the figures provided here, it looks like most of these households are coping well so far.
The full data put on notice should clarify this further, but if what I’ve been told here is true, it’s good news for those homeowners.
There’s a lot of shady money flowing around our elections. One example is the weird case of nearly $50 million dollars flowing from coal mining company Glencore eventually making its way to the Labor party that wants to shut them down.
Nearly $50 million in two years flowed from Glencore’s subsidiary company Abelshore to the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU). The CFMMEU donates tens of millions to the Australian Labor party every year. Why would a coal mining company funnel millions of dollars to a union that donates to the Labor Party who hates coal mining and wants it shut down under its net-zero plans?
Pay attention to my questions at the Fair Work Commission about the unions and labour hire companies colluding to rip off hundreds of thousands of dollars from coal miners for some potential answers.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Maybe you could elaborate on some of the issues faced with getting a clear picture when it comes to donation law, a really complex situation. The returns for the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union for 2022 and 2023 show they donated huge sums to the Labor Party. The CFMMEU has received more than $39 million from a company called Abelshore, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of coal company Glencore. In 2021-22 they donated $9 million, so over two years they donated $48 million donated by Glencoreowned companies to the CFMMEU, to the Labor Party. So you have tens of millions, $48 million as I said, flying from a coal company through a subsidiary, through a union to the Labor Party but the coal company does not show up in the returns to the Labor Party. Can you explain the difficulties in finding out where the money was originally coming from on the returns that are lodged?
Mr Rogers: First of all, I have not seen that particular return, so I would have to take it on notice and have a look but I am not aware that any of that breaches the existing legislation. Our role is to adhere to the legislation, promote the legislation, ensure that agencies are adhering to that. As you know, the whole funding and disclosure issue is the most complex part of the Electoral Act. It is highly technical. As long as those entities are meeting their obligations for transparency under the act, and I have no information that they are not—I would have to look at that specific issue in detail—as long as they are within the legislation, changing that legislation is a matter for parliament rather than the AEC, which I know you are aware of, and it is something we were discussing earlier this evening. I would have to have a look at in detail.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, we will send you a copy. It is on a register from the CFMMEU, I think I said. That is an awful lot of money to be hidden and it is not deliberately hidden. Perhaps it is inadvertently hidden. I think the intent is deliberate because it seems a bit strange that money is going from a coal company to a mining union to the Labor Party.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/NaHt7XBWczI/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-06-03 19:05:152024-06-05 21:29:39Millions of Dollars Flow from Coal Company to Union to the Labor Party
I asked the Australian Electoral Commission about their claims of misinformation and disinformation being a threat to elections. I was surprised to find that a taskforce that specifically reports on threats to the integrity of the election reported there was no interference that would undermine confidence in any results.
Why the discrepancy between a taskforce that says there are no issues and a Commissioner that says this is a big problem? Either the task force isn’t being upfront or the Commissioner is overblowing the threat of disinformation.
I also pointed at some complex shady transactions showing over $40 million in one year flowing from coal company Glencore through a subsidiary company, to the union, to the Labor Party.
Transcript
CHAIR: Senator ROBERTS.
Senator ROBERTS: As you may be aware, Mr Rogers, I’ve got the minutes of the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce, the EIAT—sounds like something to eat—and the freedom of information request LEX 5612. I want to ask you if this response meets your expectations of transparency and accountability. Here are the first six pages. It’s almost entirely black—redacted. There are 100 more pages and most of them are a repeat of this. We’ve probably ran out of black ink trying to print the whole thing. Is this a transparent and open response for what is meant to be an ‘assurance task force’?
Mr Rogers: For a start, I don’t own the task force. I’ll put that on the table. The task force provides me advice about a range of issues. But I just want to point out—
Senator ROBERTS: It’s multi-agency, right?
Mr Rogers: That’s correct, yes. We’ve had discussions about this previously; there are security agencies involved in that process.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes.
Mr Rogers: We are actually talking about security issues. So I’m presuming that the agencies that make up the task force have gone through that document and are worried about releasing sensitive information and that is why it has been released in a redacted format. I’m happy to talk outside the public setting about the sorts of work they do. But, as we’ve said previously, they look at a whole range of different issues that impact on the AEC. They look at physical security, cybersecurity, and misinformation and disinformation with a particular vector about foreign interference. They are issues that they provide advice to me on. They examine a whole range of things, and I’m presuming that the agencies that make up that task force have examined that information and there are security implications or privacy implications, which is why they’ve redacted that information.
Senator ROBERTS: When every page is redacted, surely the EIAT is not dealing with 100 per cent secure information.
Mr Rogers: This is dealing with a sensitive area, which is the reason we’ve set that task force up to start with. But, again, I’m happy to talk to you outside a public setting about some of that information. But there will be privacy information there, there will be privileged information there, and there will also be security classified information there as well.
Senator ROBERTS: You have plenty of experience at Senate estimates, Mr Rogers, and you answer questions well, so I’m sure you’d be aware that freedom of information law used to redact freedom of information requests doesn’t apply to this committee. I want you to take on notice, please, to produce to this committee an unredacted version of the LEX 5612 documents, please.
Mr Rogers: The AEC doesn’t own the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce. Let me take that on notice. I’ll work with the agencies that comprise the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce. But it’s not an AEC entity as such. It is designed to be a cooperative body of the agencies represented on the task force to provide advice to me, particularly about foreign interference. So I can’t direct them to do that. Those agencies will have their own security issues that they have applied in the general clearance of that. But I’ll certainly raise it with the task force on your behalf.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Failing an adequate response from them, let’s take up your offer to discuss it, please. I understand the integrity task force—which includes AFP, ASD and so on—delivered a statement to you to the effect that there was no interference that would undermine the confidence of the Australian people in the election result. That statement has effectively been a copy-paste from the 2019 election, to 2022, to the referendum in 2023. Mr Pope, for 2022 at least—it was actually him as Deputy Commissioner of the AEC that proposed that wording to the EIAT, wasn’t it?
Mr Rogers: I don’t have the minutes in front of me. I’d have to take that on notice.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. If you could tell us.
Mr Rogers: To be abundantly helpful—it probably is the same words. I don’t have them in front of me, because that’s the same situation. If the situation hasn’t changed, they’re actually the words. If there had been interference, it would be an entirely different set of words that would come.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s where I want to go to next. If the integrity task force says in its statement that there is absolutely nothing to worry about, why is it necessary to hide the minutes of the meetings—completely hide them. I can understand some sensitive matters, some potential threats. Why is it necessary to hide the minutes?
Mr Rogers: Every member of that task force carries a current Commonwealth security classification. They’re dealing with information that in itself is classified. Again, I don’t own the task force. I’m not speaking on behalf of the task force. But each of the agencies has its own statutory responsibility to protect information as well. As a collective, that redaction would be the result of a security assessment done by the agencies on the task force. Whatever was discussed had some sort of security either classification or implication.
Senator ROBERTS: I accept that’s your answer. But I wonder if 100 per cent of it—okay. You’ve been very keen to become the truth cop and decide what is and isn’t misinformation at elections. You’ve told us that misinformation—
Mr Rogers: No. In fact, let me be very clear. I am the reverse of the truth cop. I do not want to be the truth cop at all. We had a discussion earlier this evening. ‘Truth’ at election time is quite often in the eye of the beholder. And the determination of what truth is is not something that I wish to be involved with. However, where disinformation about the electoral process is being spread—and you and I have discussed this previously—
Senator ROBERTS: Yes. I remember you discussing it with us.
Mr Rogers: Things that are legislatively and factually wrong, designed to confuse electors about the act of voting—for example, ‘You don’t have to vote’ or ‘Voting is not compulsory’ or ‘The AEC is using Dominion voting machines’ or ‘is erasing your ballot’—all of those sorts of issues. If someone says things like that that are designed to confuse voters, we correct the record. We don’t stop anybody from saying anything. But we certainly correct the record and we use the various tools at our disposal to do that, including social media and media, including at appearances like this. But I just want to be abundantly clear that the characterisation that you made at the start is the reverse of what we do.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes. I’ll take that back, because I didn’t mean it the way you understood it. But I can see quite clearly that that is a way of taking it. What I meant to say is that you have told us about the misinformation and disinformation repeatedly. From the amount of media and commentary you’ve done on this, it appears to be a very significant focus of yours, and that’s probably entirely correct. So where did this come from if your integrity task force is telling you in the statement that there isn’t a single issue to worry about? You’re telling us it’s a risk, a big risk.
Mr Rogers: One of the reasons we can have confidence about the Australian election is the existence of the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce. Their work, the work of the AEC—the work within the AEC of our Defending Democracy Unit, our social media team and a range of other entities, the way we engage with social media organisations, the way we focus on getting correct information into the hands of voters—has actually assisted that process. We’re certainly not going to wait for a disaster to have those measures in place [inaudible] get to where we are. We are internationally renowned—not just the AEC, but Australia and Australia’s electoral system is internationally renowned—as being fair, transparent and of high integrity. That is because of the work the AEC has done and the work that our partner agencies have done in groups like the EIAT—and indeed parliament, including committees that have established legislation and inquiries into each election. So I’m abundantly proud of the work that the AEC has done to ensure that citizens have confidence in electoral outcomes. You might have seen at the end of last year there was an APS survey that was published where the AEC was ranked No. 1 for trust and satisfaction out of, I think, 20 agencies that were listed amongst citizens. That is as a result of the work of a whole range of organisations, including our partner agencies. If you don’t mind, because the EIAT is an important moment of what we do, the members of the EIAT, just because they are on the EIAT, that does not abrogate their legislative responsibilities that they have as individual agencies in any case. The EIAT exists as a taskforce but each of the agencies represented also has legislative responsibilities, not just at election time but outside of election time, and we also have a bilateral relationship with each of these agencies as well. As you know and as I said previously, we talk to the AFP on a regular basis. We talk to those other agencies. They provide us advice and we use that input to guide how we’re going. I think Australians should be very proud of their electoral system and also the work of all those bodies that I mentioned before that have assisted in creating such a high-integrity and transparent system.
Senator ROBERTS: I must say that we had a number of concerns about the electoral process and the electoral system. Many of those, with the exception of two, have been erased because of our discussions and because we now have audits as a result of me introducing legislation that the previous government then took up. I will endorse your comments with the proviso that we still have a couple of things we are not happy with, but you do have audits now. Some of the issues you are responsible for are not easy; I get that. One in particular I would like to raise with you now is maybe you could elaborate on some of the issues faced with getting a clear picture when it comes to donation law, a really complex situation. The returns for the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union for 2022 and 2023 show they donated huge sums to the Labor Party. The CFMMEU has received more than $39 million from a company called Abelshore, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of coal company Glencore. In 2021-22 they donated $9 million, so over two years they donated $48 million donated by Glencoreowned companies to the CFMMEU, to the Labor Party. So you have tens of millions, $48 million as I said, flying from a coal company through a subsidiary, through a union to the Labor Party but the coal company does not show up in the returns to the Labor Party. Can you explain the difficulties in finding out where the money was originally coming from on the returns that are lodged?
Mr Rogers: First of all, I have not seen that particular return, so I would have to take it on notice and have a look but I am not aware that any of that breaches the existing legislation. Our role is to adhere to the legislation, promote the legislation, ensure that agencies are adhering to that. As you know, the whole funding and disclosure issue is the most complex part of the Electoral Act. It is highly technical. As long as those entities are meeting their obligations for transparency under the act, and I have no information that they are not—I would have to look at that specific issue in detail—as long as they are within the legislation, changing that legislation is a matter for parliament rather than the AEC, which I know you are aware of, and it is something we were discussing earlier this evening. I would have to have a look at in detail.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, we will send you a copy. It is on a register from the CFMMEU, I think I said. That is an awful lot of money to be hidden and it is not deliberately hidden. Perhaps it is inadvertently hidden. I think the intent is deliberate because it seems a bit strange that money is going from a coal company to a mining union to the Labor Party. Let’s move on. Can I confirm that you did not refer a single case of double voting at the referendum or the last election to the Federal Police for investigation?
Mr Rogers: I don’t have the statistics in front of me. Someone does. The chief legal officer does. I will drag him forward for a moment. Mr A Johnson: I will have to look up the statistics, but we have referred several multivoting cases from the federal election, around 37, and that 76 from the referendum were referred to the AFP, but that then is a matter for the AFP because it is a criminal offence and whether they proceed with prosecutions.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, it is a criminal offence.
Mr Rogers: We work with the AFP on those matters and, as the chief legal officer said, we refer those matters to them. But we go through each of those cases with them in any case, and what they do with those from there is a matter for the AFP.
Senator ROBERTS: One of the concerns we have amongst the two or three concerns overall, which has dropped dramatically in number after working with you, is the physical audit of the voter rolls, doorknocking houses and confirming that voters listed at that address live there. How are you progressing on that?
Mr Rogers: I think you are referring to something that used to be referred to as a habitation review, which we used to do many years ago. We don’t do habitation reviews for a range of reasons. Frankly, we found them to be inaccurate when we did those reviews. The processes that we have in place now are far more accurate and bring a greater level of assurance to the integrity of the roll than the habitation review ever did. As you would imagine, with people walking around districts, knocking on doors, people give all sorts of answers, if they open the door at all. We had people not home. In fact, I will not go through some of the detail of some of the ways in which our staff used to be received. There were personal safety issues involved as well. But the process we have in place now, we have a roll integrity assurance system, which I think we might have discussed with you when we visited to talk about the various issues that are in place. It is a better system with higher integrity than ever was the case during the habitation review process. Also, what we are currently doing is a better use of Commonwealth funds. The habitation reviews were hugely expensive for a very poor outcome, so what we have managed to produce is a much better system, using the coordination of several datasets to ensure that people are where they say they are.
Senator ROBERTS: You have said that before.
Mr Rogers: We also manage a thing called the address register, which is complex, but that is the way that we give everyone a spot on the earth, effectively. We know where people are, not when they are moving around for the sake of it, but where their houses are to make sure that when people say they are enrolled in a spot that that spot is actually an agreed address and that they are enrolled in.
Senator ROBERTS: We get frequent reports about people voting more than once and voting instead of dead people and so on. If you will indulge me, Mr Rogers, and the CHAIR, before I get onto my last question, I am not sure if you have heard an old joke about a politician who has lost his seat in parliament. Talking to a party powerbroker, he says, ‘Comrade, to lose such a safe seat is a tragedy but losing an electorate with three cemeteries, that is unforgivable.’ You have probably heard that one.
Mr Rogers: There has been a number of variations to that. Just to give some idea of the scope of the movement on the electoral roll, from memory, every day there are about 7,000 people who move or sadly die or turn 18 that we need to somehow interact with the electoral roll on a daily basis.
Senator ROBERTS: Or get married.
Mr Rogers: There is huge movement in that roll. We are constantly managing it—people are on, people are off. We do a range of things to make sure that it is accurate. We hear stories from time to time with people on social media or they might phone up talkback radio and say, ‘I multiple voted.’ We do not have any evidence of that. It is a minuscule problem. I have said before that the problem is vanishingly small. There is a gulf between what people do and say in this regard. We are alert to it. There have been a number of studies done. There was a large study done by an academic from the new University of New South Wales almost a decade ago looking at a range of issues to do with this. It is a vanishingly small issue. I mentioned previously, to the extent that it does occur, there are some factors normally are associated with it. One is age. People who multiple vote are more likely to be over the age of 80. I am thinking back to some research here. English as a second language can be an issue, because new voters might be confused. They may have heard that if you do not vote in Australia you get a fine and they are desperate not to get a fine, so they double vote. Sometimes there is also mental confusion as one of the other factors. It is a small number. Just to also give you some comfort, we are very clear that if ever the level of multiple voting came close to the margin for those seats, we would refer that ourselves to the Court of Disputed Returns and it has never even been close to that. We watch for that, we look at it and we are very conscious of it.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you. Last question—have you ever been involved in any correspondence or collaboration with the eSafety Commissioner?
Mr Rogers: Yes, we have. Well, actually, let me just craft my answer here. When I say ‘we’, we, as part of the Electoral Council of Australia and New Zealand, which is the electoral commissioners of Australia and New Zealand, have been collectively looking at an issue to do with the safety of our staff. As you know, the eSafety Commissioner has some powers about adult harm online—I’ll get that bit wrong, forgive me, but whatever those powers are—and we’ve been working with the eSafety Commissioner as a group of commissioners to make sure we have adequate protocols in place for how we engage the eSafety Commissioner in using those protocols for the safety of our permanent and temporary staff.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you very much. Thank you, CHAIR.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/jgAbAWqutdQ/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-06-03 17:55:412024-06-05 22:14:11Is the AEC Lying About the Threat of Misinformation and Disinformation?
