The argument about nuclear is overshadowing an inconvenient truth.
Coal remains the cheapest form of baseload reliable power and nuclear is a better alternative compared to wind and solar.
I support nuclear power and believe it should be part of our energy mix, but there’s no need to eliminate coal to make it happen.
Transcript
Labor, the Greens, the paid-off media and climate activists are all fighting tooth and nail against nuclear. You can hear them screaming so loudly because reliable baseload power is a massive threat to the billionaire solar and wind cartel. Both sides of politics have, for more than two decades, mismanaged energy so grossly that we’ve caused an energy crisis that Australia is now facing down. One Nation congratulates the coalition on agreeing with One Nation’s longstanding policy to remove the ban on nuclear energy and have a debate about where it sits in our energy needs. We can only hope that One Nation’s full policy is adopted one day: remove all the subsidies and let the cheapest form of power win so we can put more money back in Australians’ pockets.
There’s no reason that we need to forcibly shut down coal to put nuclear in the mix. The coalition plan is to forcibly acquire coal-fired power stations, shut them down and replace them with nuclear. Let’s do nuclear, and let’s do coal too. One of those coal-fired power stations the coalition wants to shut down is at Tarong. I visited there on Friday. It sits right on top of a coal mine. Coal is dug out of the ground and put on a conveyor belt straight into the power station with minimal transport costs. What more could you ask for? We’ve got 40 years of real-world costs on the Tarong stations, and it’s as cheap as chips. It uses high-energy-density fuel. Why tear down Tarong and replace it with nuclear based on projections—or worse, solar and wind based on unicorn farts? Instead, just build another coal-fired power station right there at Tarong beside it and use the same power.
The coalition can’t do that, because it’s fully committed to the United Nations net zero madness, a catastrophic nightmare in the making, and we haven’t seen anything yet. We’ve got these people in the government putting on benefits to energy policy because of the rising cost due to their policy. Only One Nation will say, ‘up yours!’ to foreign unelected organisations telling us what to do and instead use Australia’s coal and uranium resources for the cheapest power possible.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/_Na0Tmylo70/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-08-13 12:58:002024-08-13 12:58:04Coal Still the Cheapest Reliable Power Source
Last week, Opposition Leader Dutton replied to an interviewer, calling for the public to dob in loved ones, friends, or workmates who have changed their opinion of the Government for the worse to ASIO. After facing backlash on social media, I expected the Opposition Leader to clarify his remarks, but he has yet to do so.
His advocacy for Australians to report their fellow Australians to ASIO for expressing concerns about government COVID measures—which destroyed lives, health and families—is deeply troubling.
We are witnessing police actions in Canada and the UK where merely attending a protest rally, without any violent actions, is grounds for arrest and imprisonment. Is this a glimpse into the future under the Liberal Party?
Transcript
Last week, Opposition Leader Dutton, in a media interview, made a comment we expected he would clarify but he hasn’t. In the interview, the interviewer said:
“We saw the terror threat raised to Probable yesterday. But there are multiple fronts now.
One of those fronts that I found most interesting has come out of Covid. There’s the conspiracy theorists, the anti-vaxxers … what does it say to you about government overreach, and government, essentially, controlling people’s lives and the effects that that can have?”
Peter Dutton’s answer:
“None of that, though, should give rise to the sort of conduct that you’re referring to. I would say to anybody in our community, whether it’s within your friendship group, your family group, the work group, whatever it might be, where you see somebody’s behaviour changing, regardless of their motivation, or if they’ve changed radically their thoughts about society and government … you need to report that information to ASIO, or to the Australian Federal Police as a matter of urgency”.
In 1997, in the legal case Lange v the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the High Court found:
Under a legal system based on the common law, everybody is free to do anything, subject only to the provisions of the law, so that one proceeds upon an assumption of freedom of speech and turns to the law to discover the established exceptions to it.
To protect human life, free speech stops at incitement to violence against others and at incitement to break the law.
Free speech does not stop, as Peter Dutton suggests, merely at criticisms of others. Advocating that Australians be dobbed into ASIO for venting about government COVID measures, destroying their lives, health and families is a tone-deaf disgrace. In Canada and the UK right now, police response to criticism of the government is underway. Mere attendance at a protest rally without any violent words or actions is now enough to be arrested and imprisoned. Is this a glimpse of the future everyday Australians will endure under the supposedly honourable men and women of the Liberal Party, under an opposition leader who has come to bury Menzies, not to praise Menzies. I call on the Opposition Leader to clarify his remarks immediately.
We don’t have four banks and two supermarkets in this country. We have one predatory group of foreign investors hiding behind different logos.
BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, First State and others own large portions of the banks and supermarkets that are ripping Australians off the most.
Transcript
So, why does that happen? Why are foreign companies getting let off the hook? I’ll tell you why. It’s because many of even our large Australian companies are part-owned and controlled by foreign corporations. The major predators are BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and First State. They own the four banks, sorry they own 10 per cent of the four banks combined and they own the controlling interest. They tell the banks what to do—BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, First State and others in that little cohort of multinational predatory organisations. We don’t have four main banks. We have one main bank that is hiding behind four logos. That’s what we have. Same policies, same principles, same strategies, same products, same services.
Coles and Woolies, again, Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard. Go right through our corporations in this country. The corporations we thought were Australian owned, they’re foreign owned and controlled, and where does the money go? The profit goes overseas and what did the Morrison government do, along with the state premiers? Loaded it up so that foreign multinationals owning the large companies in this country made a killing out of COVID at the expense of small companies and small businesses.
Real wages have gone backwards, erasing a decade of pay rises since this government took office. This data is up to March, so it doesn’t reflect the current inflation rise. So, if Australians feel they’re working harder and getting less, it’s because they are.
Net zero policies are driving up electricity prices, which in turn affect the entire economy. Every sector—whether farming, manufacturing, or retail—uses power, and rising energy costs inevitably get passed on. In the March quarter, business bankruptcies reached record levels, with the construction sector hit particularly hard. Housing construction is declining, yet the government continues to bring in more immigrants.
This government has clearly failed in its economic management—there is no trust left.
Transcript
The Reserve Bank has just announced the inflation rate for May as four per cent, which is above the expected rate of 3.8 per cent. What’s even worse is that the underlying inflation rate, which had been trending downward, has now increased to 4.4 per cent. Inflation is surging, and it’s entirely the fault of the Albanese Labor government. Today we heard Finance Minister Gallagher again bragging about this government’s track record on protecting wages. The data does not support that statement.
According to the Australia Institute, real wages of everyday Australians have fallen from $52,900 to $52,080 since this government came to power. That figure has been calculated to March this year, so it doesn’t take into account what is now rising inflation. If everyday Australians feel like they’re working harder and going backwards, it’s because you are. The inflation spike was entirely predictable. Net zero measures continue to force up electricity prices, which cascade throughout our entire economy. Every business, from farming to manufacturing to retailing, uses power. Any increase in power has to be passed on, and this is what we’re now seeing.
One Nation calls on the government to abandon the insane net zero transition before the economy falls apart entirely, catastrophically. In the March quarter, business bankruptcies were at record levels. Bankruptcies in the building sector were especially high. Housing construction is not rising; it’s falling. Yet this government continues to bring in more new-arrival immigrants, which is inherently inflationary. The economy as a whole is just barely staying out of recession, with GDP growth at 0.2 per cent, a figure that shows the destruction that net zero is causing to our entire economy. I hope the Reserve Bank holds its nerve and doesn’t raise interest rates. If it raises rates, everyday Australians will be doing it even tougher. What a mess. This government is not fit to govern—no trust.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/moNqzCzmUQ4/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-08-12 09:39:322024-08-12 09:39:37Stagnant Wages, Skyrocketing Energy Costs and Record Business Failures
40 wind turbines every month. 22,000 solar panels every single day. 28,000 km of transmission lines and 48 gigawatt of batteries. That’s what the Net-Zero pipe dream requires.
These goals will never be achieved, yet the government persists in pursuing them, causing huge damage to our environment along the way. No one will take responsibility for cleaning up these environmental vandals, so Australia is on track for an environmental wasteland, more expensive electricity and blackouts.
Ditch Net-Zero – let’s bring down power bills AND protect the environment.
Transcript
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy (Senator Wong) to questions without notice I asked today relating to renewable energy.
In question time I asked the government how their insane net-zero wind and solar pipedreams were progressing. Here is what Labor’s energy minister Chris Bowen’s plan requires for the next eight years: 40 large wind turbines every single month, each with 100-metre concrete foundations, a massive turbine and huge blades atop a 300-metre tall steel tube; three days to erect the crane on each site; days to install each turbine; two days to dismantle the crane and move it to the next place; 22,000 solar panels every single day for eight years; 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines carving up national parks, prime farmland and the environment; plus 48 gigawatt hours of batteries. Predictably, the construction of wind and solar is nowhere near these targets. The government’s targets are physically and financially impossible.
While the targets will never be achieved, this government will do huge damage trying. Farmers and landholders are being conned into having these environment-killing wind-and-solar installations on their land. With the promise of some short-term money, farmers let these predators onto their land. Little do these landowners know, they are now responsible for disposing of the toxic wind turbines and solar panels at the end of their short life when the company that instals them inevitably goes broke or abandons them.
Every coalmine, however, is legislated to pay a rehabilitation bond for each hectare of land disturbed. The mining company pays upfront. The money is held until the mine ends and restores the environment to its original state. The bond is then returned. Wind and solar companies don’t pay any rehabilitation bond. Thousands of landholders will be stuck with useless wind turbines and solar panels on their property that they will have to pay to remove. Prevention is better than cure. Anyone can see this scandal coming, yet the government won’t take action to prevent it. It just sits there causing this catastrophe. The government protects its billionaire wind-and-solar mates living like parasites off subsidies Australian electricity users and taxpayers will continue to pay. Government screws it up; taxpayers pay.
The greatest lie told to Australians is that “wind and solar are the cheapest forms of energy”.
Politicians and journalists, who should know better, are using a report of models from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s (CSIRO) GenCost to try to justify this claim. In recent decades, CSIRO has completely destroyed its once stellar reputation for scientific research. It has now allowed its name to be used for political agendas rather than real science. The underlying assumptions and inputs used for the GenCost model must be subject to scrutiny.
I voiced these comments in support of a Senate Inquiry to do that, which Labor and the greens voted down. What are they trying to hide?
Transcript
Yesterday in question time I asked the minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Senator Wong a simple question: exactly how many wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and kilometres of transmission lines were built last month? You’d think that, as the cornerstone of the Labor Party’s policy in government, the answer would be obvious and clear and given to me straightaway. To her credit—and I have a lot of regard for Senator Wong’s capability and think she’s one of the most capable senators in parliament—she said, ‘I don’t know.’ It’s the key policy for the Labor government, and they’re flying blind.
Here’s what I told her in the second question. ‘Minister, the government’s own figures to meet your net zero target show that over the next eight years you need to install and connect more than 40 wind turbines per month, 22,000 solar panels a day, 48 gigawatt hours of batteries and 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines. I pointed out to her that the government is building nothing like that.
The government’s wind and solar pipedream is going to be a nightmare. We are being driven off a cliff by the energy minister, Chris Bowen—
Senator Fawcett: Order, Senator Roberts. Remember to use the correct title.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister Bowen. This is a gargantuan task. This has been labelled by some people as the biggest transition since the start of the Industrial Revolution. It’s fundamental because energy has primacy in our society. Labor cannot tell us the cost of this transition of dumping affordable, lowest cost, reliable, stable and secure energy independent of nature’s vagaries and transitioning to an unreliable, high cost, unstable energy that is weather dependent and not secure. This is madness. But to do it without any costing is doubly mad.
Think about it. We are giving parasitic billionaires and major corporations from around the world—many of them from China—subsidies for installing solar and wind. Those subsidies drive up the cost of electricity, and then we ship our manufacturing to China. China wins in two ways. We have got a National Electricity Market forcing out coal with unfavourable regulations—just driving coal out by making it impossible to feed the market. But it’s not a market; it’s a so-called market that bureaucrats control. It’s a national electricity racket that was introduced by John Howard’s coalition government.
While they’re driving out coal and subsidising solar and wind, they now admit they need to keep Eraring Power Station open. They were going to shut it. They’re now offering subsidies to the owners and operators of Eraring to keep it open, so we’re subsidising them to shut it and we’re subsidising them to open it and then we’re giving $275 relief in power prices to consumers across Australia. Why? Because the energy policy has failed.
By the way, I need to mention that on the night of the incoming Minns government, the new energy minister said that they would have to look at the closure of Eraring. She was laying a signal there—a hint—that they’d keep it open. That’s exactly what they must do because they’re terrified. The Australian Energy Market Operator has identified severe blackouts around December this year. The No. 1 factor that has driven our standard of living for the last 170 years since the start of the industrial revolution has been relentless reduction in energy prices, the unit cost of energy. It’s been a relentless reduction in the real cost of energy. That was until John Howard’s government introduced the renewable energy target and other measures, and since then it has relentlessly increased. Australia has gone from having the cheapest coal and the cheapest electricity prices, thanks to our wonderful coal assets—high-quality, clean coal—to now having amongst the most expensive electricity.
So let’s have a look at the terms of reference for the inquiry that Senator Colbeck has proposed. I thank Senator Colbeck for his motion. It says:
That the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation GenCost 2023-24 report be referred to the Economics References Committee for inquiry and report … to explore assumptions and costings made in the report, including but not limited to—
the CSIRO has been criticised for every one of these things I’m about to read out—
a. asset lifecycles;
b. capacity factors;
c. energy type costings;
d. financing costs;
e. fuel costs;
f. augmentation requirements of transmission systems;
g. data standards techniques; and
h. other related matters.
CSIRO has been belted by experts on every one of these. We badly need this inquiry. These are the fundamentals of the biggest transition since the industrial revolution.
CSIRO used to be a highly respected organisation. It was internationally respected. It has now come to mean ‘corrupted science is really obvious’. It lost its way distorting and omitting science to fabricate support for the UN’s climate fraud. The CSIRO has never presented the basis of science which is empirical scientific data—measurements and observations—within logical scientific points that prove cause and effect. The CSIRO has been integral in working with the UN climate change body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in pushing distortions of science.
I have had three meetings with the CSIRO at 2½ hours each and, under cross-examination, it has admitted that it has never said that there has been any danger due to human carbon dioxide. It has admitted that, even though climate change was based initially on global warming claims, temperatures are not unprecedented. It has claimed the rate of temperature change is unprecedented, but the rate of temperature change is almost negligible since 1995. It’s almost flat. That’s according to NASA’s scientific satellite measuring temperatures. The CSIRO gave us not one solid paper to back up its claims. What it did give us was two papers we tore to shreds. Then they gave us another two, and we tore them to shreds. There are 24,000 datasets that I have access to that have been scraped from sites all over the world, including CSIRO’s and BOM’s case studies, and there is not one that shows any change in any climate factor—not one. It’s just inherent natural variation with cycles superimposed. Not only that but the CSIRO has never provided bases for policy and neither has any department or the alphabet soup of energy agencies. They have all failed to answer my question: what’s the specific effect of carbon dioxide from human activity on climate, on any aspect of climate or on any factor of climate? What is the quantified specific effect per unit of carbon dioxide from human activity? Ocean heat content, air temperatures, ocean temperatures, storm frequency, severity and duration—not one of them can give me any answers on those at all. That is the basis for policy. Without that, you cannot understand or evaluate the options for reducing human carbon dioxide, you cannot track the progress of the measures and you cannot cost the alternatives. This is flying blind over a cliff. Electricity prices in every country with significant solar and wind have increased dramatically. Labor is simply continuing the policy that John Howard started, Tony Abbott continued, Malcolm Turnbull accelerated, Scott Morrison continued and Peter Dutton now propagates by confirming net zero.
Let’s turn specifically to the CSIRO report, GenCost. CSIRO used to be a respected scientific organisation, advancing our country’s technology. I refer to Senator Fawcett’s speech a minute ago. Now the CSIRO is a blatantly political organisation. It’s more interested in pushing the agenda of the government than in providing impartial, evidence-based research. Ideology is infecting most of CSIRO’s work like a virus. The GenCost report is shocking evidence of just how biased this once-respected institution has become. The methodology used in GenCost is so flawed that there are multiple hours of podcast series explaining all of its deficiencies, and I give a compliment Aidan Morrison for some of his work.
Let’s start with the cost of wind and solar. Many people, including some politicians, think GenCost says what it costs for wind and solar to deliver a kilowatt of power today. It doesn’t! It fundamentally doesn’t tell us the cost. GenCost imagines some fairytale dreamtime half-a-dozen years in the future and projects what they think wind and solar will cost, with no accurate, solid assumptions underpinning that. CSIRO even admits that this prediction they come up with is not the actual cost, but this is what policy relies on. CSIRO completely excludes the cost of every single power project up until 2030. They’re free! They’re free, according to this mob.
Just look at the tens of thousands of kilometres of transmission projects assumed to be free: EnergyConnect, $2.3 billion; Marinus Link, $3 billion. All are assumed to be free. Free, free, free! Santa Claus is giving them to us! There’s Central-West Orana, $3.2 billion, and HumeLink, $5 billion. It doesn’t sound like much when you rattle off a billion, does it! There are dozens more major projects.
Let’s look at the pumped hydro that’s assumed to be free. There’s Snowy 2.0, $12 billion plus and counting. That’s not included. There’s the Battery of the Nation in Tasmania, our biggest island. That’s $3 billion. It’s not included. There’s the Borumba pump hydro, $14 billion. It’s not included. There’s the Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro, $12 billion. It’s not included. The list goes on and on and on. Tens of billions of dollars is excluded from the cost of wind and solar, but we’ll all pay for it—some people with their jobs when they’re shipped off overseas, some people for whom the cost of living will drive these out of reach.
Almost all of these projects, especially the pump hydro, are only being planned because of wind and solar, yet CSIRO excludes them from the cost of wind and solar completely. It’s like saying a Ferrari is the cheapest car you can buy, as long as you take out the cost of the sunroof, the air conditioning, the wheels, the gearbox and the engine.
Then there are their calculations on the cost of coal. They added an extra five per cent cost to the finance figures with no basis whatsoever. CSIRO just says, ‘Well, no-one likes coal anymore,’ and, whack, a completely unfounded hurdle is added on top. Then there’s the capacity factor. That’s the percentage of time the station is running. It has a huge impact on the calculated cost of power, if you assume a billion-dollar power station is running for only half the time it actually is on and can be on. They’re destroying the viability of coal with lies.
CSIRO also says:
In 2030, we project forward including all existing state renewable energy targets resulting in a 64% renewable share and 56% variable renewable share …
They just assume that we’re going to press ahead with variable renewable energy, regardless of what happens and without any costings. They just assume it’s going to go ahead. It doesn’t sound like impartial modelling to me, because it’s not impartial modelling.
But the people of Australia will pay for this. They will pay for it with their jobs. They will pay for it with their livelihoods. They will pay for it with their family budgets. What sensitivities have been applied for political risk? Policy will almost certainly change and you may have a government elected that ditches false targets. What percentage of chance do they give that? The United Kingdom is abandoning net zero. The Prime Minister has said so. Japan is switching back to coal. It is already using a lot of coal. Germany is scrapping wind turbines to extend coalmines. It is tearing down wind turbines that were installed so that they can mine the coal underneath them. China is producing 4½ billion tonnes of coal. We produce 560 tonnes, and we export most of that overseas, and China is buying coal from us. Indonesia is now the world’s largest exporter of coal. India has well over a billion tonnes of coal.
This report, the GenCost report from CSIRO, isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, yet it’s being used to justify one of the largest destructions of our economy in Australia’s history. Even if you naively believe we need to run the grid on solar and wind, this GenCost report deserves scrutiny and the Australian people deserve transparency. CSIRO has repeatedly shown it is dishonest on climate and energy. We need an inquiry. In refusing or opposing, the government shows it fears its assumptions will be shown to be flawed. If I’m wrong, CSIRO would be vindicated. So CSIRO, if it had any courage, would stand up and say, ‘Bring on the inquiry.’ Thank you, Senator Colbeck. We support this motion.
As the cost of living increases out of control, the number of businesses going broke (insolvency) is on the rise. Each of these insolvencies is a tragic story of people losing their jobs and facing uncertainty about whether they will have money to put food on the table.
Ditch the net-zero policies that are driving up energy costs, cut red tape and make it easier for family businesses to survive. That’s One Nation’s plan!
Transcript
I support Senator Hughes’s motion and agree that the Albanese Labor government has failed to grow the economy and, with that lack of growth, failed to restore Australia’s standard of living. A stable economic environment is necessary for a new business to open and to flourish and for existing businesses to weather the many storms this government has engineered. Labor’s interest rate rises are due directly to Labor’s wasteful spending and energy price inflation resulting from pointless net zero policies. The Prime Minister and Energy Minister Bowen have failed to provide electricity at prices people and businesses can afford, directly driving inflation. Every new piece of legislation in this place seems designed to strangle the last breath out of businesses. Live sheep exports are today’s casualty.
It should come as no surprise that data from ASIC shows there were 1,245 business insolvencies in May 2024. This is a 44 per cent increase on last year and a 122 per cent increase across the life of the Albanese Labor government. To put it simply this government is sending business broke. One thousand two hundred and forty-five insolvent businesses in just one month is not a statistic; it’s a human tragedy. These are everyday Australians who had a go at lifting themselves up, who were employing others in their community and who were paying tax to support the government agenda. Now their businesses are gone along with their ability to provide for their families, free from reliance on the government. Business confidence is down because this government has talked it down with an unending recipe of doom and gloom about global boiling and sustainability requiring reductions in living standards. There’s no hope in this message, just unending misery. It’s a lie. No wonder businesses give up.
One Nation believes abundance is not a dirty word. It’s natural for people to seek abundance and to share abundance. With One Nation, Australians can and will restore prosperity to this beautiful country of ours.
One Nation advocates for the enshrinement of freedom of speech as a fundamental human right in our Constitution. We are the only Australian political party actively working to integrate freedom of speech into our legal and social framework. Contrary to popular belief, this right is not currently enshrined in the Australian Constitution, though many Australians assume it is.
While the Constitution provides a limited form of freedom of speech concerning political communications, it falls short of the comprehensive protection seen in the American Constitution, where freedom of speech is explicitly guaranteed.
I am calling for a thorough investigation into the necessity and benefits of including such a provision in our Constitution. Such a change would bring an end to governmental overreach and prevent legislation aimed at censoring speech by labelling it as ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ for political reasons.
The press and media are also guilty of suppressing dissenting views that challenge the government’s narrative, and social media platforms are known for shadow banning or cancelling comments that oppose government positions. This was particularly evident during the Covid-19 period of mandates and shutdowns, targeting those who questioned government control.
We must resist any government measures that would further restrict freedom of speech and advocate for stronger protections to safeguard this essential right.
Transcript
I speak in support of this motion from One Nation to enshrine into the Constitution one of the most basic of human rights: the right to free speech. When it comes to free speech, One Nation has your back. Many people believe that free speech is an existing feature of the Australian legal and social framework. It’s not. The High Court has held that there is limited freedom of speech implied by the interaction of several sections of the Constitution, limited to political communication. The extent of this limited right is yet to be fully determined by the High Court. That being the case, this concept of the right to free speech, already enshrined in the American Constitution, would be a worthy improvement to our own Australian Constitution. I want to read from the motion that Senator Hanson has moved in her own name and mine:
That the following matters be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 1 September 2024:
The matter of a popular vote, in the form of a referendum, on the matter of enshrining the right to free speech in the Australian constitution, with particular reference to:
(a) an assessment of the content and implications of a question to be put to electors;
(b) an examination of the resources required to enact such an activity, including the question of the contribution of Commonwealth funding to the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ campaigns;
(c) an assessment of the impact of the timing of such an activity, including the opportunity for it to coincide with a general election; and
(d) any other related matters.
This is fairly simple. It’s just an investigation and inquiry.
Of course, any alteration to our Constitution must be done with the agreement of the Australian voters by way of a referendum. I know that the Australian people are sick of referendums, particularly since the doomed and expensive Voice debacle that we had to endure and that the Labor government poured more than $450 million down the gurgler on, when it could have been spent on something far more important. Yet ensuring that freedom of speech is a feature of our social and legal landscape would be worth it.
Why do we need it? In Australia we’re significantly overgoverned and overregulated. One area that needs attention is the way that the government use the media to shut down anyone who wishes to discuss any concept that does not follow the government line. In these woke times, governments maintain a strong hand guiding the media into accepting and promoting often truly dumb and in some instances factually wrong propositions. We know that freedom of speech is suppressed because local newspapers and state newspapers rely on funding from advertising from local councils and state governments. It’s the same with the national government, the federal government. If someone comes up with an article that is too much out of the government line, then the governments won’t advertise.
In addition to some factually wrong propositions from federal and state governments, we see propositions that undermine good governance and cede sovereignty, pushing a globalist agenda—ridiculous. Social media platforms have taken on the roles of pseudo fact checkers and censors of material, deleting material that’s deemed inappropriate, even if it’s accurate and is disclosing inconvenient truths. Truth doesn’t matter to government in Australia anymore.
As an example, YouTube recently took down material from my YouTube channel, including material on COVID vaccine or COVID injection injuries that it had deemed medical misinformation. This was unnecessary and possibly unlawful, as some of the information was material placed before the Senate, covered by parliamentary privilege and supported by proof of its truth, fully referenced. It had been up there for six months. Once I started mentioning a COVID royal commission, it’s suddenly come down, and they’ve taken it back retrospectively. It was six months worth of work that this Senate has seen and witnessed. Somehow, political speech from the Senate is censored by YouTube, which is owned by a foreign corporation, meddling in Australian federal politics.
It’s not the first time. This interference with the communication of parliamentary material is potentially an offence, but it’s not covered by any laws simply guaranteeing freedom of speech. Freedom of speech should still be moderated, on rare occasions, to exclude poisonous vilification or speech that promotes hate or other crimes, not something that might offend someone. That’s a dumbing down of the Australian population. If anyone’s feelings are hurt—you cannot give offence; you can only take offence. If someone says something in the chamber and I feel offended, that’s my responsibility; it’s not theirs. So we should be stopping this nonsense about someone, feeling offended, being able to shut down the other person.
It’s the speech that considers alternative narratives or theories that deserves protection. This Labor government has done nothing to improve transparency and accountability in terms of government actions. Indeed, in terms of guillotines—the shutting down of debate—we’ve had major bills go through this parliament with not one word of debate. We’ve had major amendments voted on with not one word of debate or question. That’s not democracy. This Labor government has done nothing, as I said, to improve transparency and accountability in terms of government actions.
During the COVID period of government failure, the government of the time moved into a period of hyperactivity, silencing critics and preventing any discussion of problems, COVID injection injuries—of which there were many—and alternative treatments, resulting in tens of thousands of needless, preventable deaths and injuries in the hundreds of thousands to innocent Australians. That was what the Liberal-National coalition did—two cheeks of the same backside.
Of particular concern is the Labor government’s intention to introduce a bill to eliminate alleged disinformation or misinformation, with no identified deciders as to whether the information is based on truth or not. Who cares about the truth? Just shut it down if it goes against the government’s narrative. Who introduced the misinformation and disinformation bill? That’s right: the other cheek, the Liberal-National coalition. Labor introduced it. They didn’t put it to the vote. The Labor Party came along into government and they introduced it again—the same bill, pretty much.
This misinformation and disinformation bill must be opposed. It represents government censorship at its worst. It’s a control agenda that’s occurring in so many Western countries, and I compliment Tucker Carlson for his courage in speaking the truth. It’s happening largely to the Anglophone nations: Britain, Canada, New Zealand, America and Australia—and, to some extent, in Europe, but it’s largely the descendants of the British Empire or Commonwealth.
Usually, we’d rely upon state or Commonwealth legislation to resolve this issue of ensuring freedom of speech. Yet, since Federation, this has not been done properly by either of these jurisdictions, state or federal. It’s now high time to ensure once and for all that this protection can be established. It can be done. We need this inquiry. By our call for a committee to inquire and report to the Senate, assessments on content, process, resources required, timing and any other matters related may be brought back to the Senate for consideration.
Freedom of speech, if enshrined within the Constitution, will provide greater real freedoms to all Australians. Let’s go through some of the freedoms. We’ve got freedom of life, freedom of belief, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of travel, freedom of exchange and freedom of initiative. Of all of those freedoms, freedom of life is arguably No. 1. But they don’t get off the ground without freedom of speech. Speech is first. These freedoms are birth rights, universal rights. Yet we now have to come to the government and ask permission to speak freely or we get censored. That means it’s not a right anymore. It’s something that we have to get permission from the government for, whether it be Labor or the Liberal-Nationals.
Think about this: the most remarkable transformation of human civilisation on this planet occurred in the last 170 years. Prior to that, our ancestors were shuffling around and scratching in the dirt. Now look where we are. Human progress has come because of human creativity and human care. They’re inherent in people. People want to do things better, more quickly, smarter and more easily, so someone comes up with an idea. Through freedom of speech, they share the idea—and this happened so much in America and Britain in the 19th century, and even in the 18th century. Ideas were shared: one person came up with an idea; another person, by sharing it, built upon the idea and made it more magnificent; and then someone else came along, took their idea, made an initiative out of it and transformed human civilisation.
Freedom of speech is a matter of life and death. It’s a matter of human progress. I support this motion.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/E99c868VqQ4/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-08-08 15:45:002024-08-08 18:02:51One Nation Pushes to Enshrine Freedom of Speech in the Constitution
I am alarmed with the direction superannuation in Australia has gone. With $3.5 trillion in super funds being influenced by unions, these funds are increasingly being used for social engineering and political purposes. Millions of dollars has been donated to the Labor Party to support their renewable energy agenda and other Labor policies.
Some funds have even leveraged their shareholdings to seek board positions at companies like Origin Energy, aiming to influence corporate decision-making. It’s startling to see super funds involved in social engineering rather than focusing solely on member benefits. The ALP-linked industry funds are now acting as fundraisers for the ALP, having contributed $13 million dollars of members’ money to the party in the lead-up to the last election.
An important question worth investigating is whether the mismanagement of these funds could be impacting wages and driving up the cost of living.
Transcript
Superannuation has become an institution in Australia, one that has not been reviewed for almost 15 years. The superannuation pot of gold is now valued at $3.5 trillion in an economy that is valued at only $2.6 trillion. While I say ‘pot of gold’, slush fund may be a better description—in the hands of some funds, anyway. Industry super funds are distorting the economy and using their huge wealth to invest politically rather than in the best interests of their members. The renewable energy monster currently devouring our economy and our beautiful countryside is substantially funded by industry super funds. These political investment decisions are made by boards that contain up to five members drawn from the union bosses that fund the service. Investment is made in a way that supports the Australian Labor Party’s political agendas. That is clear.
Former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, the man who had a fair bit to do with starting superannuation, has warned that super funds will start asking for board seats from companies in which they take a substantial position so they’re union controlled. Two investment funds tried to take over Origin Energy last year and led the company toward sounder investment strategies. Australian Super drastically increased a stake in the company to vote down the proposal. According to an article in the Financial Review:
… super funds’ decarbonisation commitments could push them to put directors on boards, if their other attempts at engaging with companies to drive down their emissions failed.
Really? Is this the job of superannuation funds now? Social engineering?
Industry super funds may force targeted companies to employ union members or agree to union sweetheart deals. They may force target companies to follow the woke globalist Labor Party agenda, such as DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion. Although, industry super fund CBUS has gone one further and added a B for ‘belonging’, designed apparently to welcome employees who are Arthur one day and Martha the next. Despite two LBGTQIA+ turning into an alphabet soup of debasement, REST are proud to be an ally of Pride Month and all that goes with it. Super funds can afford this non-commercial activity because they have a river of gold and cash flowing into their coffers every year from members who falsely think their super fees are being spent in their own interests. Silly them. In fact, super funds sent $13 million to the ALP in the lead-up to the last election; CBUS alone was $1.5 million of that, more than a tenth.
Direct payment is not the only way super funds are fed back to the unions. Then on to the ALP. Industry funds pay unions to run training programs with very generous payments. It’s not quite a protection racket, but it’s along the same lines. Board members on super funds also receive very generous salaries, which are then sent back to the union and form part of the $17 million paid by unions to the ALP. CBUS, for instance, pays its board members $457,000 per annum each year, which makes REST look positively reasonable at only $165,000. This explains why, during COVID, when the Morrison government made a very sensible suggestion to allow everyday Australians a chance to use just a little of their super to get through COVID, the ALP lost its mind. Their super fund donors were unimpressed with having to give up what turned out to be $80 billion of their 3.5 trillion back to the people who gave it to them. Apparently, pride parades and social engineering don’t fund themselves.
The misuse of funds by superannuation companies raises a serious question: is superannuation reducing wages? meaning there is no direct financial benefit to the worker making the contribution. This is theft. The Grattan Institute has produced data to show that it is, in fact, the worker who pays for this so-called employer contribution in reduced wages and reduced employment opportunities. It’s time for a detailed inquiry into this boondoggle to ensure workers are not losing from this system.
The PRESIDENT: The question is that the motion moved by Senator Hanson be agreed to.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/eArl4e41g_c/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-08-08 15:40:002024-08-08 18:02:02Super Funds Being Used for Political Agendas and Social Engineering
This is my response to the Government’s Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024, which aims to ban vaping in Australia.
As a result of the measures already taken by the Government to ban vaping, organised crime is now moving into illegal tobacco and vape markets with horrific consequences.
This is not about selling our children a bergamot herbal vape; rather, it’s so they can sell vapes laced with hard drugs to get our youth addicted and reclaim the market share that vaping has cost them.
I’ve always maintained that the safety of vapes depends on the quality of the device and the liquid it contains. A more effective regulatory approach would have been to support a future Made in Australia by allowing Australian companies to produce legal, quality-tested and regulated vapes. This should include measures to keep these products out of the hands of children and to impose the same usage restrictions as those applied to smoking.
Instead, the Government is doing the bidding of the pharmaceutical industry, which views vaping—and medical cannabis which vapes often hold—as a threat to their profits and power.
This Bill will backfire badly.
Transcript
I’m speaking to the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024. I note the government circulated 11 pages of amendments just an hour or so ago. The large number of amendments indicate the process of consultation was flawed, and concerns from senators have caused fundamental changes to this bill. Is it in, out, in or out? I hope the government learns a lesson from this and in future honours the spirit of genuine consultation. I hope it honours the committee process to produce a bill that doesn’t need last-minute, wholesale changes.
I note the bill amends the poison schedule, to downgrade vapes from schedule 4 to schedule 3, and adds conditions to their use in that listing. When I tried to do exactly the same thing—to downgrade medical cannabis and add conditions to that listing—I was told, ‘That’s a very strange thing to do,’ and my bill was not supported, in part because of that. Now they’re doing the very same thing that they said was very strange.
In Queensland, vaping products with or without nicotine are illegal unless on prescription. Vapes are subject to the same laws as cigarettes or tobacco products as to where they can be used and the circumstances in which they can be purchased. Queensland law right now prevents children under 16 accessing or using a vape. Personal health and child welfare are rightly the responsibility of the states. Yet, once again, this government seeks to increase its powers in areas where it has no Constitutional authority.
This bill amends the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 and the Customs Act 1901 to limit the importation, domestic manufacture, supply, commercial and private possession, and advertising of non-therapeutic and disposable vaping goods. Over-the-counter sales at chemists will be permitted, and access to children under 18 will be via the Special Access Scheme. There are substantial differences in how possession for personal use and commercial use are handled, yet the bill does not specify this threshold, which will come later in regulation that we haven’t seen. Too much of this bill will come later in regulations. The government is asking us to trust their judgement on a bill that is a litany of bad judgement. The bill defines a vape as ‘anything that’s held out to be a vape’. It explicitly excludes the need for a lab analysis to prove that the item is in fact a vape. Much of the bill goes into the licensing arrangements for importation, manufacture, distribution and possession.
The bill was developed after supposed consultation, yet the government’s reaching out to selected friends in the health industry who share the same commercial interests as informed this bill is not consultation. It’s an echo chamber of self-interest, as the substantial last-minute amendments now prove. Everyday Australians were not permitted to make a confidential submission. Their submissions had to be public and accompanied by a declaration of interests—something very few witnesses felt comfortable doing. In particular, this prevented personal stories of how vaping helped defeat a smoking or other addiction and weighted submissions towards self-interested corporate health providers and charities.
The evidentiary burden of proof in the offences under the bill are reversed. This removes the common law protection that fault must be found before an offence has been committed. While the government may find contesting charges in a court of law tiresome, 800 years of common law rights should not be so lightly dismissed and disposed of. There’s no justification for reversing the burden of proof. For this reason I have submitted an amendment to this bill in the committee stage to restore the presumption of innocence enjoyed by all Australians since our country’s settlement. At section 41P(1), ‘vaping substance’ is defined as ‘any liquid or other substance for use in, or with, a vaping device’. There’s no nuance in the penalties. Possessing a vaping substance carries the same penalty as possessing a vape itself.
People who make cakes, fudges, chocolates, lollies and similar products use the same flavourings as can be used in vape manufacture. Those flavourings shouldn’t be used in vapes. They may be considered safe for stomachs, but not for lungs. Yet they are used in illegal vaping solutions, and I’ve received complaints from bakers that, for this reason, Border Force are seizing shipments of flavourings. Under this legislation, a baker or confectionary manufacturer importing a food flavouring that can be used in vaping must first have it approved for use, despite its being in use for generations, and then obtain a licence to import or possess commercial quantities—of cake flavouring! The importer and probably their largest customers will need to keep records of their use of these potentially illicit food flavourings to ensure that organised crime is not supplied out the back door, with penalties of up to $3.8 million and/or imprisonment for seven years. This is serious business.
I appreciate that this is not the intention of the bill. Yet it is the wording of the bill. I point out that the bill and the explanatory memorandum provide no guidance as to which goods should be permitted and which should not. The minister has complete power to make this decision. So far job losses from vaping prohibition are around 2,000, with 500 vaping stores already closed. The trade in vaping has now moved into the hands of organised crime, with a gang war breaking out in our capital cities to control the illicit vaping trade, as well as the illicit tobacco trade now that tobacco has been taxed to the point of idiocy. The bombings, ramraids, murders and violence so far in this underworld war are on the government, for breaking the government’s social licence to act fairly, honestly and reasonably towards the public. The best interest of the public has been replaced with the best interest of crony capitalist stakeholders.
The last-minute deal with the Greens to add over-the-counter sales at chemists may serve to head off that outcome. Time will tell. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme 2022 post-market review of medicines for smoking cessation found that 550,000 prescriptions were written for smoking cessation products in 2022. And get a load of this: these included varenicline, from Pfizer, costing $194 a prescription, which in the various formulations was responsible for 2,042 Australian adverse event notifications, including 55 deaths. And there is bupropion, from Aspen pharmaceuticals, which has had 2,100 adverse event notifications, including 22 deaths. The incompetence—does it stop? The post-market review says, ‘The mechanism by which bupropion enhances the ability of patients to abstain from smoking is unknown.’ So, we don’t know why it works. It’s killed 22 people—yet, prescribe it anyway! Just don’t let people buy their own vapes. We can’t have smokers quitting on their own, can we?
The explanatory memorandum for this bill cites data from the Australian secondary school students’ use of tobacco and e-cigarettes report, which states that the proliferation of vaping across the community represents a severe public health concern. Vaping has been associated with severe public health effects relating to adolescent brain development, worsened pregnancy outcomes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and cancer. Vaping also carries other health effects such as burns, seizures and poisoning.
Let me deal with the last one first. Yes, illicit vapes do cause internal burns and cause external burns if they explode. They cause poisoning and seizures as a reaction to that poisoning. A poorly made vape will burn and put toxic chemicals into the user’s lungs. Unregulated vaping in the USA caused 28 deaths coming from the use of ethylene glycol, a popular substance in commercial baking. It’s considered safe to be eaten but not safe to be vaporised into the lungs. This illegal use of a legal substance is what caused the popcorn lung syndrome. Illegal vapes can contain thousands of substances we call ‘compounds’ when in legal products and ‘chemicals’ when not in legal products. There are, however, 7,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke—more than are found in a quality vape, not an illicit vape. Telling one side of the story never communicates an honest picture of the truth. It condemns you. It used to be possible to import quality vapes from New Zealand. The Labor government stopped this. Now we have unsafe, illegal vapes. Who knows what’s in them? The TGA’s tweets against vaping were community noted with a comprehensive bibliography of good science that counters their scare stories. I will reproduce those community notes with citations on my website for anyone who wants to educate themselves on legal, safe vaping.
Is vaping a gateway behaviour to smoking or drug-taking? Actually, no; it’s not. On page 8 of the secondary school report, smoking rates amongst schoolchildren have fallen over the last five years. ‘Ever smoked’ is down from 17.5 per cent to 13.5 per cent. ‘Smoked in the past week’ is down from 4.9 per cent to 2.1 per cent—more than halved. This was in a period when vapes were readily available. Vaping is clearly working to reduce smoking rates. This is what has the quit smoking industry worried.
The UK government’s periodic data review titled Nicotine vaping in England: 2022 evidence update found that 98.3 per cent of children who had not tried smoking did not try vaping. This means any increase in vaping rates is either in replacement of smoking or in conjunction with smoking. This data is in contrast to the secondary schools report which found that past month vaping alone was at 15 per cent. Let’s have a look at that. The study covered vaping as a generic class, including e-cigarettes and herbal vapes, which are a large part of the vaping market. Despite the effort put into this study, no attempt was made to analyse the vapes consumers were actually using, and no firm conclusion can be drawn as to the presence of nicotine or any other regulated substance.
The other study the government cited, Australian secondary school students’ use of alcohol and other substances, is alarming. It showed that 22 per cent of secondary school students had used alcohol in the past month, 10 per cent had used alcohol in the past week, and four per cent were engaging in risky drinking. Why aren’t we worried about that? What hypocrisy to introduce the world’s harshest legislation on vaping and ignore the elephant in the room: teenage drinking. Other drug use is down. Figures for ‘used in the last month’ show black market cannabis use down from 8.1 per cent to 6.6 per cent, hallucinogen use down from 1.1 per cent to 0.8 per cent, MDMA use down from 2.1 per cent to 1.1 per cent, pharmaceutical opioid use down from 1.9 per cent to 1.4 per cent, and cocaine use down from 0.8 per cent to 0.6 per cent. These small reductions are more significant than they appear. With 1.5 million Australians in the secondary school age group, every 0.1 per cent of reduction in hard drug consumption means 1,500 young Australians are not getting addicted to hard drugs. Across all types of hard drugs, the figure is over 50,000 lives saved from the misery of hard drug addiction.
The scare campaign that vaping is a gateway to smoking and to hard drugs is fraudulent and designed to cover up the reverse, because the reverse is true. The committee did look at the use of vaping as a smoking cessation tool and concluded the evidence was inconclusive. So there is no reason to save vaping on that account. Poor judgement indeed.
In their deliberations, the committee gave a thought of time to the quit smoking industry, which is funded at $500 million across forward estimates—half a billion dollars! This does not include the financial benefit of fundraising. That half a billion dollars is just the government’s contribution, yet quit smoking rates have been stagnating across the Western world. Firstly, that’s because the few people who still smoke have the money to afford smoking, want to smoke and will continue to smoke. Secondly, there are people for whom the current industry of gums, patches and financial blackmail is just not working. Some people have found that, where these other measures did not work, vaping did work. These are the people who will, no doubt, be forced back to smoking as a result of this bill. Imagine all those extra smokers to keep government revenue rolling in—all those extra smokers to keep the ‘quit smoking’ industry and taxpayer money for years to come. The financial impact statement for this bill doesn’t mention the increase in revenue from smokers being forced back to smoking. I imagine it will be substantial.
Another failure in this bill is forfeiture. The easiest way to control vaping in schools is to allow teachers to seize vapes when they see them. That provision is not in this bill. Seizure is limited to commercial quantities seized with a court order or any good ‘seized by the control of customers at the border’. The one thing this bill could do to help control adolescent vaping is to allow teachers to seize vapes, and it doesn’t do that. I foreshadow my second reading amendment calling on the federal and state governments to sort out jurisdictional issues and give teachers the power to confiscate and destroy vapes brought into schools without a prescription.
As a result of measures to ban vaping, organised crime is moving into the illegal tobacco and vape market with horrific consequences. This is not so they can sell our children a nice bergamot herbal vape; it’s so they can sell vapes laced with hard drugs to get our children hooked and to take back the market share vaping has cost them. I have said all along that vapes are as safe as the vape and the liquid inside. A better idea is to provide for a future made in Australia and allow Australian companies to produce legal, quality tested, regulated vapes and then ensure these are, firstly, kept out of the hands of children and, secondly, subject to the same restrictions on use as smoking.
I look forward to the government monitoring the outcome of this hasty, incomplete bill closely and acting quickly if the outcome is not as expected. I think the outcome will bring horrific consequences, so please monitor this for the sake of our children.
