This cannot be said often enough. People do not trust Prime Minister Albanese. Why?
Labor conjures up a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election where it’s worried about losing a government MP.
Labor knows that bracket creep, a stealth tax, will increase taxes much more than the headline grabbing cut.
Labor’s fuel excise increase will inflate prices at the pump. Inflation will offset the tax cut. Worse still, the excise increase will filter through the food chain to push up grocery prices across Australia.
Lib-Lab energy policies are driving skyrocketing electricity prices that will soon bury the cuts and drive up food and cost-of-living.
PM Albanese is deceptively grabbing news headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.
Transcript
Labor conjures up a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election, where it’s worried about losing a government MP. Yet Labor knows bracket creep will soon increase taxes much more than the headline-grabbing cut. Understandably, to many people getting $16.70 back from the government that’s a lot of money. Yet the same people will lose it, and much more very quickly, to bracket creep, a stealth tax. The Prime Minister deceptively grabs headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.
Labor conjures a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election, where it’s worried about losing a government MP. Yet Labor’s petrol and diesel excise increase will soon increase fuel prices and inflation, offsetting the tax cuts. The Prime Minister deceptively grabs headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.
Labor conjures a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election, where it’s worried about losing a government MP. The petrol and diesel excise will filter through the food chain to raise grocery prices in every food store in the country, offsetting the tax cuts. The Prime Minister deceptively grabs headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.
Labor conjures a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election, where it’s worried about losing a government MP, yet Labor and Liberal energy policies are driving skyrocketing electricity prices that will soon bury the cuts. The Prime Minister deceptively grabs headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.
Labor conjures a $16.70 increase in tax cuts to grab headlines before the Dunkley by-election, where it’s worried about losing a government MP, yet higher electricity costs are raising grocery prices that will soon bury the cuts. The Prime Minister deceptively grabs headlines. People cannot trust Prime Minister Albanese.
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I thank Senator Hume for her matter of public importance and support it.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/5yOF-WxCQuQ/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-02-07 15:39:552024-02-07 15:39:59People Do Not Trust Prime Minister Albanese
There was a rally in Canberra today. Australians came and stood outside Parliament House — people like you and I — and they came here from across Australia for good reason. I spoke with them and it’s clear that many have never protested before.
Their outrage at the damage uncaring governments are doing to their communities, health and enjoyment of life, and to their precious natural environment is so great that they were moved to come here and demonstrate it. Monstrous wind turbines are being installed in virgin forests and heavy machinery is blasting the tops off mountains to lay huge cement foundations for these 275-metre-high wind turbines.
The scars being carved across mountains to get the blades in and the power out are reckless. The seaborne floating wind turbines that will destroy tourism and the maritime environment are reckless. The toxic environmental damage being done for no real energy gain is reckless. There is so much damage to these pristine environments being done on such vast scales, deliberately, and it’s not renewable.
Transcript
Everyday Australians from Far North Queensland to Victoria Plains are protesting outside today for good reason. From speaking with these people, our constituents, it’s clear that many have never protested before. Such is their outrage at the damage uncaring governments are doing to their communities, health and enjoyment of life and to their precious natural environment. They are outraged by wind turbines being installed in virgin forests and machinery blasting the tops off mountains to lay huge cement foundations for the 275-metre-high wind turbines, carving scars across mountains to get the blades in and the power out. Seaborne floating wind turbines destroy tourism and the maritime environment. What about our whales? Only a city Green, teal or Labor voter could see wind and solar installations destroy a maritime or rural vista and say, ‘Ah, that’s pretty.’
Apparently, in ‘Greensland’, steel poles can now identify as a tree. Navigation lights on top of these monster wind turbines illuminate the sky and all those living nearby all night, every night. Soaring birds can’t fly in the five kilometres of air turbulence behind a modern turbine, disturbing migration and nesting. The mountains upon which these things are being built in Queensland are volcanic. Toxic arsenic occurs naturally through these rock formations. Local Aboriginals could have advised where the no-go zones are if anyone had asked. Yet they did not ask. Now the wind turbine industry is disturbing arsenic in hundreds of locations along the range. Arsenic is seeping into underground aquifers that come out—where? On our precious Great Barrier Reef. These are ancient aquifers from a time before sea levels rose to create the current reef. In the environmental impact statement for these wind turbines, aquifers are not considered—incompetence, vandalism or fraud?
Stop killing the environment in the name of saving the environment. Please stop and listen to voices outside. These anti-environment, anti-human wind and solar monstrosities are hideous frauds to nature, to science and to our nation. We have one environment. We are one community. We are one nation.
Three Bills are being rammed through the Senate to create legislation that will transform the UN-WEF plans for surveillance and control into a dystopian reality in Australia.
The first is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023, which is designed to permit the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens and normalise it. The second, the Digital Identity Bill 2023, will ensure Australians have no choice but to succumb to setting up a digital ID. The third is the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023. This is the censorship tool to make sure both the media and social media carries government sanctioned opinions only. The government in power is exempted and free to be the Ministry of Truth, spreading misinformation or disinformation. Remember how well that went during the COVID response?
The Driver’s Licence database is being upgraded to become the repository of your master identification record, which is already being used to establish your identity with a paper check and now with a facial scan.
I implored the Senate to vote against and to reject this Bill. This is the first of three Bills necessary to turn Australia into the world’s first World Economic Forum digital prison.
Transcript
One Nation strongly opposes the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023. Here’s why. The Albanese government’s great mate, Blackrock boss Larry Fink, and predatory billionaires at the World Economic Forum are fond of the phrase ‘you will own nothing and be happy’. What they really mean is that they will own everything and you will comply. Why would people voluntarily enslave themselves, give up their homes, cars and household goods and lose the right to travel freely, I hear you ask. The answer is that people will not be given a choice. They will be coerced—forced into it. That’s the purpose of this government’s triad of tyranny.
First is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023, which will normalise and allow the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens. Second is the Digital ID Bill 2023, which will force every Australian into having a digital ID. Third is the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023, which will ensure media and social media only carry government sanctioned opinions; the government will be exempted and can be free to spread misinformation and disinformation.
Biometric data is your face turned into a data file based on your physical characteristics. It allows for faster and more accurate identification. They will capture your face. The national drivers licence database is being upgraded to become the repository of your master identification record, which is already used to establish your identity with a paper check. Now it will have a facial scan.
Australians do not need to consent in a meaningful manner. The bill currently uses the word ‘consent’ without definition. Consent can be implied. Here’s an example. If a person sees a video of themselves on a self-service check-out at the supermarket and uses the check-out anyway, it’s considered implied consent. The government has accepted that implied consent is no consent at all and has upgraded the reference to ‘consent’ in their amendment on sheet UD100 to ‘explicit consent’. That isn’t good enough either. Explicit consent can be provided as blanket consent. An example would be MasterCard changing their terms and conditions to allow for facial recognition whenever their card is used. Once the card owner gets the email saying, ‘We have updated our terms and conditions. Click here to approve,’ and people click without reading it, one of those new terms could be permission for facial recognition. Did you give consent? No.
Banks currently record the image of anyone using their ATMs and then use that in the case of a fraudulent transaction. Banks will update their terms and conditions to give themselves the right to run your biometric verification on each occasion before allowing access to your account. Refusing the new permission gives your bank or card company the right to refuse service. It’s that simple. It’s blackmail. This is why the government suggesting a digital ID or biometric data check will be voluntary is a complete lie. It’s compulsory, because not agreeing means you lose your bank account or payment card or service—just as those voluntary COVID injections were compulsory if you wanted to keep your job and your house and feed your family.
I foreshadow an amendment in the committee stage on sheet 2327 to change the definition of ‘explicit’ to ‘active’, meaning on each occasion your face is to be scanned they must ask permission before they scan it and make sure they get your permission each time. That’s active consent. This should be supported, because the government already says Australians will have to consent to their biometric data being used—unless, of course, that was misinformation.
This bill does not offer a direct link between the authentication action at a check-out, office, airport et cetera and the master file. A government hub receives a request and pulls the master file, meaning only the government has access to the master file. This seems to look acceptable, yet it means there’s a master file with 17 million records containing name, address, telephone, date of birth, drivers licence number, passport number and a biometric identification file all sitting in the same database. That’s all the information necessary to steal someone’s ID and impersonate them online—a hacker’s paradise.
Robodebt proved that our bureaucrats are incapable of even a simple one-to-one database match, and now they’re being trusted to pull this off. It’s impossible without a high level of compulsion and without completely ignoring victims of software or data-matching errors. If the look-up fails, then your purchase, travel, document, signing or whatever other use fails. If the purchase was for petrol, your family could be stranded late at night. We might as well start the royal commission now.
Downstream from the big government database are what I call intermediaries or entities with participating agreements. There are 20 of these so far. Their role is to take a request for authentication from a bank or card processor, solicitor, real estate agent, airline—anyone needing you to prove you are who you say you are—and submit that to the national drivers licence database hub to run past the master database. In the original bill there were no effective checks and balances on those businesses. The government’s amendment of its own bill has added a few checks and balances to ensure that intermediaries must delete data received as part of the verification process.
Thank you, Minister Gallagher. That, taken together with my amendment to make the level of consent clear, takes some of the potential abuse out of the bill. A clear privacy statement would have helped. The government have promised they will do that later. There are trust issues around that promise.
Questions remain around the New South Wales government’s comment that this bill will allow them to verify that every person detected driving a car past a surveillance camera has a drivers licence.
The only way this can be achieved is if every driver is scanned every time they pass a detection camera and their image is compared to the national database. Does this mean those cameras going up around Australia are just the right height to scan the driver’s face and that the cameras will be used to scan and verify your identity each time you pass one? Yes, it does. Before they work out who you are and whether you have a licence, they have to scan and verify your biometrics. It’s the only explanation for the New South Wales government’s comment.
For those listening to this with incredulity, I remind you that this is exactly the system now in place in London, with Lord Mayor Khan’s ULEZ, Ultra Low Emission Zone, and in Birmingham, Manchester and other cities in Britain. It’s really the World Economic Forum’s 15-minute cities happening right now. Residents are locked into their zone and can only leave a certain number of times a year. This is happening in Britain. That depends on the make and model of the car you drive. If you drive a car they don’t like, you can’t move. Rich people who can afford electric cars can, of course, come and go as they please. Everyday citizens are locked in or, when they leave, the cameras detect them leaving and fine them on the spot. It’s a fine of 180 pounds a week for leaving over seven days.
That’s in Britain now. Already it has raised hundreds of millions of pounds because people will pay for freedom.
Look it up. Don’t just trust me: look it up. There are fines for not registering with the system and fines for breaching the 15-minute limits. It’s a virtual fence. It’s like an electric dog collar. It’s the foundation for a social credit system to completely control people’s lives. So don’t tell me this is a conspiracy theory. It’s real and it’s happening now in our mother country.
Cash is necessary to ensure these measures are ameliorated as much as possible, which is why the globalist wing of the Liberal Party tried to ban cash in the last parliament, which One Nation defeated. It should be obvious that predatory, parasitic billionaires and some of their lackeys in the Labor and Liberal Party are getting their ducks in a row because they want to be ready for the full implementation of their globalist masters’ control agenda, exactly as they promised. It’s not like they’re hiding any of this. When they tell us what they’re going to do, listen.
Remember this government’s triad of tyranny. Already entered into parliament is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023 to normalise and allow the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens. Here it is. There’s the Digital ID Bill 2023 to force every Australian into having a digital ID. There’s the misinformation and disinformation bill 2023, which will ensure media and social media only carry government sanctioned opinions, and the government is exempted. I implore the Senate to vote against this bill and to reject this bill. This is the first of three bills necessary to turn Australia into the world’s first World Economic Forum digital prison.
I have concerns about two aspects of immigration. Quantity, which refers to the number of people who are let in, and quality. We should only allow new people to come and live here if they’ll make good citizens. The debacle with the released detainees putting the Australian public at known risk should never have been allowed to happen.
Immigration numbers are currently absurd. One Nation wants to reduce immigration to zero net. That means only letting in as many people as we are seeing depart from Australia. Zero-net immigration will reduce inflation, the housing market including rentals and reduce pressure on essential services and infrastructure. It’s what many people are wanting.
The bar for quality of immigration needs to be raised. Those who will comply with Australian laws and whose culture and values are compatible with our society are the people who will benefit our nation.
It’s quality, not quantity that Australia needs to secure our future.
Transcript
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I say that the Albanese Labor government’s response to the High Court’s decision of NZYQ v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs & Anor handed down on 8 November 2023 has been a debacle, actually, a dark humour catastrophe threatening Australians. It is clear the government was caught on the hop and totally unprepared for the decision that was openly predicted long before the High Court handed down its decision. The plaintiff’s successful argument was based on a mainstream interpretation of the concept of the separation of powers that underpins and is part of our Constitution, the Australian Constitution. This principle, fundamental to the Australian system of government, ensures the power to make and manage laws should be shared between three groups—the parliament, the executive and the judiciary. This avoids one group having all the power. The first three chapters of the Australian Constitution define the parliament, the executive and the judiciary and the roles they each play in making and managing laws in Australia. Each group has its own area of responsibility and each keeps a check on the actions of the others.
The Australian parliament makes and changes the law. It consists of the Governor-General representing the King, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The executive implements the law. It is comprised of the Governor-General representing the King, the Prime Minister, other ministers and members of the Public Service generally.
The judiciary interprets, makes judgements and rules on the law, comprising the court system, with the High Court of Australia as the highest court in our system. A feature of the judiciary is that it has the exclusive power to impose penalties or other punitive measures. No other body can impose penalties. The executive does not have this power. This means that even ministers do not have the power to impose punitive measures. The High Court confirmed this interpretation, affirming the separation of powers.
The logical conclusion was that the minister’s decisions to detain indefinitely a large number of persons under ministerial direction was predictably struck down as unconstitutional. So what should the government have been doing in the interim? Has this Labor government ever thought of the concept of a plan B? I don’t think it has a plan A. It was highly likely the High Court would apply the concept of the separation of powers. Wasn’t it logical that what would follow on would be the release of detainees who had not lawfully been detained? If a law to detain is unlawful ab initio—from the beginning—it is as if the law never existed and the detaining would be considered unlawful. I wonder how many lawsuits are being prepared right now, as I speak, against the government for unlawful detention—more taxpayer money flushed down the toilet. Let’s consider what the government did as a response to the High Court decision. Firstly, after the initial stream of expletives, the government tried to put together a knee-jerk response by releasing some detainees under subsequent conditional visas. A condition of some of these visas was the requirement to attach electronic monitoring devices and comply with curfew obligations. Many in the community would consider the obligation to wear monitoring bracelets and to be subject to a corrective services curfew to be punitive. Did the judiciary or executive authorise this action? Did a judge authorise this? Does this all sound familiar? The executive is deciding punishment, again. How enforceable these conditions will be may well come before the High Court. Whether these conditions will be effective in protecting the community remains to be seen. One detainee absconded and was relocated soon after. Another four detainees initially declined to be monitored with bracelets, the number now being two. What other steps are being taken to ensure the safety of people in the community? Already media is reporting considerable fear within the community. We know of at least two assaults due to these people. Surely we’re all entitled to live without fear of injury from violent offenders dumped the community without rehabilitation or proper planning.
Some of these detainees are rapists, murderers, a contract killer, paedophiles—the worst scum of humanity unwanted in any country and plopped into our neighbourhoods. Most people, with the exception of the Greens, would be abhorrent to this. The worst of these is Mr Benbrika, a convicted terrorist who planned to murder thousands of Australians at large public gatherings. He will complete his prison sentence shortly and must be considered an undesirable resident of Australia and should be deported. Most people in Australia, apart from the Greens, would consider that true.
I certainly would wish to know what alternatives were considered to prevent circumventing the monitoring devices and committing an offence before action could be taken to intervene. Have victims’ families been warned of the offending detainees’ release? Amazingly, the latest government bills in this area do not include either compulsory reviews or considerations of the separation of powers principles. They do not. One Nation is placing before the Senate options to consider now that this bill is under consideration.
What’s the cost of this government’s hopeless management skills? The cost to taxpayers in terms of personal security is shot. The protection of a sound legal system has been abused. And there is an actual dollar cost. Labor has a well-deserved reputation for lousy money management and is now running for cover as its lack of foresight in managing predictable outcomes of poor political solutions emerges yet again. Bring on the next election so that Australians can bring on a better government for all Australians.
What’s needed is transparency. In yet another embarrassing response from this lame-duck government, which has never shown leadership and has repeatedly failed to read the mood of the Australian public, how wrong could the Albanese government have been when promoting the catastrophic loss at the recent Voice referendum? It was completely out of touch. It relied on the vibe. It was not good governance.
The Labor government’s policies on immigration and home security are woefully inadequate and are contributing to the high costs of living, high interest rates and waste of public funding, and they are now gutting home security. The heightened apparent antisemitism within Middle Eastern immigrant populations is on display for one and all to see. How shameful was the government response to the disgraceful demonstration on the Sydney Opera House steps? How many of the people demonstrating in support of the Hamas terrorists and Palestinian rights could be said to demonstrate or even pass the good character test required for many visas?
The rise of antisemitism, fear and hatred in the community is in many ways the result of a failure to exclude from Australia those who can never accept Australian standards, principles of equality and fairness, and abiding by the law. Letting anybody into Australia without conducting a genuine assessment of suitability is unacceptable. Issuing hundreds of visas to Palestinians without appropriate assessments immediately after the Hamas atrocities in October was a huge folly. There was stupidity, recklessness and irresponsibility.
We are concerned about two aspects of immigration: quantity—the number of people who are let in—and quality. Immigration numbers are currently absurd. One Nation wants to reduce immigration to net zero. That means only enough people being allowed in to equal the number of people who leave. This will reduce inflation, house prices, house rentals and pressure on infrastructure. It’s what many people want. Quality of immigration needs to be raised so that only people who comply with Australian laws and fit in with our culture and values are admitted. Who pays for this government’s mismanagement and spin? As always, it is the people—today’s Australians and future Australians not yet born—and that’s a responsibility of today’s government. The government needs to start with data and facts when developing its policies and legislation and put the needs of Australians first. It needs to get it right for national security.
As senators serving the Australian people, please remember that government has three roles: to protect life, to protect property and to protect freedom. Prime Minister Rudd opened the immigration and refugee floodgates. Pressure from the people and the polls forced him very quickly to reverse his policies, but the damage had been done. The Albanese Labor government has made an art form of blaming the coalition. Now it’s becoming a joke. The Albanese slide in the polls looks steeper than the Gillard slide and even the Rudd slide as both previous governments fell into disarray and their leaders were found deficient.
Finally, the Labor government tells us this is a matter of urgency, and it is, yet the Albanese government in charge of the House of Representatives gave itself Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off. Why didn’t it call the House of Representatives back and get on with it? Don’t just talk urgency; take urgent action. It’s time for Labor to genuinely listen to the views of the community and to act quickly and accordingly to protect Australians and ensure justice.
In 2016, I stood in the senate for the first time and warned that the United Nations wanted to reduce everyday Australians to the status of serfs through climate policy. I said back then we need an #AusExit, that our values and way of life were at risk from the dangerous socialist agendas of the UN. And here we are now.
Here is more legislation being pushed through Australia’s house of review, the Senate, without proper scrutiny or debate. Labor is doing more dodgy deals on behalf of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. Labor has also introduced a Motion to allow the Greens to amend the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act as part of this Bill. This allows the Greens to put a Bill of their own making onto the end of the government’s Bill then vote it all through in one go. A Bill that we cannot review, amend or debate. This isn’t conventional parliamentary process. This is undemocratic dictatorship.
The ‘Nature Repair’ Bill allows large corporations to greenwash their image by leveraging the PR benefit of Nature Repair Projects they buy. It provides the means to restrict productive capacity through taking productive farmland and returning it to Gaia. It will prevent Australians and visitors to our country from being able to get out and generally enjoy our magnificent national parks because it hands more control over to traditional owners.
The globalist agenda is being rolled out in the self-interest of the world’s predatory investment funds. It’s delivered through the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum and implemented in shoddy, rushed legislation like this bill proposes.
One Nation proudly stands against everything this Bill represents and I offer the same advice as I did in 2016. We must exit the United Nations #AusExit!
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (20:06): As a servant of the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, it’s my duty to ensure I deal with every bill that comes before the Senate fully and properly. All too often, this government does dodgy deals with the Teals, the crossbench and the Greens to get legislation through without scrutiny. This is legislation that’s written for reasons of ideology, not human need, and that as a result makes things worse. This is legislation that must get through without debate, lest the electorate be informed about what the government is really doing to them in the name of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.
I’m speaking about the Nature Repair Bill 2023, only 30 minutes from when the vote will be taken, yet I’m speaking to an interim bill. The massive amendments to this bill, which I know now are substantial, had not been revealed to the Senate just an hour ago. It appears to be the government’s plan to provide the amendments and then require an immediate vote. That was exactly what we saw. That’s not how the house of review, our Senate, works.
Even more troubling is that the government now has a motion that would allow the Greens to amend the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act as part of this bill—news to us until an hour ago. What that means is the Greens, with Teal Senator Pocock’s support, are being allowed to put a bill of their own making onto the end of the government’s bill and then vote it all through—a bill we can’t read, can’t amend and can’t debate. There’s a longstanding convention in the Senate that we do one bill at a time and amend only the bill at hand, a rule the government are happy to ignore when they get desperate enough numbers to do a deal with the Greens and Teals. This isn’t parliamentary process; it is undemocratic dictatorship. What a joke, and the people will be paying for it. When we call the Greens watermelons—green on the outside and red on the inside—this is why. Soviet Russia would pull a stunt like this, not democratic Australia.
I’ve spoken on several occasions recently on how this Labor government is best friends with the world’s predatory parasitic billionaires. This bill is a perfect example of that. Like the failed national electricity market, which is really a racket, this bill allows large corporations to greenwash their businesses. To explain, greenwashing allows a business—most likely a foreign multinational company—to make a claim such as being ‘net zero friendly’. That’s simply not true. They’re deceiving investors and customers in the process. They get to net zero by purchasing green certificates or carbon dioxide credits to balance out the environmental costs supposedly incurred in their business operation. A European Union report found that 95 per cent of carbon dioxide credits came from projects that did not make a difference to the environment, and Europol just a few years ago said 95 per cent are crooked. In other words, it’s all a con.
The mining industry have come out in favour of offsets, which they call ‘avoided-loss offsets’. These offsets occur after purchasing and improving an area of land with the same habitat as that which is destroyed or damaged in the development. This may appear to be mining-friendly, yet it’s really more expense and more green tape that would best be handled through the existing system of remediation—put it back the way you found it, or better, which is what is happening.
Indeed, one could be concerned that these avoided loss offsets are an alternative to remediation. I certainly hope not.
The bill helps wind turbines with the horrible problem of clubbing koalas on the koalas’ property—clubbing them to death! They could literally club 10 koalas to death and then buy a national biodiversity certificate for 10 new koalas bred somewhere else. As we speak, the Australian Carbon Credit Unit’s review is underway. The review is looking at a thousand carbon dioxide credit generating projects to see if they were fair dinkum and have been kept up. The lessons from that review were going to be added to this bill to ensure the national biodiversity certificate system was legitimate. Bringing forward this bill actually ruins that process.
One Nation opposes greenwashing, although, in most cases, we would suggest that the better option would be for our mining and manufacturing industries to first use environmentally friendly techniques, as they usually do. Then, having done that, be proud of their role in developing the economy, providing jobs and supplying materials that people need for a life of abundance. Perhaps that’s just we conservatives taking care of the natural environment and taking care of people. Some submissions to the Senate inquiry called on the government to purchase the certificates themselves to provide certainty that, should a project be completed, there would be someone to buy the resulting certificate. Minister Plibersek has ruled this out—the only decision in this whole process One Nation can support.
I was amused with the submission from champagne socialists in the Byron Shire Council, who submitted that— quote—’free market alone may not facilitate rapid uptake of this scheme,’ and called on the federal government to kickstart the market by committing to purchasing certificates itself. It will never stop. I would think that the federal government would be better off spending money on tax cuts for working Australians and paying off our debt so that interest rates come down, but that’s just conservative values again—human values; real environmental values.
Minister Plibersek has described this bill as creating a ‘green Wall Street’. Wall Street provides a means for financing businesses to expand productive capacity. This bill provides a means to restrict productive capacity through taking productive farmland and returning it to Gaia. I don’t see the comparison with a genuine financial product, unless the minister was making a comparison to Bernie Madoff. That would be accurate in that case. The product itself, biodiversity credits, is subjective and, over time, will require more and more personnel to conduct compliance on an ever-increasing number of projects, just like the National Electricity Market—the racket. This does not increase productive capacity. It does increase bureaucracy at the public’s expense, of course. Many submissions opposed the use of these certificates for environmental offsets, including the Greens’, and I note their amendments remove the offsets for the purpose of these certificates. This would seem a significant conflict between the minister’s intent and the Greens’ intent. What a mess! The Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 is a solution to a problem that has not yet been defined and does not meet real needs, just like the failed National Electricity Market.
The government is working on an update on the entire Environmental Protection and Biosecurity Conservation Act—the EPBC—informed by the Samuels review into the legislation from three years ago. Those amendments will frame the problem this bill is supposedly solving. This is something that Senator Thorpe has correctly pointed out in the second reading amendment, which I will support. How do you pass a bill like this ahead of the implementation of the Samuels review? How do we know which projects should be supported and which are not needed, or, worse, which projects are a load of bollocks, like the stuff that comes out of the south end of a northbound bull, as most climate projects are—climate fraud?
In relation to ensuring integrity around the use of offsets, the Australian government is working to introduce a new national environmental standard for actions and restoration contributions. This new standard is expected to include a requirement that offsets must deliver net gain for impacted protected matters and that biodiversity projects certified under the Nature Repair Market Bill will only be able to be used as offsets if they meet the new standard. What new standard? Oh, wait, you haven’t written it yet! Great. Minister Plibersek is trying to pass a bill that implements a standard that hasn’t been written yet. Can someone please give the government’s legislation chocolate wheel back to rotary and we’ll go back to doing things properly—you know, in the correct order.
This legislation implements something called the Nature Positive Plan. That sounds good. This is the government’s overarching environmental blueprint. I notice that, on page 32, this plan includes a provision that traditional owners will have more control over Commonwealth national parks. More control!
Australians who are used to bushwalking, camping and generally enjoying the beautiful national parks Australia offers are flat out of luck under this Labor government. ‘No nature for you. Get back to your 15-minute cities.’ That’s exactly what the United Nations sustainable development goals do—they reduce everyday Australians to the status of serfs, imprisoned in their 15-minute cities, locked in a digital identity prison, owning nothing and eating bugs instead of real food. I first said that in the Senate in 2016, and the sniggers were obvious. Well, nobody’s sniggering now. Now you’re all trying to justify the abomination your globalist masters are working to impose.
Over the remainder of the Albanese government, those in this chamber will be required to face the reality of this government’s globalist agenda. It’s not an agenda written for the benefit of everyday Australians or for the Labor heartland. It’s an agenda that serves the self-interest of the world’s predatory investment funds, delivered through lobby groups like the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum and implemented repeatedly in legislation like this. It’s an agenda that will make life a misery for everyday Australians, sending them back to serfdom. One Nation stands against everything this bill represents. It proudly stands against everything this bill represents.
Speaking in support of the ACT Self Government Amendment Bill 2023, I commended Senator Canavan for introducing this Bill. I strongly support pushing for an inquiry into the ACT government’s seizure of the Calvary Hospital in Canberra. This is a blatant attack on religion in healthcare. It cannot be dressed up as anything else.
The issue that is being tiptoed around here is the clash between religious principles that stand against abortion of a living, viable foetus. Those same principles stand against ending life through euthanasia of a person who may make a different decision, free from coercion or momentary despair, on a different day.
The ACT has legislated abortion and euthanasia whilst the Catholic Church insists on putting humanity around those rules.
This has inflamed the ACT autocrats who have decided that there is no place for religion in healthcare. So much so that they planned this takeover for 12 months without telling Calvary who continued to negotiate on a new Northside Hospital in good faith.
These are the same mindless, hypocritical zombies that push for drag queens to expose themselves and read adult porn to young children in libraries and schools. Their answer to the uproar against this perversion is “if you don’t like it, don’t go”. This works both ways. If you don’t like religion in healthcare, aged care or education, the remedy is simple. Don’t go. Freedom of choice! Except the Canberra autocrats don’t like freedom either. They’ve embraced a totalitarian agenda since COVID normalised such behaviour in Australia.
Federal Parliament has precedence over ACT law and this matter is rightly within the Senate’s purview.
My message to the Canberra Health Bureau autocrats is this: God decides who lives or dies. Not you.
I spoke on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Measures No. 1) Bill 2023. One Nation supports an efficient, honest and fair tax system. This Bill does nothing to make that happen.
Trickery with franking credits (again), the start of mandating Blackrock and Vanguard style ESG into Australia’s financial system and a potential Robodebt 2.0 are all in this Bill.
Despite Labor’s promises, they continue to fiddle with the taxation system and it is rarely for the better.
Transcript
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Measures No. 1) Bill 2023. One Nation supports an efficient, honest and fair tax system. An important aspect of a fair system to is to make sure tax is not double-charged. That’s what franking credits do. They make sure a tax is not double-charged. They ensure that Australians don’t pay income tax on the parts of dividends on which the government has already collected company tax. That’s fair. There’s no reason to allow the government to double-dip on Australian profits and then again on Australians’ income.
In the 2019 election campaign, Labor proposed changes to the franking credits system. Australia completely rejected those thought bubbles. Labor learnt from that lesson and for the 2022 election, promised there would be no changes made to franked dividends if Australia voted them into government. Yet, now that Labor is in government, schedules 4 and 5 make a number of wholesale changes to how the dividend, share buyback, and franking system currently works. It is a broken promise, yet another to add to Labor’s list of broken promises. Just like when they promised to reduce your power bills by $275, Labor’s promise that they wouldn’t touch franking credits was a lie. As always, the government claims that these are simply modest changes. They’re anything but modest, with large implications for companies and for capital markets. The government hasn’t been able to articulate the need for these changes, nor quantify how big an impact they will have. They’re doing it, and they don’t even know what will happen. We cannot legislate on a hope, a vibe or a wish that it will be okay. While that is, according to some in government, Prime Minister Albanese’s modus operandi, it’s not a responsible way to steer a $1.7 trillion economy. It’s highly irresponsible. One Nation will be opposing these changes in schedules 4 and 5 and cannot pass the bill if they remain part of this package.
Schedule 2 lays the groundwork for standards that align money to climate goals. This would presumably be to create alignment with the greatest scam in finance: ESG standards—environment, social and governance. The powers that be call them ‘sustainability standards’, yet there’s nothing sustainable about them. In fact, UN sustainability policies survive only as parasites on subsidies from the real economy—subsidies: that makes them unsustainable. So-called sustainability standards talk about protecting the financial system from risks. Yet they cannot quantify what those risks are. The idea that the government or, worse, a single bureaucratic department can ever predict and quantify risk to the financial system is sheer lunacy. A brief analysis of history shows that. Did the government and regulatory agencies see the risk of the dot com bubble coming in the 2000s? No. They had no idea. Did the American regulators see the risk of subprime mortgages leading to the global financial crisis? No. They arguably participated in and make it far worse. Did any regulator around the world predict the risk of almost every government in the world going certifiably insane in response to COVID, a bad flu? No, they did not. Over the last three years, the Reserve Bank created $500 billion in electronic journal entries, money concocted out of thin air. Did any regulator predict the risks that would lead to the skyrocketing inflation that we’re still trying to get under control? No, they did not. Actually, some did, and we were ridiculed by the experts. The point here is very simple. The government and the regulators cannot quantify the risk of financial system shock. History shows governments are hilariously bad at it. They certainly won’t be able to do it for supposed climate risks that are nothing more than fabrications concocted from inherent, natural, cyclical variation. By the way, everything in nature—everything in existence—varies, yet understanding of variation is not taught in schools and rarely taught properly, if at all, at university. That’s why Green, Labor, Teal and, sadly, some Liberal-National members and senators spout nonsense in this parliament and in public, concocting and spreading imaginary fears of climate apocalypse, when reality shows simply inherent, natural, cyclical variation.
They cannot even come up with the only sound and essential basis for policy—that is, they’ve never quantified the specific effect of carbon dioxide from human activity. That means they have no basis for climate and energy policy, no specific quantified goals for climate and energy policy and no means of measuring progress towards those goals. We’re flying blind. Australia is flying blind. Energy costs and climate policies are out of control and needlessly imposing huge costs on families, small businesses, our country and our nation’s future. Anyway, the only thing we can do to protect against systemic risks is to make sure that financial intermediaries are well capitalised and diversified to survive any risk that comes to fruition. Doing anything else encourages a lack of diversification and actually increases risk.
I don’t believe in this climate apocalypse nonsense, this climate fraud, yet even for those who do fall for this illusion there’s no serious risk to anything. Let’s look at the supposed science around climate risk. When I ask the government why we need to cut human production of carbon dioxide, they point me to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN IPCC. They’re a dodgy bunch—proven over 40-plus years—yet I don’t think anyone in here has actually read the IPCC reports they claim as proof the climate is going to collapse. If you go to the IPCC’s assessment report 6, you’ll see chapter 12 is the summary of Working Group I, who looked at the actual science around natural disasters. Table 12.12 summarises all of the available evidence on the frequency of extreme weather events. Let me read out the types of natural disasters where even the United Nations has said there has been no detectable increase in the number of natural disasters. I repeat that: no detectable increase in frost, river flood, rain measured in terms of mean precipitation or heavy precipitation, landslide, drought, fire weather, wind speed, windstorm, tropical cyclone, dust storm, heavy snowfall, hail, relative sea level, coastal flood, marine heatwave—and on and on. Although I do not put any trust in the United Nations, government claims it does, and the United Nations says there has been no increase in severe weather events in those categories—none.
Even better, table 12.12 in the IPCC’s AR6 says the United Nations doesn’t expect to see any detectable increase in those categories in the next 80 years under its worst-case scenario. There’s no risk to the financial system from climate change because there’s no need to cut human production of carbon dioxide—end of story.
As an aside, I ask: on what basis does Minister Watt get his frequent fanciful, scary claims of increasing extreme weather events? Wild imagination, Senator Watt? From where do the Greens get their dishonest claims? From where does Senator Pocock get his pseudoscience to support his Kermit green fantasy policies? Is it the family money of Simon Holmes a Court, who now relies on the millions of green subsidy dollars that support otherwise unsustainable and failing wind and solarnet zero projects—parasitic subsidies from energy users and taxpayers who pay through needlessly higher prices.
Recently in this chamber I heard Senator David Pocock cite scientists who said they have fears for the climate. Significantly, he did not provide any science to back it up, apparently because he seems to just swallow their words because they claim to be scientists. That’s what’s happened repeatedly in this chamber. People don’t produce the science; they say what scientists conclude and don’t analyse it. Those scientists are on major grants to push the climate fraud. Real scientists don’t peddle unsubstantiated fears. Scientists present science, presenting the empirical scientific data as evidence within logical scientific points, proving cause and effect. Never has anyone done that. Senator David Pocock never presents any such science nor references the specific pages providing such logical scientific points—never. Extreme weather has always been with us. It remains with us and will always be with us. It’s natural and often cyclical.
So what’s the real reason for implementing so-called sustainability standards and ESG? The Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones, said it in his second reading speech to this bill: the purpose is to ‘align capital flows towards climate and sustainability goals’. I’ll say it again: the purpose is to ‘align capital flows towards climate and sustainability goals’—political goals, not scientific. Those are the goals of predatory globalist billionaires and the rent seekers who are flogging wind, solar and battery products, billionaires peddling parasitic mis-investments in solar, wind and batteries and transferring wealth from families, small businesses and employers to billionaires, often overseas.
Despite claims that these solar and wind products are the cheapest, the free market has utterly failed to adopt them, because they simply cannot survive in the wild on their own, without subsidies. In other speeches in recent weeks, I’ve documented the huge number of failures in wind and solar projects overseas and here in Australia. They’re falling over like flies. Billionaires behind the climate push are panicking now that their parasitic investments won’t get the return they need. The teals’ sugar daddy, Simon Holmes a Court; Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest; Johnny-come-lately to climate fearmongering Mike Cannon-Brookes; and old stagers Alex Turnbull and Ross Garnaut—having failed with climate scams in the free market, these climate doomsayers now need the government to direct money their way through implementation of ‘climate standards’—they’re going to standardise the climate!—to, as the Assistant Treasurer said, ‘align capital flows’. This is more of the crony capitalism that has ruined Australia. If it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable. This is why I’ve circulated an amendment to strike out schedule 2 of the bill. There’s no reason to even start down this path of folly and pretend that, hidden away in the cupboard somewhere, the government have a crystal ball they can use to predict the future. If they do, they clearly haven’t used it before.
A final concern I’ll raise is with schedule 1, part 2, of the bill. This gives ASIC the power to use ‘assisted decision-making’ processes. That’s their label. This amendment is incredibly broad and vague, and we can assume this will involve some level of automation and, eventually, the implementation of AI, artificial intelligence. It’s incredibly concerning that the explanatory memorandum includes, at 1.24: ‘ASIC may change a decision made by an assisted decision-making process if it is satisfied the decision is wrong.’ Can you believe it? This very heavily implies that a human will not be involved in the decision-making process. An assisted decision-making process should only be in place to assist a human in making a decision. There should not be a robot using artificial intelligence to make the decision itself. The fact that Labor would introduce this blank cheque to the new robot overlords in the wake of a royal commission they called into robodebt is a stunning revelation. If the robots get it wrong, there’s no clear avenue of appeal for a person who is subject to the wrong decision. They’ll simply have to rely on ASIC deciding to look at it on their own motion and finding out it’s wrong. Good luck with that. This change is too broad, and One Nation is raising its concerns now so that these issues can be monitored in future.
To summarise, the government would be better off going back to the drawing board on this con hiding behind the label ‘Treasury laws’.
I’m putting it on the record that this government’s legislative processes are compromised. There are numerous examples of shoddy and rushed Bills being bulldozed through into legislation.
I ask here for a simple review, a chance to hasten slowly and ensure that one such piece of rushed, yet vital legislation, has the opportunity to be done correctly.
Minister Watt could not even grasp the concept of ‘independent’ review. Labor is the party of control.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, constituents lack confidence in Labor when it comes to security, especially after the last few weeks. So I’m wondering whether or not you will be supporting my amendment to do a simple review of the legislation, especially the amendments. If not, what is the problem?
I remind the Senate that last week’s highly significant Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 saw 31 amendments from the government to its own legislation in the House of Reps plus 20 amendments in the Senate. There was a total of 51 government amendments to its own bill, and those from the crossbenches and the Liberals brought them to 69. Minister Burke has been falsely creating the dishonest label ‘closing loopholes’ to hide the Hunter mining and energy union’s complicity in aiding some labour hire firms in Australia’s largest-ever wage theft worth billions of dollars. We’re told that the Greens oppose the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023. They said so themselves just last week. Yet the Greens now support it because Labor has apparently agreed to allow the Greens to move amendments to the EPBC Act. The Greens support Labor’s disastrous Nature Repair Bill apparently in return for Labor’s support for disastrous Greens amendments to an existing law not before the Senate.
The CHAIR: Senator McKim, a point of order?
Senator McKim: It’s a point of order on relevance, Chair. The bill that Senator Roberts is referring to is actually not the bill that is currently before the Senate.
The CHAIR: We do allow some latitude, although I do take the point. I think Senator Roberts is trying to underpin his arguments for a review. Senator Roberts, please keep it to the point.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m pleased you could see that, Chair. That’s exactly what I was doing. The government has a very shoddy reputation and is lacking credibility for its legislation that’s been rushed and bullied and bulldozed into this place from the start of its term. So, Minister, I ask whether or not you’ll be supporting our amendment for a simple review of the legislation.
Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management): Thanks Senator Roberts. No, we won’t be supporting the amendment putting forward a review. As I made it clear earlier in this debate, we are modelling this regime on the existing high-risk terrorist offenders regime. So we have some confidence in its ability to work, given it’s been based on a regime that already exists. In addition—I don’t know if you were here, Senator Roberts, when I mentioned this before—one of the amendments that we’ve tabled, clause 395.49, requires the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs to deliver an annual report about the operation of this regime. That is intended to give a level of transparency going forward to how this regime is operating, and we think it is an adequate measure to ensure that there is transparency in the system.
Senator ROBERTS: I acknowledge that the legislation will have a ministerial report, but we are suggesting an independent review, not a government report.
Senator WATT: Thanks, Senator Roberts. I can’t really elaborate on my previous answer.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/nD_SeEKKWgk/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-12-20 07:59:362023-12-20 07:59:40The Senate is Supposed to be the House of Review
The Albanese government is rushing through legislation that will effectively give them similar power and control to World War era demands for ‘your papers please’. I’m not saying this is the intention of the Albanese government, but it is the framework that is being put in place in line with the initiative from the World Economic Forum, an international body founded by Klaus Schwab.
It’s ironic then, that the government is failing to produce its own papers. The Senate orders the government to produce papers and the government refuses. Like this situation here in the Senate, where there was an order to produce documents over 6 months ago relating to a non-fatal Taipan helicopter ditching in Jervis Bay. The government failed to produce any details even after Defence promised they would. Why? The hierarchy in Defence is covering up their mistakes.
The Taipan helicopters should have been pulled from service a decade ago. There were technical shortcomings in their capability that could not be defended. There were dangerous, catastrophic safety issues that Defence knew about. Instead of dealing with those issues or grounding the helicopter, as they should have, Defence and the politicians kept it in service and flying. Now four personnel who piloted and flew in that helicopter have died in a crash. We hope their families, despite their enormous loss, will find peace.
With so much at stake, the Australian people deserve to know the details. The senate is the house of review and when the senate orders the government to produce documents, then that is what must happen. Without transparency and accountability, we are not much better than the regime mentioned above.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Pursuant to standing order 164 and, by coincidence, genuinely by coincidence, with the previous motion, I seek an explanation from the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, Senator Wong, regarding the failure to respond to order for production of documents No. 243, agreed on 22 June 2023, in relation to the MRH-90 Taipan helicopter incident at Jervis Bay.
Senator Gallagher: I am happy to follow that up. We didn’t have notice of the OPD that Senator Roberts was going to refer to, so the minister isn’t here and able to provide a direct response. Normally, a heads-up is provided so that we can prepare an answer. I acknowledge you came over in question time and said that you would be doing this, but you didn’t inform us of what minister or OPD you were after. So I would have to come back to the chamber at a later time with an explanation. Could Senator Roberts indicate the number of the OPD he referred to?
Senator ROBERTS: Certainly; it’s No. 200. I move: That the Senate take note of the explanation. So much for the Albanese Labor government’s promises to be transparent and accountable! Yet again, they’ve failed a transparency deadline, failing to produce the documents the Senate ordered them to produce six months ago. In March this year, a Taipan helicopter was forced to ditch into the sea in Jervis Bay. No people died. Two were injured. Thankfully, those injuries were minor due to the pilots’ skills—skills they shouldn’t have had to rely on yet had to, because Defence made them fly a dodgy helicopter. Separately, in July, a Taipan helicopter crashed in the Whitsundays, killing four Defence personnel. This order for the production of documents related to the non-fatal Jervis Bay incident in March. The government has failed to produce any details after the Defence brass promised they would produce such reports.
What you didn’t hear in the minister’s explanation is the true story of why these documents haven’t been produced. The hierarchy in Defence are covering up their mistakes. The Taipan helicopters should have been pulled from service a decade ago. There were technical shortcomings in their capability that could not be defended. There were dangerous, catastrophic safety issues that Defence knew about. Instead of dealing with those issues or grounding the helicopter, as they should have, Defence and the politicians kept it in service and flying. Now four personnel who piloted and flew in that helicopter have died in a crash. We remember now Warrant Officer Class 2 Joseph Laycock—or, as he was known, Phil—troop commander Captain Danniel Lyon, Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent and Corporal Alexander Naggs. We hope their families, despite their enormous loss, will find peace.
Next—and I do not say this lightly—the Defence hierarchy and politicians who allowed the Taipan helicopter to continue flying have blood on their hands. No-one in Defence can claim not to know about this helicopter’s problems. The MRH-90 Taipan helicopter was identified on a list of ‘projects of concern’ in 2011, 12 years ago. The Taipan remained on that list until it was grounded for good after the Whitsundays crash, 13 years before its planned retirement. During its lifetime, the Taipan was grounded no fewer than nine times due to ongoing problems, yet Defence kept flying it—or, rather, Defence kept soldiers flying it. Australian taxpayers spent at least $3.7 billion on the project. The Taipan cost $50,000 an hour to fly. I can hear Senator Shoebridge laughing, and I understand why. Compare that to the Black Hawk, which costs an estimated $15,000 an hour, 30 per cent of the cost. The Australian National Audit Office identified some of the MRH-90 Taipan’s many serious problems. These included engine failure—without an engine, helicopters fly like a brick; transmission, oil cooler and fan failures; poor availability of spares; on the Navy aircraft, problems with the cargo hook; and, on the Army helicopters, problems with door gun mounts and the fast roping and rappelling device.
Those are some of the problems. Yet Defence kept flying the helicopter. The Navy couldn’t hook cargo into its Taipans. The Army couldn’t fire guns at the same time that soldiers were in the helicopter. Our Australian Army consider the cabin and row equipment are not fit for purpose, as the seat size and harness cannot accommodate personnel wearing combat gear. Yet Defence kept flying it. They knew the engine could fail and the helicopter could drop out of the sky, yet they kept on flying it.
Defence analyst Marcus Hellyer wrote in 2021: Back when I worked in the Department of Defence, we used to occupy ourselves from time to time calculating how much money the taxpayer would save in the long run if we just walked away from the MRH-90 utility helicopter and bought Black Hawk helicopters instead. The answer was a lot. And the sooner you did it, the more you’d save, by avoiding sinking more acquisition dollars into the MRH-90 and realising the substantially lower operating costs of the Black Hawk. But even though those numbers were shared with Defence’s senior decision-makers, the department couldn’t bring itself to take that step.
Defence had all the information. They knew the Taipan was a waste of billions of dollars. They knew it could not do the job it was meant to do and supposed to do. They knew it had catastrophic safety risks. They knew all of this for more than a decade, yet Defence kept on flying it. That’s why this government will not answer this order for the production of documents after almost six months. The cost and particularly the fatalities—avoidable fatalities—are huge.
I also want to talk about another huge impact: the impact on the Defence Force’s morale. What happens when you ask someone to keep operating faulty, life-threatening equipment? What happens to trust? You know the answer. Look at the hypocrisy of the Chief of the Defence Force awarding himself a medal reserved for those in action, when he was sitting a thousand kilometres from the action. How does that build trust? It destroys trust.
Some years ago, when I was working in the mining industry, I met two people who had come from the defence forces, officers from the Army specifically. One was so highly skilled that he had been asked on occasion to take six of his mates and go into the jungles of Vietnam, well beyond enemy lines, take on a job and come back. He rose to be in charge of jungle warfare training. Barry—along with John, who had been a captain in the army—told me the key to Army culture and Defence Force culture. That key is mateship. Barry had to lecture other countries’ defence forces and security forces on counterterrorism work. He said in most countries they did not understand what mateship was. It’s intangible, yet the impacts are so tangible.
He also talked about standards. Everyone who joins the Army, for example, comes into the Army and is then made equal with everyone else so that they get the feeling of looking after their mates. Then they’re trained to a very high standard, and they can rely on each other and those standards. I’ll tell you a little story. Barry and John both said that when you’re behind a log in incoming machine gun fire, the only thing worse than jumping over that log and going into that machine gun fire is running away and leaving your mate behind. That’s how strong it is in the Army. There will be lots of people from the Army who will be watching this parliament and will know exactly what I’m talking about.
The third part of mateship is trust. How can we have trust when the defence forces are going woke? I hear from so many soldiers and airmen and sailors that they’re sick and tired of the defence forces going woke and it will jeopardise their lives in battle.
That is not looking after our soldiers.
Then we talk about national security. All of that impacts on national security. I’ll say it again: the key strategic weapon we have in this country in our armed forces is at the mateship, the training, the standards and what used to be trust. The warriors are fine. The problem is the Chief of the Defence Force, the top brass and, as we’ve heard recently, the minister who is supposed to hold them accountable.
We’ve had some preliminary briefings, and I want to commend a young public servant who said that the problems with the Taipans are not just in the military but also in the politics and the politicians. These politicians and the top brass are responsible for deaths. They have blood on their hands. Even the slightest amount of scrutiny on this project will reveal the pervasive corruption in the Defence hierarchy, reveal politicians’ mistakes and show that these people in Defence and in politics have blood on their hands. One Nation will continue pushing to hold those in the Defence hierarchy to account and protect our warriors serving in the Defence Force.
The Albanese government is doing dodgy deals behind the scenes with mates and donors, letting down workers while driving up the cost of living. Labor is horse-trading behind our backs with the Greens and Teals to get the numbers to fast track its Bills through the Senate without conventional review.
It’s obvious the Albanese government in the Senate is a Labor-Greens-Teal coalition that is repeatedly protecting itself from scrutiny, gags debate on key legislation and is doing dodgy deals to push the Greens’ destructive policies through parliament.
This is hurting Australians and taking our country backwards.
No wonder this government is being slammed in the polls. The people didn’t vote for this coalition with its nation-killing agenda. The tail is wagging the dog.
Transcript
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I listen to people from across our country. Many are hurting because of the skyrocketing cost of living due to record immigration, with 2.3 million people in Australia on visas—there are 100,000 student beds, yet the Albanese government issued a record 687,000 student visas in one year—as well as skyrocketing house prices, with foreign owners buying and locking up homes; green jackboots suppressing builders and suppliers; and ESG choking companies. People in Gladstone, Bundaberg and other regional towns and cities are living in cars, in caravans, in tents and under bridges. There are skyrocketing rental rates, if people can find a rental. High inflation is destroying wealth and being a tax—inflation due to printing money and splashing cash and to supply side restrictions.
There are high energy prices, due to solar and wind. All countries with high proportions of solar and wind have very high electricity prices. Plus there’ll be the future $60 billion in additional costs for transmission lines to hook the solar and wind into the grid that has not been budgeted for.
One Nation raises solutions to meet people’s basic needs, like cutting immigration to zero, net; ending foreign ownership of property; ending net zero electricity policies; stopping endless money-printing and cash-splashes. Labor responds with ridicule, showing contempt for people’s needs. This destroys confidence in the government.
We’re on a highway to hell because Anthony Albanese has not grown into the prime ministership. He still acts as though selfies, music-band T-shirts and empty symbols are substitutes for thoughtful governance and hard work. They’re not.
In proposing his recent Voice referendum, his arguments were shallow and condescending. He offered only a vibe and an emotion. His government tried to con the people. This is not leadership; it’s floundering. This is not governance—
The Acting Deputy President (Senator Chandler): Order, Senator Roberts. Senator Urquhart, on a point of order?
Senator Urquhart: I think the senator is actually impugning by saying what he said about the Prime Minister, and I would ask him to withdraw that.
The Acting Deputy President: Senator Roberts, perhaps if you could clarify your comments and then continue your remarks, noting the point of order that we’ve heard?
Certainly. I said that his government has tried to con the people, not him.
The Acting Deputy President: Please continue, Senator Roberts.
This is not leadership; it’s floundering. This is not governance; it’s deceitful irresponsibility. This is not transparency and consultation; it’s dodging scrutiny. This destroys confidence in the government. Look at their legislation processes that are bankrupt. Last week’s water amendment bill entered the House of Representatives with 31 amendments, from the government; plus 20 amendments in the Senate, from the government—a total of 51 government amendments to its own bill—plus crossbenchers’ and Liberals’ amendments, for a total of 69 amendments. Consultation? Hah!
The Identity Verification Services Bill 2023 was suddenly sprung on the Senate in a deal between the globalists in Labor and the globalists in the Liberals. It includes provisions for facial recognition of every Australian 16 years or older going about their everyday life, including in travel, using ATMs, in supermarkets for shopping, driving their car, in financial services—everything. It’s a basis for Labor’s digital identity bill that they rushed into the Senate—again, hiding from scrutiny. They were trying to rush the IR bill next, then delaying passage of what Labor said were four urgent schedules.
There was Minister Burke falsely creating the dishonest label ‘closing loopholes’ to hide the Hunter Mining and Energy Union’s complicity in aiding some labour hire firms in Australia’s largest-ever wage theft, worth billions of dollars; protecting the Fair Work Commission for blatant breaches of law in approving the Mining and Energy Union enterprise agreements enabling systemic wage theft; protecting the Fair Work Ombudsman for using a fraudulent document covering up the Mining and Energy Union’s enterprise agreement systemic wage theft. They’re throwing workers to the wolves and hiding mates and donors from scrutiny. There’s the nature repair bill—the arrogance! The Greens stated they were opposed, clearly. Yet the Greens now support the bill because Labor agreed to allow the Greens to move amendments to the EPBC Act. The Greens support Labor’s disastrous bill in return for Labor’s support for the disastrous Greens amendments to an existing law that is not before the Senate—without debate. They’re hiding political mates and bosses from scrutiny.
During deceitful COVID mismanagement, Liberal and Labor governments used Labor state premiers to steal basic human rights and freedoms. The Australian Bureau of Statistics data confirms that COVID injections killed tens of thousands of people—homicide! Livelihoods and homes were lost due to injection mandates. Health bureaucrats, with plenty to hide, dig in. And what does Labor do? It covers up, and that makes them complicit. Prime Minister Albanese breaks his royal commission promise to instead propose a whitewash to cover up the Labor states’ mismanagement and deceit—hiding political mates from scrutiny. In practice, the Albanese Labor government seeks to suppress, silence and control. That’s why people have lost confidence in Prime Minister Albanese and his government. Remember the Rudd slide and the Gillard slide? After just 18 months, the media is already referring to the even steeper Albanese slide. That’s why the people have lost confidence in this government
