The housing unaffordability crisis is one of the greatest issues facing Australia. Australians want to have their hard work and savings rewarded. They want a place to call their own and a place where they can stay to raise a family.
Mortgages are skyrocketing and two thirds of young Australians believe they will never own their own home. Rents are also rising on the back of a record low national vacancy rate of 1%. Experts consider a 3% vacancy rate to be tight — a national average of 1% is an absolute crisis.
Right now, many Australians simply cannot afford a roof over their head.
Supply and demand controls the housing market. Yet decades of successive governments have mismanaged both sides of the equation.
One Nation would properly manage our economy and deliver cheaper houses and cheaper rent. How? First, by stemming the flow of overseas arrivals which is driving up unsustainable demand. Over the last year, Australia gained an additional 2.3 million visa holders. We cannot sustain this level of overseas arrivals. Powerful lobby groups reliant on high immigration have been able to label anyone talking about this problem as racist.
Secondly, many Australians can’t afford housing in Australia banning foreign ownership is the only answer. It would increase housing supply and stop pumping up the profits for the Big Banks. As the Reserve Bank raises interest rates, the big banks pass that on at up to 7%, yet the banks borrowed long term funds from the RBA at just 0.1%. They’re pocketing the huge difference leading to record-breaking profits.
On the supply side, government and its red and green tape must get out of the way and let our tradies build homes. Homes for Australians to stem the tide of tent cities and misery that decades of indifferent governments have caused.
Affordable houses, lower affordable rents and a flourishing economy is all possible under One Nation.
Transcript
I thank Senator Pocock for his matter of urgency and for validating the concept of net immigration that we’ve been pushing for quite some time. Mortgages are skyrocketing, rents keep increasing and two-thirds of young Australians believe they will never own a home, and it’s easy to understand why.
The housing unaffordability crisis is one of the greatest issues facing Australia. In Brisbane, the median house price is 10 times the median income. Experts consider a three per cent rental vacancy rate to be tight. Rents are rising on the back of a record low national rate of one per cent. As in all real markets, there are two things, and two things only, that affect house prices: supply and demand. Successive governments have destroyed both sides of the equation.
This is how One Nation would deliver cheaper houses and cheaper rent. In the short term, we would stop pouring fuel on the fire. Excluding tourists and short-stay visitors, there are 2.3 million visaholders in the country likely to need housing. In addition, there are roughly 400,000 tourists and other visaholders in the country. In the middle of our rental shortage, this high demand is motivating owners to convert housing to full-time Airbnbs. Two point seven million visaholders, more than 10 per cent of Australia’s population, are in the country right now fighting Australians for a roof over their head. The country cannot sustain this level of overseas arrivals. That number must be cut to help housing availability and affordability.
The biggest winners from high house prices are the banks. As the Reserve Bank raises interest rates, the big banks pass that on at up to seven per cent. Yet the banks borrowed long-term funds from the RBA, the Reserve Bank of Australia, at just 0.1 per cent. They’re pocketing the huge differences, leading to record-breaking profits. One Nation would never repeat the mistakes of the COVID period, where the Reserve Bank was allowed to create $500 billion out of thin air.
That led to the inflation that the Reserve Bank is now trying to fight, and the tool it uses is to send mortgage holders broke.
Finally, on the demand side, we need to ban foreign ownership of Australian assets. A single real estate agent in Sydney sold $135 million dollars in property to Chinese buyers in just six months. Australians can’t own a house in China, so why should we let foreign citizens buy property here? And on the supply side, the government needs to get out of the way with its restrictive building codes, so called green land restrictions and a spider web of employment law.
A home is a castle. Decades of indifferent governments from both sides of politics have ruined the Australian housing dream for many Australians. Only One Nation has the guts to make that dream a reality for all Australians.
Affordable houses and rents and a flourishing economy are all possible under One Nation. We just need to start looking after Australians first
The Albanese government is deliberately opposing my motion to reveal the infrastructure review it’s using to justify cutting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of badly needed infrastructure projects around Australia. Projects like dams for towns and agriculture, transport projects and visionary nation-building projects. It’s cutting costs in areas where we need to spend, while sending huge sums to the United Nations and Tedros the Terrorist at the WHO.
Australia needs a productive infrastructure so that we can build our competitive and productive advantage and stop relying on other nations who buy our raw materials such as iron ore, for example, for steel and other building materials. Why are we exporting raw materials and buying back finished products instead of making the whole product here? Australia has everything it needs to be self-reliant, except for a government with the common sense to facilitate it.
How many more times will this Labor government be exposed for the secrets its hiding from the Australian taxpayers?
Australians deserve the transparency and accountability they were promised, and the infrastructure this country badly needs.
Transcript
The Albanese government is making secret cuts to infrastructure projects. Twice now the Senate has passed my motion, forcing the government to hand over the full infrastructure review that they used to justify cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in projects. Twice, the government has opposed transparency and accountability about its secret infrastructure cuts. How many more times will the Labor government keep secrets from Australian taxpayers?
This is the Labor review that concluded the Emu Swamp dam at Stanthorpe should be cancelled. Only three years ago, this southern Queensland town was in severe drought and ran dry. They had to cart in millions of litres of water by truck just to survive. Up to 50 trucks carted water hundreds of kilometres every day for 15 months. On what basis did the Labor government conclude Stanthorpe doesn’t deserve a dam? We might never know. The government has so far refused to hand over the review that justifies the decision. If Stanthorpe doesn’t have water, Stanthorpe will die. The Labor government needs to answer why they believe Stanthorpe should be left to die in the next drought. It has literally been hung out to dry. One Nation will keep fighting for those answers and we will fight for more dams across Queensland. What we need in Australia is productive infrastructure to build our competitive advantage—our productive competitiveness. We need dams that agriculture can use to boom. We need cheap power, from which the entire economy will benefit. We need functional roads that don’t have potholes big enough to destroy a car’s suspension.
Australia needs visionary, nation-building projects—infrastructure projects like the Iron Boomerang. Right now, every year, we send 900 million tonnes of iron ore and 360 million tonnes of coal overseas. We ship it overseas. Those are two essential ingredients to making steel, which we largely import. We put that dirt on a boat, places like China buy it, they turn it into steel, they make things like unproductive wind turbines out of the steel, they put them on a boat and they ship the wind turbines back to Australia in the form of steel, where our dopey government buys it off them.
We should let private enterprise build the Iron Boomerang track linking our iron ore and coalmines, so we can make the steel right here in this country. The government doesn’t even have to build Iron Boomerang. They just have to promise they won’t get in the way, and then private money will pay for it. That money is already knocking on the door. These are the kinds of nation-building infrastructure projects that would be on the horizon if One Nation had our way. We certainly wouldn’t be cutting productive infrastructure, like dams, in secret as the Labor government is doing. Before all of that we need accountable and transparent government. Labor continues to prove it will never be transparent. Their secret infrastructure cuts are just the latest example of a government that’s afraid of explaining itself to the voters.
The Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 is a deceptive name for a dirty bill that the Albanese government is rushing through the senate more than four months earlier than the committee requested.
What it’s really about is the federal government using the public purse to financially coerce farmers to lock up their land or walk off it altogether to satisfy the dictates of foreign, unelected climate change bureaucrats.
What’s the hurry to get this through? Does this government feel the winds of change blowing in its direction?
Transcript
Senator Roberts: I seek leave to make a short statement.
The PRESIDENT: You have one minute with leave.
Senator Roberts: The government’s motion to rush this inquiry report through today, more than four months earlier than the committee requested and the Senate agreed, is a dodgy, dirty deal. The Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 is a deceptive, arrogant title. It’s really about the federal government financially coercing farmers to lock up their land or walk off it to satisfy the dictates of foreign, unelected climate change bureaucrats, like COP28. No wonder the government wants to cut short the inquiry into this bill and rush the bill through this week. All of the climate rent seekers are happy to support this bill because, eventually, it will lead to money in their pockets from the people of Australia. While farmers are paid to lock up their land, a lack of agricultural production will cause untold human misery both in Australia and overseas. One Nation will be opposing this rushed dirty deal. Give the committee the time it originally requested to make its report.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The question before the Senate is that the motion moved by Senator Chisholm seeking a variation to a reporting date of a committee be agreed to.
We need more accountability, not less. This Bill will promote power for union bosses over workers and is full of unintended consequences.
It’s a Bill all wrapped up in pretty paper with good measures that are widely supported and with poison pills buried inside. The Trojan Horse approach is becoming a bad habit with Labor.
Industrial Relations Minister, Tony Burke, introduced key topics that One Nation completely supports and we already have voted for them separately in November. Yet the government left those bills gathering dust over political issues instead of thinking of the workers. Instead of looking out for workers, the government is more interested in protecting mates and donors while getting away with dodgy legislation.
The core of Minister Burke’s legislation is designed to cover up the permanent-casual rort in the coal sector. Every so-called “casual” coal miner is employed under an unlawful Enterprise Agreement (EA) that the Mining & Energy Union/CFMEU agreed with and signed. So-called “casual” miners are employed under EAs that the Fair Work Commission (FWC) approved against their own protocols and against the law.
These “casual” miners are subject to breaches of law that the FWC and Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) have ignored, and when held accountable it’s been proven that the FWC/FWO resorted to using fraudulent documentation to get away with their shocking failure of duty.
We will continue our work to get “casual” miners ten of thousands of dollars in stolen back-pay.
We will continue to push for restoring all workers’ rights, protections and entitlements.
Transcript
I will be taking up Senator Sheldon’s invitation to put my cards on the table, and we will be putting our cards on the table. I will be doing exactly that.
The Australian Labor Party is Australia’s oldest continuous political party, so you’d think that it would have got the hang of government by now—but no. This week has been a shocker. Perhaps 122 years is enough. It’s time to find a nice twilight home, put your feet up and listen to Alan Jones, enjoy a juicy steak, read the Spectator and contemplate this government’s many, many failures—so many failures that the Labor heartland are turning against Labor. The polls are an indictment of the performance of this one-term Labor government. Now the ALP thinks that doing dodgy deals to get parts of its signature industrial relations policy through will quieten the heartland—a heartland that can’t pay their mortgage or rent, who can’t buy groceries, whose kids are taught a hidden agenda at school and who will now be stalked at every turn, using Labor government sanctioned cameras. This bill doesn’t fix those things. This bill doesn’t fix those basics.
More importantly, from the perspective of the union bosses, this bill, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, is about forcing people to join the union. That won’t fix their declining support. The very thing that turns people off unionism these days—the thuggery and cronyism and backroom deals that only favour the union bosses—will enable more of it. We need more accountability, not less. Union bosses, and some large companies, have become accountable to no-one because they are arrogantly enshrined in a cosy monopoly of being the only union for their sector. Nothing here will claw back the reduction in real wages per capita that Australia’s workers have suffered since Labor took over—a six per cent reduction in real wages in just 18 months, a reduction that just keeps getting worse with every new piece of economic data, as we saw again yesterday.
This bill will be full of unintended consequences, as any legislation that is written out of dodgy ideology always causes. Let me review the detail of this bill. There are four measures that the Senate has already passed. Easier access to PTSD support and compensation for first responders: we voted for that. Domestic violence protections: we voted for that. Asbestos and silica safety: we voted for that. Protecting redundancy entitlements: we voted for that. These four were passed by the Senate, with One Nation’s support, and they’ve been sitting on the books down in the House of Representatives, left by the government to gather dust because it would be too embarrassing not to pass measures the Senate passed in defiance of the government. So much for workers—the government doesn’t give a damn. Instead of looking out for workers, the government is more interested in looking good.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Grogan): Senator Roberts, I’ll ask you to mind your language.
Now the government has brought on this bill, which contains those four uncontroversial measures and wraps into it four more issues for eight in total. The four additional issues in this package of Tony Burke, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, include the criminalisation of wage theft and industrial manslaughter. We support both of those; we agree with them. But his legislation introduced with no notice this morning includes two poison pills wrapped up in the uncontroversial. Those two poison pills are unfettered right of entry for union bosses and the deceptively named same job, same pay framework. It is deceptively named, as I’ll explain.
Again we are seeing Labor wrap up a bundle of things everyone supports with the most-controversial proposals in industrial relations law. The right to entry allows union bosses to enter any business at any time under the pretext of safety issues. There are no criteria for what satisfies ‘reasonable entry’, because the assumption is that union delegates should never be prevented from entry. Union bosses will abuse this. Union bosses in some lawless large unions already are concocting safety reasons for claiming entry to businesses and then, inevitably, hanging around to apply pressure on employees to join up. If a business believes the right to entry has been abused, it has next to no recourse. The Australian Building and Construction Commission used to enforce workplace entry and union conduct in workplaces—no more. Employers can’t complain to the Australian Building and Construction Commission because the Labor Party disbanded it for being a check on the unreasonable behaviour of union bosses.
I turn now to the real poison pill: same job, same pay. It sounds good. One Nation totally supports a fair day’s pay for a fair days work. Let everyone in this chamber remember that I introduced into the Senate the first bill for same job, same pay. Let me tell why and then explain why we knew it would cover up the real problem, which is wage theft that the Mining and Energy Union formerly under the name Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union enables—not just sanctions, but enables and drives. I’ll tell you why I support same job, same pay. A courageous miner in the Hunter Valley, Simon Turner, and some of his mates came to see me about what was going on. I thought it was a major coal company and a major international labour hire firm were colluding to screw workers. Then I found that the CFMMEU in the Hunter enables these agreements, that it drives these enterprise agreements. Not only do they not pay the award, not only do they not pay the enterprise agreement of the host company—the employer, the mine owner—they underpay the award, sanctioned by the CFMMEU in the Hunter. It is sanctioned by them, driven by them, resulting in the theft of over a billion dollars from miners. Tony Burke, the minister, knows because we have provided the details from miners on dodgy enterprise agreements that dodge the Fair Work Act. It is something we have been working on relentlessly with the miners in Central Queensland and the Hunter for 4½ years since it was first brought to my attention. Miners provided them directly to senior ministerial staff, to senior staff of his Department of Employment and Workplace Relations in personal meetings the miners had that we arranged.
The provided the details in writing with documented evidence. There were details that I put in writing to the minister himself twice. The loophole is a fabrication that Labor senators echo like propaganda through this chamber. In the mining industry, that is false. There is no loophole. The core problem is that the Fair Work Act has been breached repeatedly, systemically, systematically and cold bloodedly. The underpayment of miners in the permanent casual rort is possible only with enterprise agreements signed by the Mining and Energy Union, formerly the CFMMEU.
In some cases, that union sold enterprise agreements to labour hire firms. In fact, speaking of labour hire firms, the Hunter CFMMEU started the first labour hire firm in our coal industry and pretends to oppose labour hire. It enables labour hire and rewards labour hire companies with dodgy deals, enterprise agreements and paying below the award.
As a former coalface miner and later a mine manager, I am absolutely appalled at what I see going on at the moment in the coal industry and in a union that used to be very proud and strong. Elements of it are now gutless and crooked. The Hunter CFMMEU approved and signed a statutory declaration as part of the Fair Work Act process for approving enterprise agreements. All of the deals were done with the signature of the CFMMEU. The Fair Work Commission oversees the process of developing an enterprise agreement. Repeatedly, it has breached the statutory process. It has broken its own law repeatedly. When we’ve drawn the Fair Work Commission senior management to that fact, they have done nothing. They don’t give a damn about workers, whom they’re supposed to be protecting.
It’s duplicitous. When miners draw the Fair Work Commission’s senior management to that fact, the Fair Work Commission does nothing. We have told Minister Burke, and he does nothing.
Miners have made formal complaints to the Fair Work Ombudsman, who were stumped until they were given a bevy of documents including court rulings, an Australian Taxation Office declaration, PAYE slips and PAYE group certificates. Those are legitimate documents. To those legitimate documents, they responded with a fraudulent document that a labour hire firm fabricated. The Australian Taxation Office has said that it is a fraudulent document.
And then the Fair Work Ombudsman’s senior managers used that fraudulent document in the Fair Work Ombudsman’s office knowing it was fraudulent. We will not fall for Minister Burke’s cover-up of his mates in the CFMMEU. We will continue to fight for back pay for thousands of coalminers. We will not allow this cover-up.
We will not look the other way, as Senator Lambie and Senator Pocock have. We will double down and hold Minister Burke accountable.
How was it done? Let me give you a hint. The Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union, formerly the CFMEU, own 50 per cent of coalmines’ insurance and workers compensation for coalminers—Coal Long-Service Leave and AUSCOAL Super. They have co-directors, who approve various contracts. For example, the Coal LSL administration was contracted out to AUSCOAL. A director was on both of those boards when the contract was signed. This is really sloppy stuff. I’m surprised with Senator Lambie, as I said. After I arranged a meeting with her and a particular miner in the Hunter Valley, she spoke with the miner and confirmed it with me.
Senator Pocock was offered the same opportunity. As miners caught in the permanent-casual rort know, the solution is simple: enforce the Fair Work Act and get the more than $1 billion in back pay that miners are entitled to. Simon Turner and other miners in the Hunter initially thought that, yes, the same work, same pay bill that I introduced to this parliament was needed. Now they know, having dug deeper and seen the corruption that’s gone on, all that’s needed is to enforce the Fair Work Act. This bill pretends to be closing loopholes. In reality, though, every time you add a page of legislation, you just create an extra loophole for lawyers to find. The answer is less legislation, not more. The current legislation is too complex and hides protections from miners and small business and makes it easy for the industrial relations club or large union bosses, large employers and industrial groups to clobber workers.
Minister Burke, stop burying the evidence. Face up to the fact that your mates in the CFMMEU are directly responsible for wage theft of more than a billion dollars, as you’ve been informed. The solution is not covering up the rort or fabricating an imaginary loophole. The solution is simply to enforce the Fair Work Act. That is your job as minister.
We will not fall for this bill’s deceit. We will continue to fight for workers to be paid their full entitlements and make up for wage theft and for workers to obtain their full lawful entitlements.
When I started working with miners in the Hunter 4½ years ago I put forward—and they agreed with this—three aims. The first was to get Simon Turner his lawful and moral entitlements in full. We are still chasing that. We have gone part of the way. The second was to stop this permanent casual rort across the coalmining sector. We’ve heard from one large employer group. They’re coming to the party. The third was to bring justice to the Hunter CFMMEU, which is now the Mining and Energy Union, and the Chandler Macleod group, the perpetrators at the Mount Arthur mine. We will continue to fight for industrial relations reform. We will continue until all my three aims are achieved for the miners in the Hunter and Central Queensland.
One Nation will always fight for workers being able to understand their rights and fighting for those rights. The first step towards doing that is making them simple enough to understand. This bill does nothing to help that, and we will be opposing it. The big gorillas in the room—to use Senator Sheldon’s term—are the Mining and Energy Union in the Hunter; the CFMMEU; the Chandler Macleod group; Recruit Holdings, the largest labour hire firm in the world; the Fair Work Commission; and the Fair Work Ombudsman. Hiding mates and crooks from scrutiny will not get the Labor Party out of this. This bill will be the Labor Party government’s death knell.
During its passage through parliament, the government’s Water Amendment Bill 2023 was subjected to almost 70 amendments. Deals were being made on the run. Nobody has a clear idea of how this massively amended Bill will affect farming, communities or the environment.
The Murray Darling Basin Plan can’t be changed without the consent of every State Premier. This government failed to follow that step, not only for the bill but also for these amendments that were introduced at the last minute. The Bill is a mess, the process is a mess, and it will leave a mess behind it.
The motion I put forward here is to refer the Bill to the relevant committee to try and make sense of the changes and see what else needs to be done to make the changes workable. The issue of the Commonwealth buying back water from a State that opposes water buybacks also needs to be sorted.
Transcript
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, One Nation continues to support a fair outcome for all those in the Murray-Darling Basin in Queensland and across the connected river system. The government last week advanced a bill that evolved drastically as it passed through Senate debate—some would say catastrophically through Senate debate. First, the Greens demanded changes for their support. Then Senator Van, Senator Thorpe and Senator Pocock added some tinsel for their respective ideologies. Much like a Christmas tree that the whole family decorated, it looks a bit crook. In fact, I would suggest that nobody knows how the bill is going to actually work.
The council of water ministers dealt with the bill in August this year and failed to issue a communique, which is a record of proceedings that would ordinarily detail any specific approval or rejection of suggested changes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan 2012. A communique is available on their website for every meeting, going back years, except for August. When I requested it, Assistant Minister McAllister failed to provide it, after first saying it was available. Instead, the federal water minister, Tania Plibersek, put out a political statement that an agreement was made between the federal, New South Wales, South Australian, Queensland and Australian Capital Territory governments to deliver the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full. Firstly, the ACT is not a state. It is not a voting signatory to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, so the so-called agreement reached was only between three of the required four states. Secondly, what was the agreement? I hear you saying an agreement was reached, yet no proof of that has been posted, beyond the minister’s statement.
Did New South Wales sign on to allow as much as 700 megalitres of buybacks from New South Wales farmers, or not? New South Wales Premier Minns said in a recent press release that he did not sign off on water buybacks and instead only signed off on $700 million in federal money for water projects. Victoria has not agreed to this legislation and is not a party to the buybacks. They’ve made that abundantly clear.
South Australia has not been honest with their farmers. I have not heard a word about the buybacks being planned from South Australian irrigators. I hear you say, ‘Hang on just a minute; the water is for South Australia.’ That’s true. The government is about to buy back water for South Australian river flow from South Australia. Their irrigators can wave to their water as it flows out to sea. I call upon the South Australian Premier, Peter Malinauskas, to answer a simple question: how much water did you agree could be purchased from South Australian farmers in that August meeting? How much, Premier? I’m hearing as much as 40 gigalitres is intended to be purchased from South Australia, which only has an irrigation pool of 400 gigalitres. That’s 10 per cent.
Queensland Premier Palaszczuk has not said a word about water buybacks. With an election coming up next year, the farming community should know what the Premier has just done to them. But they don’t know; she won’t tell them. I ask the Queensland Premier to be honest and to come clean: how much Queensland water did you agree to be bought back into Queensland? I understand the game that all the premiers except Victoria’s are playing: ‘Don’t talk about water buybacks. Blame the federal government. Defend Labor’s vote against the Greens and the teals. Get re-elected. Shhhh!’ It’s such a simple plan—except that it breaches the rules around the operation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan itself. All state premiers must sign off to every change. The minute one state is out of something like water buybacks, the other states have to pick up the slack.
My state of Queensland loses more water and without a further hollowing out of the bush. The Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers Bill) 2023 was heavily amended—and many of us say catastrophically amended. In the House of Representatives the water amendment had five crossbench and 31 government amendments. In the Senate the bill had a haphazard mishmash of 20 government amendments. That’s a total of 51 government amendments to a bill that was introduced to parliament, plus five in the Senate from the Greens and eight from the crossbench. That’s 20 amendments to the bill in the Senate plus 31 in the House of Reps, reflecting yet another bill brought into the Senate without adequate thought and becoming a scrambled me due to opportunistic trading and deals.
This is no way to govern our country. It is shoddy governance. It is dishonest governance. And who pays? It is farmers, farming families, rural communities, regional Australia—everyone and anyone who eats. The reason there were so many amendments, including government amendments, is that the process of consultation was a complete farce. The government consulted with everyone they knew who would agree with them, and that was it. Irrigators in rural communities were ignored. The bill was pushed through a committee that the government controlled and was sent for a vote when it was so full of holes—51 holes that the government recognised. So the parliamentary process tried. The question remains: did we fix it? Did the premiers approve all these amendments? The amendments could not possibly have been approved. The Senate barely had time to read them. The premiers have most notably not even seen the amendments. The Environment and Communications Legislation Committee reported on what has become a very different bill. The premiers voted on a different bill—a bill they couldn’t agree on, and they haven’t seen the latest version.
At the very least, we need to see how these amendments fit together and what the impact of these amendments will be on the Murray-Darling Basin, on the environment and on the communities in the basin. Potential harm from the bill needs to be detected now and plans for mitigation canvassed immediately. We need to determine exactly what the rules around changes to the plan are so that amendments are done correctly next time. We need to assess what happens when the federal government starts buying up water in Victoria and the Victorian government rejects or objects. This legislation may be a High Court challenge waiting to happen.
As a new senator back in 2017, when I was in south-west Queensland in the town of St George in the Balonne shire I heard firsthand of the enormous damage to Queensland and northern New South Wales communities. As a result of that, Senator Pauline Hanson and I travelled the Murray from Albury to the Murray mouth, listening to regional communities in southern New South Wales, northern Victoria and South Australia. Later, when I returned to the Senate in 2019, I flew over the whole basin, listening closely to farmers, to communities and to people who had an argument for the environment. I then crossed the basin four times from east to west listening—in Queensland, northern New South Wales, central New South Wales, southern New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, including the regions of South Australia. We developed a credible water policy based on science and people’s needs, environmental needs and national needs.
The late John Bristow was a world-renowned expert on water. He visited our country in 2007—I’ve read a paper he published on it—and he declared that we had the best water management in the world. He was an international water expert, and he said we had the best water management. Later, in 2007, John Howard as Prime Minister and Malcolm Turnbull as water minister introduced the Water Act 2007. As has been repeated four or five times now, the aims of the Water Act are: to include compliance with international agreements—what the hell has that got to do with our federal legislation?—and to change the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. That destroyed cooperation that had successfully managed the basin with cooperation between states and the Commonwealth. Commonwealth departments started to dictate and started to lie. John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull’s Water Act separated water allocations from land ownership—a catastrophe that has to be corrected.
The Water Act, to its credit, required a register of water trades, yet the Liberal-National and Labor parties have refused to install a water registry, even though it’s required by the legislation known as the Water Act. I moved an amendment to require a water register to be developed. It was passed in the Senate and rejected in the lower house by the Liberals, Nationals and Labor Party.
We now see that another feature of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is that it led to contradictions of science and nature. It completely reversed the science. This is a mess due to globalist policies, working through the Greens—the Howard-Turnbull Water Act of 2007. On his next visit to Australia in 2011, John Bristow proclaimed that Australia had slumped to the worst—the world’s worst—water management for one reason: politically driven policy. He belled the culprit. The people in this parliament, the federal parliament, at federal level.
While mindful of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan’s catastrophic foundation, for now, as a result of the catastrophic mish-mash of the latest legislation changes last week, we need to scrutinise the latest legislation while keeping in the back of our minds the mess that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is. Only a committee inquiry can sort this out and ensure such a monumental, haphazard, dishonest change to a 10-year-old plan is the right thing to do. I move:
That the Senate notes that:
the water Amendment (Restoring our Rivers) Bill 2023 was passed with substantial amendments; and
the amendments were not reviewed by a committee and have not been approved by the Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council.
That the following matters relating to the Water Amendment (Restoring our Rivers) Bill 2023 be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for review and report by the 30 March 2024:
the operation, effectiveness and implications of the amendments made;
matters relating to the approval of the amendments by the Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council; and
https://img.youtube.com/vi/-rEHAQ2JRUg/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-12-12 10:03:132023-12-12 10:03:19Making Sense of the Murray-Darling Basin Water Amendment Bill
Erasing history by banning aspects of it runs the risk of society repeating history. The quote, “history should make you uncomfortable” describes how history has something to teach us. An effective tool of learning is discomfort.
The amendment that I proposed here in the Senate would have excluded and protected genuine collectors from the prohibition provisions of this Bill.
Denying history cannot diminish the Holocaust horrors. There are many people in Australia interested in preserving items of significant historical interest. These genuine collectors of militaria and historical items are not extremists. They are parents, grandparents, even a great grandfather who called this office and explained how he started collecting items given to him by returning servicemen after World War 2. These are not people who wish to promote extremist or violent views.
Their intent is to preserve items of historic military significance, artefacts that are of great value in some cases, and these genuine collectors and academic researchers and historians should have been excluded from the prohibition provisions.
Transcript
This bill, as I read it, is designed to prohibit the public promotion of hate symbols, including those of the historic Nazi regime during the 1930s and 1940s. Yet history is real and should not be buried or denied. Those ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it. Former president of the United States Harry Truman, a very widely read American president, said, ‘The only thing new in the world is the history you haven’t read.’ In other words, it has all happened before. Denying history cannot diminish the Holocaust horrors.
History shows that ignorance or wiping of history only brings ignorance, which in turn begs the repeat of atrocities, and we don’t want that. There are many people in Australia interested in preserving history during the period of World War II and preserving items of significant historical interest. These genuine collectors of militaria and historical items are not extremists, nor do they wish to promote extremist or violent views. Their intent is to preserve items of historic and military significance. These genuine collectors, academic researchers and historians should be excluded from the prohibition provisions, and they are. Genuine collectors are often well read and actively research their areas of interest and should not be prevented from maintaining their interests nor run the risk of being punished for preserving the history during a time of historic turmoil.
The amendment that I have proposed would exclude and protect genuine collectors from the prohibition provisions of this bill. I commend it to the Senate. By leave—I, and also on behalf of Senator Hanson, move One Nation amendments (1), (2) and (3) on sheet 2307 together:
https://img.youtube.com/vi/Xn7qN78U2Xw/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-12-11 15:26:502024-03-14 11:55:32History Should Make You Uncomfortable
I spoke in parliament about the homelessness crisis in Australia and called out those responsible.
In Labor’s urban heartland, everyday Australians are sleeping in tents. These ‘tent cities’ are forming in public parks, showgrounds and under bridges. Australian citizens are being pushed aside to make room for the 2.3 million visa holders this government has let in during its term.
What the heck is this government doing? No stunts can cover up this failure. Imagine what kind of Christmas these Australians will have? The government is sending billions of dollars in foreign aid and contributions to organisations like the WHO and the United Nations, while letting its own people become homeless.
Albanese’s government is the Grinch that is stealing the Australian way of life.
Transcript
As we go about the business of the Senate today in the Labor Party’s normal chaotic, despotic manner, out there in Labor’s heartland, everyday Australians are sleeping in tents in public parks and in tents under bridges.
Australian citizens are being pushed aside to make room for the 2.3 million visa holders this government has let in during its term. That’s 2.3 million people being brought into a country that’s only building 120,000 new homes a year. That’s 2.3 million arrivals into a housing market that was already short 100,000 homes needed to put a roof over the heads of all those who were here when Labor took office—homeless Australians this government has turned its back on.
How must these people feel, watching this one-term Prime Minister jetting around the world in style, hobnobbing with predatory billionaires at elitist events in lovely locations, dining out on the best food and sleeping in the best hotels. Perhaps the next trip this failure of a prime minister should be taking is to the riverbank at West End, New Farm, South Bank, North Quay or Musgrave Park, all in Brisbane, or to the showgrounds in Gladstone or parks in Bundaberg.
The footage of these Depression-era tent camps is running on the ABC as we speak. I suggest the government watch it and ask themselves what the heck they are doing.
Tent cities are appearing right across Labor’s urban heartland—everyday Australians unable to keep a roof over their heads because there is no roof for them.
Thanks to Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and this Labor government, there’s no place in Australia for Australians. Every tent in these tent cities has a name stamped on it—the names of Prime Minister Albanese, of Treasurer Chalmers and of Immigration Minister Giles. Your heartland is hurting, and no stunts on a bill the Senate had mostly passed already will cover up your failures.
Bring on the next election, because you lot are done.
I’ve travelled the Murray-Darling Basin from its northernmost point in Queensland, through New South Wales, Victoria and into South Australia. I’ve listened to the people along the way including the Aboriginal people for whom the water in the river is their life and central to their culture, health and happiness. As one elder said, “We were used to justify buybacks and now we have been forgotten”.
The mismanagement of the river flow across the basin is based on unmeasured guesses, not data. Government bureaucracy attempting to control the water in the river spells death to farming, death to our precious natural environment, death to the regions, and death to Aboriginal culture and society. The real agenda here is that the many towns along the river are considered to be ‘in the wrong place’.
Entire agricultural areas are on the minister’s hit list because they ‘shouldn’t be there’. But you can’t grow food on politics alone, Minister Plibersek. You need water and you need irrigators crazy enough to try and feed Australians while negotiating the insane levels of bureaucracy imposed over the years by politicians who haven’t got a clue how farming works.
The Murray-Darling Basin accounts for $22 billion in food and fibre production. What effect will this cruel policy, delivered to satisfy ignorant leftist city dwellers, have on our beautiful country? With 2.2 million new arrivals requiring food in the last 12 months alone, measures to reduce water for food production are the reverse of the policy we need.
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, the Murray-Darling Basin is an important topic for One Nation because the Murray-Darling Basin starts in Queensland. Just because the water ends up in South Australia does not mean it’s South Australian water. Queensland has a say in this as well, and I will continue to stand up for Queensland farmers, regions and communities.
During the last Senate session, I spoke about this Labor government’s decision to withdraw funding from the Emu Swamp Dam near Stanthorpe in Queensland’s Southern Downs. This area is in the Murray-Darling Basin and is one of the areas that ran dry in the last drought, requiring water to be trucked in for weeks using a convoy of water tankers. The Emu Swamp Dam was a proposal for a modest dam to retain 22 gigalitres of water for local residents. When I asked Minister Watt about the suffering and economic damage that decision would cause, the minister led the Senate on a merry dance that social media has rightly smashed and ridiculed.
Minister Watt avoided admitting that, yes, the Albanese government cancelled the Emu Swamp Dam and, yes, the Albanese government came back a year later and cancelled all the infrastructure upgrades in the region just to make sure the dam was never built. Such is the ideology behind the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023. Minister Watt, a Queensland senator, was happy to tell the residents of the Southern Downs that, in the next drought, they will have to truck their water in again—and in the next and the next and the next. Wow! What arrogance from Canberra bureaucrats and city politicians like Minister Watt! What arrogance from environmentalists who would see Australia destroyed as long as they get their way and as though humans don’t matter!
These same urban elites go to Coles and buy their Australian almond milk for their half-strength lattes—organic, of course—buy Australian bread, buy Australian meat and buy Australian vegetables. Where do these Green and Teal fools think these products come from? From the Southern Downs and from farmers across Queensland right through to the Murray-Darling Basin—the very farmers this legislation is smashing, gutting. Among all of the technical, I speak in favour of humans and people.
Before you say it’s not happening, let me share with the Senate a Hansard record of question time in the Victorian parliament from just two weeks ago. One Nation member for Northern Victoria, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, asked the Victorian water minister what her government’s position on water buybacks was. Here’s part of Labor Minister Shing’s excellent, heartfelt response:
At the moment, we are in a process of discussion and debate at a federal level about the future of the Murray–Darling Basin plan.
Oh, really? I thought it was settled. Apparently that was government misinformation as well. Her remarks continued:
In 2018 all jurisdictions party to the Murray–Darling Basin plan signed up to what is known as the socio-economic criteria, meaning that water could not be returned if it did harm to communities—that is, that any return would need to satisfy a test of positive or neutral socio-economic outcomes for communities.
Victoria remains committed to achieving the outcomes and the objectives of our share of returning environmental water to the plan in the terms that we agreed. Victoria opposes buybacks.
Her words. Victoria:
… oppose buybacks for a range of reasons and based on modelling … showing that irrigated production job losses of over 40 per cent were observed in Victorian communities due to water recovery for the environment, including in Cobram, 40 per cent of job losses; Kerang, 43 per cent of job losses; Cohuna, 43 per cent of job losses; Kyabram, 42 per cent of job losses; Tatura, 42 per cent of job losses; Rochester, 42 per cent of job losses; Pyramid Hill, 66 per cent of job losses; Boort, 66 per cent of job losses; Shepparton, 61 per cent of job losses; Swan Hill, 53 per cent of job losses; Red Cliffs, 76 per cent of job losses; and Merbein, 50 per cent of job losses.
The Victorian government has this information because they funded Frontier Economics to conduct a study on the effect of water acquisition on rural communities. Queensland Premier Palaszczuk has not done the same thing. Under Premier Palaszczuk, if you don’t live in a Labor electorate in the urban south-east, you don’t exist. For the Queensland Labor Party, Queensland ends in Toowoomba and Noosa. Good on Victoria for defending their rural communities; shame on Premier Palaszczuk for selling out regional Queenslanders.
Forty per cent job losses is a common figure I hear when I travel to Queensland basin towns like St George, Dirranbandi and Charleville. This is not a matter of those people walking away and having to make a new start somewhere else—if they can find accommodation and a job, of course. Rural communities have a critical mass, the point below which the whole town ceases to be viable. The doctor leaves, the bank closes, the school closes, small businesses close and, suddenly, the town becomes unlivable. Many towns in Queensland and across the basin are facing that point now. Another 760 gigalitres of buybacks will kill them off. The shocking truth is this: wiping out towns and agriculture across the basin is an intended consequence of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
When I was first elected to the Senate and travelled down the Darling and Murray system, I spoke with a representative of the Murray-Darling Basin in the river lands. His words have stuck with me: ‘The Murray-Darling Basin agenda is based on the principle that many towns along the river are in the wrong place. Those towns would not be built today because of their reliance on irrigation and have to go.’ They have to go? That’s the real agenda here. That’s why this bill allows the minister to buy water from anywhere in the basin, not just within a valley. As Minister Shing, the Victorian Labor Minister for Water, rightly pointed out, ‘This act removes the socioeconomic test.’
Now, finally, Minister Plibersek’s intentions are out in the open. Entire agricultural areas are on the minister’s hit list, areas that ‘shouldn’t be there’. When environmentalists and city politicians like Minister Plibersek hold this bill high, declaring, ‘Let the rivers run,’ what they really mean is death to family farms and death to the towns they support. At least be honest about it. What effect will this cruel policy, delivered to satisfy ignorant leftist city dwellers, have on our beautiful country? The Murray-Darling Basin accounts for $22 billion in food and fibre production needed to feed and clothe the world. Hell, it’s needed to feed the two million people this Labor government let into Australia in the last 12 months. We have 2.2 million new mouths to feed and the government’s response is to reduce the water available to grow food. There are five million tourist visa holders that have to be fed. No wonder our beautiful country is in trouble. We have a government that can’t put two and two together.
I’ve travelled the basin, listening to people across the whole basin—from the northern basin, including Charleville, Dirranbandi, St George and Stanthorpe in Queensland; from Albury and Tenterfield in the east of New South Wales; from Broken Hill in the west of New South Wales; from Cobram in regional Victoria; through Menindee, Mildura and Renmark; all the way to Goolwa and the Murray mouth in South Australia. I’ve listened with farmers, irrigators, researchers and environmentalists. I’ve consulted with Aboriginal people, for whom the water in the river is their life, the centre of their culture and the centre of their health and happiness. Drought harms Aboriginal people and much damage was done even as the plan was nearing completion. And damage continues to be done.
To illustrate this, I saw an ABC video made in October this year that talked to Aboriginal Australians along the river. When buybacks were happening in 2012, they were promised some of the water would be returned to their river in improved flows. Two thousand eight hundred gigalitres of acquisition later and those improved flows for Aboriginal water have never happened. What we’ve seen is a pattern of water flow that’s harming the connected system. One reason is water trading. I’m not talking about productive water trading to keep family farms going; rather, we see foreign owned corporations exploiting water trading to keep their massive monoculture plantings alive. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of permanent planting—almonds, citrus and grapes—are pulling water from places like southern Queensland down below the border to western Victoria and to South Australia. Those water allocations are being sent down in floods to increase the amounts that arrives. Aboriginal communities are left without the regular environmental flows that are so much a part of a river tribe’s life—that’s their word: ‘life’. As one elder said, ‘We were used to justify buybacks and now we have been forgotten.’ It sounds like the Voice. They were used to try and get it through, and now they are forgotten.
The other major culprit is environmental watering. That watering is being sent down in floods, which, once again, contribute to flooding along the river and do enormous environmental damage. In years past, the flooding that happened in the spring and early summer and during tropical storms in the Queensland basin went down the river as a flood, watering the associated forests. The difference today is that those short periods of natural flooding were between natural long periods with low river flow. That natural cycle allowed the banks to dry and harden to withstand the next flood. What used to happen was the water in the dams was released across the year for mostly local use. If it was not used, it was carried over. Most areas in the basin still have carryover water. Now we have huge amounts of water being sent south to keep massive permanent plantings watered and huge amounts being sent down to water native forests that don’t need it, and the river is stuffed with severe, catastrophic riverbank erosion and forest drowning—and forests dying. That’s the problem this government should be addressing. Instead, Minister Plibersek and her electorate full of city lefties were declaring, ‘Let the river run!’ The minister is killing the natural environment in the name of saving it, ignoring the harm that’s being done—and being done in the name of the Basin Plan.
There’s nothing in this bill that addresses the fundamental flaw in the plan. The mismanagement of river flow is based across the basin largely on unmeasured guesses of water flow—not on data, not on measurements. It does not matter if you’re mismanaging 2,800 gigalitres or 3,200 gigalitres, the outcome will be the same: death to farming, death to our precious natural environment, death to the regions, death to Aboriginal culture and Aboriginal society.
Where are the targets for minimum and maximum heights of riverbanks to protect and repair the environment? Not here. Where’s the plan to repair hundreds of kilometres of erosion down the Goulburn, Murray and Edward rivers? The Murray-Darling Basin Plan destroyed those rivers, and nothing in this bill will fix them. This bill will continue the environmental catastrophe. I see limits to diversion for irrigation, yet I don’t see limits for diversion for environment watering—meaning how much water is to be taken out for the drowning and killing of forests as opposed to how much water is to be kept in the river for desalination, fish health and so on. Where are the hard limits? Rivers suffer when water is taken out. It makes no difference if the water is being extracted for irrigation or to drown forests. Where are the water quality limits to control blackwater, which is caused through the overwatering of wetlands, like the Barmah-Millewa Forest, under orders from the Commonwealth? Not here. Where’s the ratio of water over the barrages as against basin inflows, which would ensure the rivers actually flow? Not here. Where are the explicit statements of minimum flows for Aboriginal water in each river? Not here. Real plans are based on measurements and data. Without measurement of river and creek flows across the Murray-Darling Basin, there is no plan, just political patronage, corruption and control.
Where’s the solution to this salination in the lower lagoon of the Coorong? It’s time to talk about the subject that shall not be spoken: the basin inflow from the south-east of South Australia, which is water supposedly from outside the basin that flows into the basin to refresh the water in the Coorong and Lower Lakes, inflow that before Western settlement delivered hundreds of gigalitres of water a year and flushed the Coorong and Lower Lakes to maintain a healthy environment. Years of draining the south-east to create a productive farming area have sent the flow directly out to sea, bypassing the basin instead of into the basin, where, by the way, it’s damaging the saltwater environment of the sea and the seagrass beds that stabilise the coastline.
One Nation supports the farming community in the south-east of South Australia and seeks to protect vital agriculture in the area. The initial round of redirecting the drains back into the basin was completed, and basin inflow has been partly restored. The South Australia government now counts this flow is basin SDL recovery, after many years of my campaigning for that very outcome. Thank you. The south-east flow restoration project takes water from some of the drains and redirects the water into Tilley Swamp and then along natural watercourses through Salt Creek into the lower Coorong. Being a swamp, the water soaks in and forms part of the unconstrained aquifer that flows into the Coorong and Lower Lakes at a depth of as little as one metre.
The aquifer flow is not measured, yet it should be. The improvement in water quality in these waterways suggests more water is arriving that the 25 gigalitres that has been credited—much more. I foreshadow my second reading amendment calling on the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to measure all inflow into the basin from the south-east, both surface and aquifer flow. This surely must be a prudent exercise before embarking on costly water buybacks that will have a catastrophic effect on the basin just to meet arbitrary water acquisition targets—and those are the points that I don’t have time to go into.
This plan is already highly complicated, and this bill makes it more complicated. It involves micromanaging with slogans. It involves taking taxpayer money to defeat productivity on farms and to raise food prices. Taxpayer money is being stolen to raise food prices. New South Wales farmers are moving to the Flinders River in North Queensland, and we now see the Labor-Greens-Pocock-teal coalition in full flight, destroying our country. The Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 isn’t a plan to improve the health of our rivers and lakes; it’s an open declaration of war on farming and rural communities, ideology driving a political and social war to the exclusion of decency and common sense. Making farming harder will reduce the supply of fresh fruit and drive up prices at a time when inflation is already out of hand. The Albanese government does not need another policy failure to add to its collection. I urge the government: don’t do this! For the sake of every Australian who eats food, we oppose this bill accelerating the death knell of economic food production and food security. In opposing this bill, One Nation protects the natural environment, protects food security, protects economic activity and protects regional communities.
With the origin of COVID now known to be the result of gain-of-function research, funded by the United States through Anthony Fauci’s NIH and conducted in Wuhan China to escape regulatory barriers, it’s even more important that Australians have input into the Terms of Reference for a COVID Royal Commission.
If any member of the public, medical profession, whistle-blower or other interested party wishes to make a submission I urge them to have their say to the committee via this link:
With Moderna setting up mRNA vaccine production in Australia, it is concerning that both the Morrison and Albanese governments have provided 16 vaccine indemnities since the COVID outbreak. That means the bill to compensate those who are harmed by these products falls on taxpayers, not the pharmaceutical industry that rolled out their products with indecent speed.
There are 400 new mRNA vaccines under development to replace the off-patent conventional vaccines. Responsibility for harm from these products must rest with the makers, not the public.
The emerging pattern of adverse events and deaths correlating with the COVID injections is overwhelming. It must be objectively examined and not simply dismissed. There is no reason why these COVID injections should not be given proper scrutiny in the same way we scrutinize health effects from lockdowns, economic hardship, inadequate healthcare provision or even inappropriate treatments for the virus. Is there? What is in the Pfizer contracts that we should know about?
Transcript
As a servant to the many and varied people who make up our one Queensland community, I would like to update my constituents on the committee inquiry One Nation secured looking into terms of reference for a royal commission into SARS COVID-19. The committee has set 12 January 2024 as the deadline for submissions. If any member of the public, medical profession, commercial entity or interested party wishes to, they can make a submission. It can be confidential if you want. I’ll post a link on my social media and on my website, and I urge whistleblowers, senior medical practitioners and academics to have their say. I’ve received many suggestions for terms of reference and, firstly, can I say: please tell the committee. That’s the process.
Let me talk about the terms of reference. Firstly, the origin of COVID. An article in today’s Australian by Sharri Markson sets out proof—and I do mean proof—that COVID was engineered as a result of gain-of-function research funded through America’s National Institutes of Health and its former director Anthony Fauci. The research was conducted in China because it was out of reach of America’s regulations, and it was cheaper. Gain-of-function research is supposedly so that health authorities can create new viruses and then an antidote or a vaccine so that if nature supposedly produces that virus, there will be a vaccine ready to go.
Secondly, vaccine indemnity. I spoke this week about a little-known fact: Australia has provided 16 vaccine indemnities in recent years. Now, an indemnity doesn’t prevent a person who has been harmed from suing, it just means any damages are paid with taxpayer money and not big pharma money. Pharmaceutical companies keep the profits and taxpayers pay for the damages. Even more troubling, the Albanese Labor government has provided Moderna with a blanket immunity for every vaccine they make in the new Australian factory. There are 400 mRNA vaccines under development. Not all will be made in this plant, yet many will be. The Morrison and Albanese governments are normalising vaccine indemnity. I want to know why. The terms of our contract with Pfizer must be examined, as we were still signing hidden purchase contracts as recently as last month.
Surely this pattern of adverse events and deaths tracking injections upward and downward proves causation of vaccine deaths by their tens of thousands. The science is now overwhelming. This can’t be ignored and must be investigated. (Time expired)
https://img.youtube.com/vi/61L0fu6Dbes/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-12-06 10:46:222023-12-06 14:06:31Make Your Voice Heard on the COVID Royal Commission Terms of Reference
I asked Minister Gallagher how many vaccines are provided with an indemnity protection clause by the Australian government whereby those harmed cannot sue the company because the government has taken on the responsibility for harm done. Her answer was that indemnity was put in place due to the emergency nature of COVID response in the early stages. However 14 different COVID products have received indemnity protection from the Australian government, and one of them as recently as the 10th of October 2023.
In response, the minister fell back on confidentiality of agreements between the government and vaccine providers. This is the public’s money – the government is there to serve the people of Australia, not keep secrets from them and coerce them into risky products with mandates that even the Health Secretary, Prof Murphy, has said this year were not justifiable. The risk, from COVID, never justified the risk from the trial injections. After all that has been exposed globally, that the government is still promoting these products is shocking.
In saying that all necessary approvals to ensure its safety were followed through the TGA, Minister Gallagher is not being straight with us. The TGA did not test the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna COVID shots. It relied on the regulators overseas where these products were made. In the case of Pfizer, these were incomplete and aborted trials. The true magnitude of the harm is being released in the Pfizer papers ordered to be released by a judge in the USA.
Why is the government hiding behind confidentiality and exposing taxpayers to the risk of paying for costly damages for injection injuries as well as paying for products that are turning out to be unsafe and ineffective. Products that the public is no longer taking up and which the Minister appears to be pushing like a pharmaceutical sales rep on commission.
Big Pharma’s Stranglehold on Government Revealed
Senator Katy Gallagher claimed that the COVID product indemnity was put in place to secure product supply in a competitive market during the emergency of the COVID outbreak.
Senator Gallagher is the Minister for Finance overseeing contingent liabilities in the budget. With 14 more indemnities for COVID products and the most recent one last month, I think it’s pretty clear that this has nothing to do with a health emergency. It has everything to do with Labor’s deals with Moderna to get its production plants into Australia and pave the way for the World Health Organisation’s plans for 400 new mRNA vaccines for human and animal use. These are being designed to replace 400 regular vaccines with expiring patents.
Why is the government normalising indemnities? The process removes the incentive on the manufacturer to produce a safe, high quality product since any harm is paid for by the taxpayers. Follow the money and it leads to a patent cliff, not better health. It also explains the ongoing and seemingly frantic messaging of ‘safe and effective’ with every mention of these injections in government. It’s a shame the disinformation legislation does not cover messaging by the Government, so much misinformation originates there.
Transcript | Exactly Who is Calling the Shots in Australia?
Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Senator Gallagher. How many vaccines are subject to an indemnity from the Australian government?
Senator Gallagher: Thank you, Senator Roberts. I’ll just see if I can provide you with an accurate answer. I do know that there were indemnity arrangements put in place under the former government for the vaccines that were approved then, in the early stages of the pandemic, and those indemnity arrangements continue. I think we have traversed this a bit at estimates. I’m not sure if there is anything else I can provide. Indemnity arrangements were put in place for the vaccines that the government procured to enable the national vaccine rollout program to be undertaken during the pandemic emergency. That was an important part of ensuring that we could procure the vaccine in the amount that we needed and provide it to the Australian people. I would also say that, whilst the indemnity arrangements were in place, all of the required approvals to ensure the safety of the vaccines—prior to the vaccines being rolled out—were followed, through the TGA processes, which we have also traversed at length in estimates. We also have the COVID-19 Vaccine Claims Scheme, which was established to run alongside the national rollout of the vaccine program. And I would say that it was an important response to the pandemic to ensure that we could get as many people vaccinated as possible in a safe way to ensure that we minimised the impact of significant disease and also, at the very serious end, the deaths that occurred from contracting COVID-19.
Senator ROBERTS: Indemnities have been issued for 14 different COVID products. Each new COVID vaccine or shot has been given an indemnity, the most recent on 10 October 2023. With demand for the booster down to 5½ per cent for those under 65, and with multiple vendors, the argument that indemnities are needed to get stock is a patent nonsense. What is the real reason for these new indemnities, issued only six weeks ago?
Senator Gallagher: I can’t go into the confidential agreements that have been reached in procuring vaccines. These are agreements that are reached between the government and the vaccine provider, and we do so in a way that allows for the rollout of continued vaccination and booster shots to protect people from COVID-19. These are the arrangements that were entered into during the pandemic. Those arrangements are continuing. We think there’s a very important public health reason to ensure that we are procuring vaccines and making them available so people can take their booster. I would say that booster levels remain low—and we do want to see those increase—and that people should go and get their booster if they’re ready for one or if they’re six months past the last COVID-19 bout.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, you won’t explain to the taxpayers why you’re using their money and putting it at risk, so I’ll ask a second supplementary. This government has offered Moderna an indemnity for every vaccine or shot manufactured in its new Australian factory, currently under construction, including regular non-pandemic vaccines. Why has your government not been honest in telling taxpayers they are paying for new vaccine harm during the COVID period and for all time?
Senator Gallagher: I’m not sure what Senator Roberts is referring to, and I reject the claim that we are somehow using taxpayers’ money and causing vaccine harm. That is not appropriate, and I absolutely categorically reject that. If there is anything further I can provide Senator Roberts around the arrangements with Moderna in particular, I am happy to arrange that. I don’t have that information before me, but I do accept that governments do negotiate agreements with companies around the supply and availability of medicines—and vaccines, in this instance—to ensure that we are able to provide the medicines Australia needs and also ensure that we have enough of the vaccines to provide the appropriate coverage, particularly for COVID-19 protection.
Transcript | Big Pharma’s Stranglehold on Government Revealed
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to questions without notice I asked today relating to vaccine indemnities.
Senator Gallagher is the Minister for Finance and is overseeing contingent liabilities in the budget. Although I prefer the words ‘fake-cine’ or ‘injectable’, what these products are not are vaccines. A vaccine prevents a person getting and transmitting an illness; these COVID ‘fake-cines’ do neither. Australia first provided indemnities in 2015 under the previous Liberal government for mpox and flu vaccines. Those indemnities are still in place.
Now we have 14 more indemnities for COVID products, and they’ll be permanent. Labor’s deal to get Moderna’s production plant into Australia was revealed last week. Any vaccine manufactured in Moderna’s Australian factory, which is now under construction, will receive an indemnity. The agreement sets out that these vaccines will be indemnified as part of a pandemic vaccine advance-purchase agreement and additionally as part of a routine, non-pandemic vaccine supply agreement. In other words, every vaccine made will be indemnified with no word about testing. The new Moderna indemnity extends to routine vaccine supply, and the minister is not able to claim securing supply in a crisis.
The World Health Organization has mentioned that there are 400 mRNA vaccines and products under development to replace conventional vaccines with expired patents. The attraction of mRNA is protecting profit from the patent cliff—not protecting better health. Those products will be for humans, livestock and pets. Our health authorities and politicians are promoting experimental mRNA products and, in so doing, risking everyday Australians’ health. I was hoping to hear why in the minister’s answer. Why is the government normalising indemnities, giving foreign multinational pharmaceutical companies blanket indemnities so they can avoid being accountable and encouraging companies to lie in their clinical trials, fudge efficacy data and cover up enduring death, as Pfizer was proven to have done in their COVID ‘fake-cine’ development? This question is not going away. We will relentlessly hound you down.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/vhTJiK9eFhw/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-12-06 10:37:542023-12-06 10:44:25Exactly Who is Calling the Shots in Australia?
