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?
How can Minister Gallagher claim Digital ID will be secure given government is one of the largest perpetrators of data breaches?
I questioned whether it “wouldn’t be compulsory” in the same way the government claims vaccines were never compulsory.
What Minister Gallagher failed to mention is that Section 74(4) of the Digital ID Bill allows the Digital ID to be made compulsory if a bureaucrat is “satisfied it is appropriate to do so”.
This will almost definitely be abused and makes a joke of the claim Digital ID would be voluntary.
Transcript | Tough Questions Asked on Digital ID Bill
Senator ROBERTS: My question is for the Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher. ABC reports in July revealed that hackers were able to exploit loopholes in the government’s myGov system and, as of February 2023, lodged more than half a billion dollars in fraudulent tax claims. Given the minister’s claims that a digital identity would be secure, can the minister please provide an updated figure on how many billions of dollars in fraudulent claims hackers have lodged to date in exploiting myGov system vulnerabilities?
Senator Gallagher: The first thing I would say about that is myGov is different to myGovID; they are completely different things. I don’t have updated information. MyGov is the site you go to, as many people in this place will have, to engage with government in an online way. But myGovID is a digital ID that you control and own and use for verifying your identity and, if you are a business, for engaging with the tax office in particular. There are 10.5 million Australians who have a myGovID and use it for that purpose, but it is very different to the question that Senator Roberts raises around the myGov system, which I don’t have an update on. It falls under the Minister for Government Services’ portfolio. I am happy to see if there is something that minister would be able to provide you around an update on that.
MyGov obviously is a system that we invest heavily in to make sure it is useable and safe for people when they are engaging with government, but that doesn’t change the comments I made last week about the digital ID system being safe and trustworthy and voluntary. If you are an individual, you will not have to have one of these digital IDs but, if you do want one, the option is there, and it’s a way of reducing the amount of information that government collects in order to verify your identity. So, the two things, myGovID and myGov—I accept they are similarly named—are very different things indeed.
The President: Senator Roberts, a first supplementary?
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, in June, Russian hackers compromised top secret Australian Defence Force data. In July, NDIS participants were exposed in a data breach, and the Department of Home Affairs leaked personal small business information. In August, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs leaked medical data. In September, Australian Federal Police data was hacked. Why is it falsely claimed the government’s digital ID is secure when the government can’t keep data secure?
Senator Gallagher: I don’t accept the proposition that’s being put by Senator Roberts. Yes, government systems are under constant attack and threat, as most businesses are in this country, from cybercrime, from hackers, and from scams and criminals that are engaged in such activity, so the government invests heavily in protecting our systems, making sure they are safe. But in a sense, you are making the argument for a digital ID, because a digital ID is about reducing the amount of information that the government holds on you about you for services. Because of the way the system works, you retain the information, but you’re able to have your ID verified through a process of exchange that allows those systems to be unlocked. Absolutely fundamental to the digital ID system is reducing the amount of information, having the safeguards in place— (Time expired)
The President: Senator Roberts, a second supplementary?
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, will the government support a One Nation amendment to the digital identity bill explicitly stating that no Australian will ever be denied access to services because they do not have a digital ID? Or is the claim that the digital ID won’t be compulsory just misinformation?
Senator Gallagher: I’m happy to engage with you genuinely on digital ID. I accept your interest in it and I am very willing to work with anyone in this chamber to make sure that the legislation that passes this place is the best that it can be. In relation to your specific question, as part of the bill we do require that services be maintained and offered for people that don’t want to have a digital ID. That protection is there. I am very happy to engage with you more broadly on the bill, including in other areas that you might have concerns about.
That clause relates specifically to individuals. As you know, myGov ID is required for business-related services, and part of that is about minimising fraud and identity theft, verifying individuals as part of their engagement with the tax office.
ONE ID TO RULE US ALL
Labor has pushed ahead in lockstep with other countries to implement the World Economic Forum’s globalist control measures. I take note of the government’s answer on Digital Identity Bill which it has introduced. The idea that the government can keep our data safe is a farce.
This legislation seeks to bring about one Digital ID that does more than the MyGov digital ID or any of the others floating around. It puts all your identity eggs into one digital basket. For hackers this is truly the pot of cyber gold at the end of the woke rainbow.
Despite the minister’s protestations that this digital ID won’t be mandatory and “it’s only for your safety and convenience”, we all remember how “no jab no job” was considered free choice by the government. But this bill goes further and contains a clear provision for the government to make this digital ID mandatory if they so wish.
For Senator Gallagher to say that even the current version of MyGov digital ID is not compulsory is blatant misinformation. Centrelink won’t talk to you without it, and the legislated Directors’ ID required a MyGov digital ID for anyone who wanted to keep being a director. You can see where this is all going.
We are being corralled into a digital prison, one bill at a time. For our ‘convenience’. One Nation will oppose the government’s Digital ID.
Transcript | One ID to Rule Us All
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 digital identity.
If people want a taste of the dictatorship digital ID will be used to introduce, look no further than Minister Katy Gallagher’s social media posts. On Friday she took to X to announce that she was proud of introducing the digital ID bill, declaring it secure, convenient and not compulsory. Senator Gallagher’s post racked up a million views, many of which were from Australians gobsmacked that the minister blocked all comments on her post. So much for this Labor government’s promised accountability and transparency. I guess the minister knew that, if she allowed comments, Australians would have easily debunked the misleading claims that a digital ID would be secure and not compulsory. Despite the censorship, Community Notes—the people’s fact check—were added to the post, debunking the minister’s claims. These Community Notes have mysteriously disappeared and reappeared over the weekend, making us ask whether the government applied any pressure on X to have them removed. We know that the departments of home affairs and health pressured social media to remove COVID related posts. We know that the Department of Defence asked social media to remove posts critical of the Chief of the Defence Force. It’s not a stretch to imagine that the government has done the exact same thing here.
The idea that the government can keep any data secure is a farce. As I illustrated in my questions, government departments are our country’s most frequent perpetrators of data leaks. We know that digital ID will, effectively, be compulsory. The government says people won’t be forced to have it, unless of course people want to access government services, get a driver’s licence or enter some buildings. Just like the COVID jabs, digital ID won’t be compulsory, they tell us, yet the government will make people get one to participate in society—to live. One Nation will continue fighting the dystopian digital ID and government censorship on every front.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/embltkJw99U/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-12-05 17:08:082023-12-12 08:54:50Tough Questions Asked on Digital ID Bill
The Labor Government is pushing ahead with their globalist control agenda by introducing the Digital ID bill. This proposal is nothing more than a 21st Century version of Soviet Russia’s favourite measure – papers please.
Senator Gallagher says myGov ID is not compulsory: that is “misinformation”. The Director’s ID legislation didn’t mention myGov IDs yet every director was required to get one. The reason 10 million Australians have a myGov ID is because 10 million Australians were coerced into getting one.
One Nation will be fighting this terrible bill at every stage.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/zJdPtDcEVI8/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-30 14:26:302023-11-30 14:26:34Digital ID Bill Passes First of Three Stages
The government’s spending on NDIS threatens to bankrupt Australia.
The NDIS is a runaway spending rocket which is failing to serve the disabled and getting worse. The service was never set up correctly in the first place and continues to waste billions and let down those who need it because of endemic bureaucratic bungling. There’s zero accountability within this agency. It is letting some abuse the system and as taxpayers we’re footing an exorbitant bill. The NDIS is not fit for purpose, yet a disability service is desperately needed and not reaching many of those it was meant to assist.
In questioning Minister Gallagher about what Labor is doing to fix this problem her answers were unhelpful and it seems she is being deliberately obstructive. Creating another level of bureaucracy won’t address the problem. It’ll only add another burden for taxpayers and extra layers of complexity for those needing help to try and navigate. If Labor is hoping that by ignoring the NDIS problem it will go away, they will be disappointment.
The NDIS needs addressing now before it’s too late.
Transcript
In serving the people of Queensland and Australia, I have four questions. I’ll do a little bit of explaining to get to the point. One Nation simply cannot support a bill that establishes an entirely new disability bureaucracy when the bill does not even define ‘disability’. I wonder: is this an admission that the NDIS has failed or that the government is letting it run completely out of control? I’ll come back to that.
I remind everyone of the hasty and ill-thought-out concoction of the NDIS. Prime Minister Gillard hastily introduced it for election purposes before an election. Then she was voted out, and the Liberals and the National Party inherited a complete mess. They tightened it up, but it’s still sloppy. In tightening it, we got mixed signals going about services that are being provided to the disabled. That leaves them in a totally inadequate situation. I’m concerned about taxpayers and the disabled in these remarks and questions. If the NDIS continues in its current form, it will send the entire country broke and continue to provide inadequate services to the disabled.
This bill does not deal with the NDIS. It establishes an entirely new bureaucracy in an entirely new agency. If the Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023 and the associated consequential bill pass into law, the Minister for Social Services will be given legislative authority for new spending programs to cover the 88 per cent of Australians living with a disability who cannot access support under the National Disability Insurance Scheme at the moment.
I want to talk about the NDIS now because it provides financial support to just 610,000 participants, or 12 per cent of Australia’s estimated population living with a disability, while being the second-most expensive social program after the age pension. The annual running costs in the year ending 30 June 2023 were $38.8 billion. That is 26 per cent higher than Medicare, $30.8 billion; 40 per cent higher than aged care, $27.7 billion; and 40 per cent higher than the support for state government hospitals, $27.3 billion. Minister Bill Shorten expects the annual running cost in 2026 to be $50 billion, making it almost double what is spent on state government hospitals. The NDIS is unsustainable at these levels and will not be able to properly provide services for the disabled.
I’m not going to sign a blank cheque for any government. I won’t be giving the government more spending power until I know how taxpayer money goes to those to whom it is intended, and many of the disabled are not getting the services necessary. Like many Australians, I’ve worked hard to bring up my children and to pay my taxes. Every tax dollar that the NDIA wastes is a dollar that is not spent on health, education and keeping us safe. NDIS participants using their plan money to holiday in exotic places and paying excessively for ordinary items like transit wheelchairs and aluminium shower chairs diminishes support for the program and prevents services to other disabled people who deserve support. Until I’m satisfied the Labor government can manage their departments, I’m not going to give them any more spending power.
The Auditor-General investigated decision-making in the NDIA, the agency, between 1 July 2016 and 31 March 2017 as part of his report Decision-making controls for sustainability—National Disability Insurance Scheme access. In one group of 150 cases that were reviewed, the decision-maker’s name was not recorded in 42 cases. In another 18 of the 150 cases, there was no record of the reasons for the decision. That’s not accountability for taxpayers’ money. In a review of another 1,339 cases, 13 per cent—that’s almost one in seven—did not have sufficient evidence to support decisions to give lifetime support under the NDIS Act 2013.
These findings in 2017 led to the Auditor-General making a number of recommendations. Seven of the nine recommendations made in relation to improving decision-making controls and fraud controls were not fully implemented by the time the Auditor-General investigated the NDIA again last year. Despite a history of approving access to the NDIS without lawful authority, senior bureaucrats in the NDIA will not make sure all delegates are trained. Of the 1,147 NDIA planners employed by the NDIA on 30 June 2020, only 73 per cent—under three-quarters—of them had been trained to spend billions of hard-earned taxpayer money. No wonder the NDIA costs cannot be controlled! Not only does the government need to show me it can manage the NDIA in accordance with the law passed in this chamber, but it also needs to deal with the demand shock created by the introduction of the NDIS. The sudden high demand created by the tsunami of money in NDIS participant plans has caused the cost of seeing an occupational therapist, a speech therapist or a psychologist—as well as others—to skyrocket. NDIS is more generous than the Department of Veterans’ Affairs or aged care, and that leads to inequality. That should not be the case. It’s a mess. It’s time the government aligned the price it pays for the same service across different government programs.
Anyone can apply for a participant package under the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013, but only people with a disability who meet the age, residency and disability requirements and can demonstrate that support is reasonable and necessary are intended to get support for a lifetime. As I’ve already said, it’s a lottery at the moment because decision-making is so poor in the National Disability Insurance Agency due to its messy and improper formation and its lack of foundation at its birth.
While public servants sit in air-conditioned offices, an army of poorly paid disability workers provide the core supports needed by people with a disability. Disability workers are poorly paid, trapped in a system with little job security or prospects. They’re often working with questionable service agencies. Their employers are small businesses which often have no relevant experience and are unable to provide training or support in what can be confronting and stressful situations. No wonder there’s a shortage of disability workers right now.
I want to see all National Disability Insurance Agency plans de-identified and made public. Australians need to know what is being funded. They’re the ultimate payers for this service. Employing a qualified chef to teach someone how to cook at home is a luxury that we cannot afford. Prior to NDIS, it was estimated that families provided 80 per cent of the support for a person with a disability and the government provided 20 per cent. The introduction of the NDIS was to shift some, but not all, responsibility to government, with families providing 60 per cent of the support and the government providing the remaining 40 per cent. We don’t know much about the level of family support provided today, but we do know only 30 per cent of all plans are managed fully or partially by the participant or their family, which suggests that government is taking on far more responsibility than was ever planned. Participant managed plans account for 30 per cent of the number of plans but just 12 per cent of the NDIS budget. These budgets are spent, but not overspent. Another 60 per cent of plans are managed by someone other than the participant or their family. These managed plans account for 46 per cent of the NDIS, four times as much. The remaining 10 per cent of NDIS plans are NDIA managed, and they account for 42 per cent of the NDIS budget. The NDIA consistently underspends these plans. Why?
Until I see lawful, responsible and effective by the National Disability Insurance Agency, I will not be supporting any new spending power by government. One Nation supports disability services, yet they have to be sustainable for the Australian taxpayer or there will be no services in the future, and those services that there are won’t be fit for the disabled. Spending on the NDIS will outstrip all Medicare services. There is billions of dollars of fraud currently happening in the NDIS that the government has done next to nothing to stop. We’ll be opposing this bill until the government can prove it is running the NDIS in a way that isn’t going to send the country broke.
I’ll go back to my opening question from my first question: is this new legislation an admission that the NDIS has failed or that the government is letting it run completely out of control?
Grandstanding is clearly more important to the Albanese government than actually governing.
Last week the Senate voted to pass four measures from the Government’s own industrial relations bill that all parties agreed were urgent. Because the vote was led by the crossbench, the government then refused to deal with the bills in the lower house.
What everyday Australians can learn from this ‘dummy spit’ by Prime Minister Albanese is the government is more interested in playing politics than protecting workers. The government’s actions are quite honestly a disgrace and a betrayal of working Australians.
This is my speech in support of the motion by the crossbench, supported by the Liberals and Nationals to suspended standing orders. This allowed the Senate to send a message to the House of Representatives to vote on the bills immediately.
This motion was passed and the ball is back in the Prime Minister’s court. Will he now vote to pass his own legislation or continue his childish antics?
Transcript
What an opportunity for the government to show that it believes in truth, integrity and honesty. What do they do? They run away from it. Senator Watt’s talking about the delays. No, it’s scrutiny. It’s proper scrutiny. That’s all we want. We want some urgency around bills that the government brought into the parliament saying that they were urgent and vital. What do we see? He’s leaving. They’re running away from it. Urgent bills? That’s why we want to support this suspension: so that we can vote on the motion of Senators Pocock and Lambie.
This is about the Senate exercising the will of the Senate. The will of the Senate said, ‘We want these bills passed urgently.’ It went down to the House and has been put on the bottom of the order. To me, that shows the inconsistency with what Labor is saying about these bills and what the truth is. It proves that Labor is lying about the urgency of these bills. Senator Pocock reminded us very clearly of the long time frame for the wage theft provisions to be put in place—2025, I think he said. What is the government covering up?
We’ll see more when we get to scrutiny of the other five sections of that bill, but I’ve been championing the cause of Hunter Valley and Central Queensland coalminers, and the only way that an enterprise agreement less than the award can be put in place is through an agreement with the Mining and Energy Union in the Hunter Valley. That’s the only way. There is no loophole in the coal industry; it just needs enforcement of the Fair Work Act, which the Fair Work Ombudsman has dodged, the Fair Work Commission has dodged, the MEU has contravened deliberately, and some employers and some labour hire firms have deliberately compromised. There’s no loophole; this is just designed to deflect and cover up. We will be getting to the bottom of this because I’m tired of these miners in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley being put down. They’re still on below-award pay despite what the government is saying.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/ItRnjiIS7wk/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-30 13:11:172023-11-30 13:11:21Workers Left Unprotected Whilst Labor Play Their Games
The PMs frequent visits to foreign countries is a way of avoiding responsibility. The PM does not understand that leaders lead from the front, not from 30,000 feet. PM Albanese needs to pick up his leadership game instead of his carry-on baggage.
Australia desperately needs leadership. We have the worst outcome for real wages of any OECD country. Housing is unaffordable and our inflation is now home-grown. Two million new migrants is driving demand-inflation, making staples harder to get and more expensive. This situation will become worse after the passage of Minister Plibersek’s new bill to nobble agriculture in the Senate today, which reduces water available to farmers and will without doubt drive up food prices.
The PM needs to stop dodging responsibility and get back here to clean up the mess he’s made.
Transcript
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community I started this week with my usual check to see if the Prime Minister is in the country today. He is. Hitting ‘home’ on his GPS still brings him back to Australia. What a memory that device has. Prime Minister Albanese clearly doesn’t suffer from airsickness, yet he has managed a medical first—spreading airsickness to the rest of the country. We are all thoroughly sick of his air travel. The Prime Minister doesn’t get that and with every flight he is crashing the government’s poll numbers. It’s why the internet has unkindly, though accurately, given the Prime Minister’s plane the new name—’Air Albatross’.
Leaders lead from the front, not from 30,000 feet. Australia needs leadership. Inflation can no longer be blamed on world events beyond our control. All along our inflation has been and is homegrown—demand driven from this government’s record new arrivals. There was a time when Australia could have ramped up manufacturing and agriculture to meet demand from the 2.2 million new long-stay arrivals in just the last 12 months, but not anymore. The Hawke-Keating Labor government and the Howard Liberal government sent manufacturing to China. Now we’re at the mercy of the Chinese and world markets to source goods, including building materials, to meet the needs of new arrivals.
Minister Plibersek is deliberately nobbling agricultural expansion, with another bill in the Senate today to take away farmers’ ability to grow food and fibre for new arrivals. Per capita income has gone backward faster than in any other developed nation in the world, as national wealth is spread across more and more people. A looming federal deficit will force interest rates up and steal even more wealth and opportunity from everyday Australians. Prime Minister, stop dodging responsibility, hang up your Biggles hat, get to work and clean up your mess.
I supported Senators Lambie and Pocock in their motion to pull the four key, genuine elements from Labor’s ‘closing loopholes’ industrial relations bill. Even though these passed the Senate, the Labor Government refuses to deal with them in the House of Representatives that they control. They are holding PTSD compensation for paramedics hostage for political reasons rather than do the right thing.
I had to remind the Senate that this motion is in support of the Senate’s will, the Senate has already decided this. What the Labor Party government is demonstrating is its repeated, deep, ingrained fear of scrutiny.
It’s not hard to see why the media is reporting on Labor sliding in the polls.
Transcript
I want to remind the Senate that this motion from Senator Lambie and Senator Pocock is in support of the Senate’s will. The Senate has already decided this. That’s all we want. Secondly, has anybody in the Labor Party heard of the ‘Kevin Rudd slide’ or the ‘Julia Gillard slide’? The press is now reporting that the ‘Anthony Albanese slide’ is at an even steeper rate than the ‘Rudd slide’ and the ‘Gillard slide’. All are self made and imploding. And then Senator Ayres has the hide to impugn Senator Lambie as if she couldn’t think of this herself. They can’t think for themselves, because they rely upon one party boss to drive them. That’s it. This is egregious damage to Senator Lambie, and I support Senator Lambie in her own right.
I also remind the Labor Party of housing, energy and immigration. They are destroying and gutting farming and gutting infrastructure, and now they want to tell lies about industrial relations with the closing loopholes bill that Senators Lambie and Pocock have seen their way through and from which they pulled out the four key elements that are genuine, which were lumped in there to hide the egregious loophole-closing when there is no such loophole. All we need is to enforce the Fair Work Act. The provisions are already there. This goes to honesty—or lack of honesty—in the Labor Party government, and it goes to their repeated, deep, ingrained fear of scrutiny. I’ll be supporting Senators Lambie and Pocock.
