Labor’s failed management of the economy caused by insane Net Zero spending has resulted in the skyrocketing cost-of-living crisis that’s causing financial suffering in everyday Australians. This is callous behaviour from government.
We must confront the fact that the Net Zero fairy-tale is the biggest single cause of the economic downturn. Australians are seeing the result of this government’s pursuit of Net Zero goals in every aspect of life right now. If even the Bank of England accepts that fact and former Liberal Treasurer Peter Costello, along with Australia’s Reserve Bank have all publicly acknowledged Net Zero is inflationary, then the Albanese government needs to sit up and take notice.
End the Net Zero madness now.
Transcript
As the servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I agree with this matter of public importance from Senator Hughes. I’m not sure about ‘triple whammy’. Perhaps a more appropriate term is a perfect storm of government incompetence and callousness. Food essentials are dearer because successive Liberal-National and Labor-Greens governments have taken water off farmers to give to kill trees, driving up the price of irrigation water and, with them, the price of food. Profiteering from Coles and Woolworths is not helping. Both have just booked record profits on behalf of their foreign owners, including BlackRock and Vanguard. Real wages are falling—five per cent in the last year alone. Yet the inflation we’re currently experiencing is on the heads of the previous Liberal government, who, along with Labor, Greens and teals, destroyed the economy to control people and transfer wealth during COVID, in the process printing so much money that inflation was the inevitable result, as I said over and over across 2021 and 2022.
Interest rates were always going to rise from an artificial low of 0.1 per cent. The reason they’ve risen so quickly and so high is on both sides of this chamber. The largest single cause of our economic woes is the net zero fairytale. Today even the Bank of England accepts that net zero is inflationary. Former Liberal Treasurer Peter Costello and Australia’s Reserve Bank accept that net zero is inflationary. When baseload power is replaced by fairytale weather-dependent power, energy costs rise. The sun and the wind are free, true. The materials to capture that very low density energy are not. That’s why the cost per unit of energy is so high. Australians are seeing the result of net zero in their mortgages or rent payments, at the shops and in their utility bills. Money doesn’t go far enough to pay for the net zero fairytale, yet this government continues down that path regardless, despite the financial suffering this is causing everyday Australians—callous behaviour indeed.
Last sitting I was pleased to co-sponsor the Childhood Gender Transition Prohibition Bill 2023 from Senator Antic which seeks to prevent children from being surgically or chemically harmed in the name of gender identity. The Senate Committee that selects new legislation for inquiry refused to recommend this bill for a public inquiry. Senator Antic moved a motion to amend their report to require an inquiry.
The Greens opposed this amendment because they are clearly afraid of the truth coming out about child mutilation in the name of gender dysphoria. Labor opposed it in the name of wokism which is the cult they slavishly follow to avoid standing up for civil rights, decency and human values.
Why Senators Lambie, Tyrell and Pocock voted against sending our bill to a committee inquiry is anyone’s guess. It is very disappointing to see however, along with noting that so many of the Libs were out to lunch to avoid making a choice.
As I said in this speech, this is not about transphobia. It is about a child’s future and parental rights. By ensuring someone has reached the age of 18 before making such a final and irreversible decision about their future, they can avoid a lot of potential heartache and regret.
We don’t expect a child to know what they want to be when they grow up. Why would we let them decide they want to be the opposite sex?
Transcript
I speak in support of Senator Antic’s amendment. The Senate has portfolio committees to inquire into legislation for a good reason. Every committee is, from time to time, asked to inquire into a bill that raises issues of significance, as this bill does. The conventions and procedures of a committee inquiry are well suited to handing controversial issues such as this. Such inquiries are conducted all the time, because they’re essential to the legislative process. The Senate is open to denying a bill due process, so the question must be asked, why? What is it about this issue that has the Greens on the rampage, the ALP in hiding and the globalist wing of the Liberals rushing to cross the floor to avoid talking about it.
Childhood gender surgery, whether physical or chemical, is not an insignificant matter. It is life changing, often life ending and irreversible. When young gender transitioners realise that it is irreversible and they regret their decision, that can often lead to them choosing suicide, to end their life. Billions of dollars of taxpayer money is involved. More importantly, the lives and health of tens of thousands of Australian children are at risk. There’s no room to vote this matter on feelings or fear. We need to get the facts. Gendered identity surgery on children relates to their physical health and to life itself.
I appreciate that there are those even on the conservative side who refuse to question childhood gender surgery. That’s their right. Australians are increasingly asking why there is a cover up. Who are you protecting? I have received representatives from constituents from many different states approaching this issue from many different perspectives. Whenever One Nation has brought these perspectives to this place we have been shut down. That is not democracy. That is not the exercise of Senate powers without fear or favour; it is the complete opposite. It is control and shutting down. It is censorship. I have promised my constituents I will bring their perspectives to this place, and I will never take a step back from doing that fairly and honestly.
The public have turned against causing chemical and physical mutilation and harm to children in the name of gender identity. The Senate will have to deal with this issue in the near future, so let us do it now. Let us get on with the job. Send this bill to a committee and let Australia contribute to the debate. Let parents have their say. Let victims of childhood transition have their say. And, yes, let trans people have their say. I point out, that all that is done by this bill that I co-sponsor with Senator Antic and Senator Babet is found mainly in section 8. It prohibits doctors prescribing surgery or puberty blockers to people under the age of 18. That’s all it does. A health practitioner—
The PRESIDENT: Senator McKim on a point of order?
Senator McKim: The point of order is relevance. The question before the chamber does not go to the substance of the bill. It goes to whether or not the bill should be referred to a committee. I ask that Senator Roberts be relevant to the question.
The PRESIDENT: Senator McKim, these are broad-ranging discussions. Senator Roberts is being absolutely on point to the amendments before the chamber.
Senator ROBERTS: Section 8, clause 1 reads:
A health practitioner must not knowingly provide gender clinical interventions to a minor that are intended to transition the minor’s biological sex as determined by the child’s sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous profiles.
There are then details of the medical procedures and the prohibition of prescription drugs that achieve the same purpose except for the medical treatment of disorders of sexual development. Section 12 restricts the expenditure of Commonwealth money—taxpayers’ money—on treatment.
A committee improves bills, a committee scrutinises bills and a committee, above all, gives an opportunity for the people of Australia to have their say. I know many trans people. I’m pleased to meet them and proud to have them as friends. I communicate with some of them regularly. This is not about transphobia; this is about making sure that people have the right to have a say in this bill, which is absolutely essential. I commend Senator Antic’s amendment to the Senate.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/QkE61m4ziyg/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-30 13:06:142023-11-30 13:06:19Let Australians Have Their Say on Gender Transition
It’s easy to fall into the trap of saying what I don’t agree with. Today I set out the policies I do agree with. These are policies I have worked hard in the Senate to promote and will continue to do so.
Australia has natural advantages in mineral resources, agricultural land, water, sunshine and a moderate climate that in years past has made Australia the richest country in the world per capita — which is the wealth of the country divided by the number of inhabitants. Yet in recent years life has become so hard, not just under this Albanese Government but under successive Liberal and Labor Governments.
Income per capita is going backwards and opportunities we took for granted in our youth are now out of reach for today’s young Australians. Unemployment is much higher than the published rate, Australians can’t afford housing, electricity or even their groceries. Higher education is slipping from the reach of the middle class and many Australians are now unsafe in their homes and on the streets.
It does not have to be this way.
I spoke here in the Senate Chamber about the steps One Nation would take to solve the many problems Australians are facing after too many years of bad governance. Some of these steps include solving infrastructure issues, increasing productivity and wages, bringing back a people’s bank and ensuring cash continues to be available, and more.
Join us in helping our country to rebound and flourish.
Transcript
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I am often asked by people why life under Labor has become so damn tough so quickly and how a One Nation government would help. Australians are decent people and can see through government and media misinformation and disinformation. We all know when life is harder than it should be and when governments are screwing up. Out of control cost of living has resulted from a screw-up resulting from the actions of Liberal, National, Greens and Labor parties during COVID, when our government turned to the use of excessive authority instead of respecting human rights and choice. During COVID, One Nation did advocate for human rights, including quarantining the sick and letting the healthy get about life. Countries that did that are now back to normal. Life in those countries is easier because there’s no massive COVID bill to pay. Australia has a huge inflation problem now due to printing $500 billion—half a trillion dollars—to cover COVID expenses, including JobKeeper and pharma products that are now past their use-by date. Money printing causes inflation. One Nation said so at the time.
One Nation now stands ready to rebuild our economy and deliver wealth and opportunity to all Australians. We will reduce new arrivals to a level where arrivals equal departures. That’s called zero net migration, leaving room for about 130,000 new migrants each year. We will limit student visas to a level at which we can accommodate and teach students properly. We will not import more labour until those who’ve arrived have found a job. We don’t need new arrivals being handed Medicare cards, driving up government spending on health and on schools and infrastructure. We will decline to renew the visa of any new arrival who has failed to find a job or make a contribution during their visa period.
We will license construction of new and efficient coal plants, which will bring electricity bills down 50 per cent. We will cancel any weather dependent generation project that we can legally terminate, and we will ensure that wind and solar sponsors pay into a bond account to pay for the removal of those monstrosities at the end of their short life. Electricity generation should be based on the cheapest source, not the dearest, and the dearest is wind and solar. We will fast-track mining approvals and port upgrades. We will terminate the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and leave everyone’s water where it is to ensure farmers are free to grow food and fibre to feed and clothe the world, and we’ll then get together with the states to review the actual data on river health, environmental outcomes and the social and economic costs of the basin measures taken so far. More work may need to be done, though only after a full basin review. We will build infrastructure projects like the Queensland tropics water and hydro project, the northern Australia’s east-west rail line, the Abbott Point and Pilbara steel parks and the inland rail to the port of Gladstone without crossing the Condamine.
At the moment, Australia’s internet traffic from our east coast to Western Australia and vice versa routes through China. So, if you want to connect with Western Australia, it goes through China. We will build a direct connection instead and upgrade pinch points to lift our internet out of Third World status and make it First World. Human error being what it is, the recent Optus failure may happen again. Once there is network redundancy and proper planning, outages should not happen. The Optus failure is on the government’s infrastructure and communication ministers, who clearly have not done their job to ensure the redundancy we need to keep Australians connected. And we need to keep cash as a payment option, as should every business. These are just some of the many opportunities for infrastructure to harden our economy and provide wealth and opportunity for all.
Infrastructure improves economic efficiency and underscores the productivity improvements that fuel wage rises. Workers don’t need to work harder to get a productivity rise. People are already at breaking point. Government needs to work harder—faster internet, faster ports and rail, better highways, cheaper power and more water. This is how we increase productivity and, with that, the wages of everyday Australians, without inflation. We will purchase the Suncorp Bank and operate that as a model bank to provide a full range of services, including cash through Australia Post outlets. Under One Nation you will have a real local bank branch that handles cash.
We will stop foreign interests owning Australian land and residential property. The bounty of this beautiful land should accrue to those who call Australia home. Large corporations need to be held to account. For 30 years the share of the economy coming from wages has fallen, yet for 30 years the share from corporate profits has grown. There’s a point where a fair return on risk and investment has become a perceived entitlement to ever-increasing profits from rapacious and unprincipled merchant banks investing money on behalf of predatory billionaires, billionaires like Bill Gates, who we discovered just after the election is best mates with the Prime Minister.
In response to running out of other people’s money to spend, the Treasurer, in a recent media appearance, walked back his responsibility to harden and grow the national economy. One Nation does not shirk from responsibility. Join us in restoring our country for people to abound and flourish.
I expressed my disgust at the lack of data and the contradictions in the policy objectives of various legislation the Albanese Labor government is producing.
This parliament stopped making decisions long ago on issues relating to health, the environment and climate based on data. It now actually contradicts the data. Yet no one has the self-awareness to notice let alone care.
Thanks to the Albanese government, we’re now sending millions of dollars to the people of Tuvalu because their sea levels are rising when the data shows that in fact their island is growing in size and the sea levels are not rising. At a time when Australians are doing it hard from the rising cost-of-living, the PM wants to send millions of dollars to the Pacific over fear the people ‘might’ lose their homes based on flawed climate theories with no data. This is costing our country its future. We’re already feeling the pain as a result of this flawed process and it will hurt our grandchildren even more.
We urgently need responsible governance with policies based on real data for the good of all Australians.
Transcript
Senator Hanson has already outlined our party’s response to this, so I won’t go into that. I want to make it very clear that Pacific islanders, in my experience, are wonderful people. They’re very friendly. Fiji is the friendliest country on Earth, so I’m told. We have many Pacific islanders in the south of Brisbane. I’ve come across them in the regions, like when I worked in Kalgoorlie. They’re stars in the NRL. They’re wonderful people. I’ve got no issue with the people of the Pacific islands.
What I have got an issue with are the people in this chamber, not just those who are here now. The people in the Senate are largely responsible for destroying this country. I’m going to talk briefly on how. For five days last week and for a half a day today, we discussed a bill about sea dumping, all based on the stuff that comes out of the south end of a northbound bull. It’s complete rubbish. In COVID, tens of thousands of people died needlessly to something that was supposedly based on the science. It’s now coming out that the injections were not safe and not effective. We were told the science was there. What a lie. We are spending trillions of dollars in forgone income—heaven knows how much our children and grandchildren will spend and how many opportunities they will lose—on climate. I’ll come to that in a minute. There’s not one shred of evidence that has ever been given in this parliament.
We talk about the environment. All kinds of things are done in the name of the environment, without any evidence: the Murray-Darling Basin, no evidence; the Coorong lakes in South Australia at the Murray mouth, no evidence. In fact, these are contradicting the evidence, and everyone here is asleep. This parliament stopped making decisions on data long ago, and now it actually contradicts the data, and no-one is awake enough to even care. Trillions of dollars being spent and contradictions of the actual real-world data characterise decisions made in this parliament, characterise policies made by the major parties in this parliament and characterise legislation. In my previous work as an engineer and as an executive, if we ignored the data, people died—they died—just like they did because of COVID injections. Science is often touted in this chamber as justification for various policies, yet it’s never presented. Science is wonderful. It gave us objectivity. It gave us freedom from the days when, prior to science, the biggest muscle, the strongest financial warrior, the strongest religion prevailed. Then suddenly science emerged and gave us objectivity, and suddenly freedom emerged. Let me tell you briefly what science is. The first thing is that it relies on empirical, scientific data. It’s based on objective data, objective observations. And no-one in this chamber does that on climate, COVID or the environment.
But the data is not enough. When I first came into the chamber, back in 2016, I used that term, ’empirical data’ and all the journalists and some of the politicians scurried off to find out what ’empirical’ means. It means objective, measured data. But that by itself is not enough. It needs to be presented with a logical scientific framework that proves cause and effect. No-one has presented the logical scientific points that show that carbon dioxide from human activity affects climate and needs to be changed. We now have Pacific Islanders supported to come here on that basis. Yet it’s never been done. A third part of science is that it’s backed up with hard references, scientific references—and not just peer reviewed, because peer reviewed can be done by anyone, but actually based upon assessing the papers objectively. They’re the three criteria: empirical scientific data, logical scientific points that prove cause and effect.
With the whole climate scam, the climate fraud, no-one anywhere in the world has pointed out the specific quantified effect of carbon dioxide from human activity on any aspect of climate: not temperatures, not snowfall, not droughts, not storm frequency or severity or duration—nothing. There’s not one shred of basis for policy, because that is the basis for policy. There’s not one shred of evidence. I’ve even heard a list of scientists who are afraid of the climate—but no science. We even have a minister, who’s sitting in the chair now, who I asked for evidence. She gave me 25-plus papers, and not one shred of evidence. Some of them even said there is no warming going on. It’s amazing, yet she listed them as evidence.
And we hear things like ‘the science says’, and not one person has distinguished themselves by characterising any of that above natural variability, as Senator Hanson said earlier today. Natural variability is cyclical, inherent, natural variation. That’s all we see in the climate signal. And the Greens won’t debate me. I first asked Senator Larissa Waters on Thursday 7 October 2010, at a public forum at New Farm, where we both shared the dais, along with three other people. I challenged her to a debate. She jumped to her feet faster than I have ever seen her move and said, ‘I will not debate you!’ She came up to me after the forum and said, ‘I will not debate you.’ I challenged her again, along with Mark Butler, Labor’s climate spokesman at the time, on Tuesday 14 June 2016 at the Solar Council Forum, where I was not a participant, and I challenged him to a debate. Both ran from the challenge. Monday 9 September 2019 was the first day I challenged the Greens officially in the Senate—Senator Di Natale and Senator Larissa Waters. Never have they debated with me. They will not present the science. They won’t treat the Senate with the respect of presenting empirical scientific data and logical scientific point—never; I’m still waiting.
And why won’t they debate? Because they know they haven’t got the science. Yet we’re now sending, thanks to the government, millions of dollars to the people of Tuvalu because their sea levels are rising, when the data shows that that is not happening anywhere near that extent, and it’s all natural.
One of the two biggest problems we have in this country is shoddy governance, driven by a lack of data and a lack of objectivity, reinforced by denial. The second thing is ceding our sovereignty. That doesn’t apply in this debate, but we are ceding the future of our children and the future of our country by not using objective empirical scientific data within logical scientific points.
One Nation had a number of comments to make on the recent move to extend the judicial immunity received by Division 1 Federal Court Judges to Division 2 Judges.
Most people can’t afford to go to court in the first place, let alone stump up money again for an appeal if the court gets it wrong.
Senator Hanson and I raised a number of issues about how people access a remedy given this bill would block off one way to get justice.
I’m interested in your thoughts on the questions we raised and the minister’s responses.
Transcript
Senator HANSON: I have concerns about this bill, the Federal Courts Legislation Amendment (Judicial Immunity) Bill 2023, and on behalf of the Australian people I’m going to make my concerns known. It may sound good, but we had the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court, and that’s because the two courts were separated. We had the Federal Circuit Court, which dealt with more important issues like international law and property settlements. Those cases that were not settled in the lower courts were brought to the upper court. The Family Court was basically a lot of judges to deal with family law and migration issues, and they became the Federal Circuit and Family Court. The two courts were merged under the coalition government, which I fully supported as I think it was a good move. My concern and the concern of the Australian people about this legislation is giving these judges immunity on their decisions. That concerns me. How will they be held to account?
I was told people can appeal. But usually, after they have gone through the family law courts, they are drained. A lot of people cannot take it anymore. Fed up with the court system, they actually are desperate. They’ve probably sold their home, so they have nowhere to live, and their finances are at rock bottom. They are at rock bottom themselves, and it seems a decision can be handed down by a judge who cannot then be held to account for the decision. A lot of these parents that are brought before the family law court—and I have dealt with them over the years—are really so distraught because most of the time a lot of these parents don’t even get to see their children. They have no time with their children, and that is the decision of the courts. Why aren’t the judges held to account?
You can say they can appeal, but, like I said, they can’t afford to appeal. Who will hold these judges to account? These judges must be held to account, just as I believe that bureaucrats should be held to account and politicians should be held to account on decisions that are made that have an impact on the Australian people. I think that just saying, ‘No, let’s treat them all the same and give them immunity,’ means that people don’t have recourse. They say you can appeal; you can write and say, ‘The judge didn’t read these papers,’ or, ‘The judge made the wrong decision.’ How are they going to prove that? How are you actually going to say to a judge, ‘You didn’t read it’? It’s his word against yours that he read it. That’s the decision he’s made. How is a person going to hold a judge to account when appealing their sentence? It’s not going to happen. We all know that. A lot of these judges are a protected species, the same as bureaucrats and politicians. I think there has to be some accountability for the people of this nation.
We see what happens to a lot of these families. The Labor government just passed their Family Law Amendment Bill, which I opposed as well. As I kept saying, where is the accountability there? You talk about the rights of the child, yet you forget to talk about the rights of the parents to see their children. But it’s like, ‘Oh well; it’s just the rights of the child.’ No-one could even answer the questions in this place. You just go back to the same old hearsay about the rights of the child. Where are the rights of the Australian people to have that protection?
What I’m hearing also is that some parents are fed up with the decisions that deny their rights to see their children for years on end for no real reason whatsoever. They’ve been blocked, or they can’t afford to take it back to court to get some justice. They are absolutely devastated. Where are their rights? You deny them their rights, but you actually want to protect the judges. You want to give them immunity—from what? It’s immunity from the people being able to hold them to account. I don’t get it; I don’t understand. And this is being supported by both sides of parliament. I don’t know how the Greens or the crossbench feel about this. But I just don’t feel it’s right. People should have the opportunity to hold these judges to account.
I’ve heard also, ‘Well, the judges will be in fear of handing down their decisions because there’s not going to be immunity.’ I hear of a class action against some of these judges and the decisions being made. If you actually bring this in, they will not be able to have a class action against these judges and the decisions that they’ve made, so, for the Australian people, you’re shutting down an opportunity to hold them accountable for the decisions that they have made. This affects so many families and so many people out there. I’d like this to go to committee. I would like to be able to ask the minister some questions with regard to this. I won’t be supporting this to be shut down. I’d like it to go to committee so that I can ask some further questions of the minister with regard to this bill.
Senator WATT: The Federal Courts Legislation Amendment (Judicial Immunity) Bill 2023 would make an important amendment to ensure judicial independence and support access to justice in our largest and busiest federal court: the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, division 2. The bill would achieve this by clarifying the scope of judicial immunity for judges of this court.
The common-law doctrine of judicial immunity serves a critical purpose, and it is important that its scope and operation are clear. Where there is the potential for uncertainty or inconsistency in its application, it is appropriate for legislation to provide that clarity. It is essential for our justice system that judges are free to decide matters before them in accordance with their assessment of the facts and their understanding of the law without the threat of being sued. This amendment would ensure judicial independence, support each person coming before the court to receive an impartial and fair decision, and minimise the risk of vexatious litigation aimed inappropriately at judges from those who are dissatisfied with the outcomes of their decisions. The bill would not affect a person’s right to challenge judicial decisions through the appeal process or the ability for parliament to consider the removal of a judge from office under our Constitution on the ground of proven misbehaviour or incapacity. The prospective nature of the bill would not impact on matters currently before the courts or any causes of action that may have already accrued.
The amendments the bill would make are simple. The bill would provide that judges of division 2 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court have the same immunity as judges of division 1 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court. By extending the more settled and broader common law immunity that applies to a judge of a federal superior court to judges of division 2 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court, the bill would achieve the aim of providing clarity but would allow room for the common law doctrine to be refined over time.
The bill would also make consequential amendments to four provisions across the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Act 2021 and the Family Law Act 1975. These consequential changes would ensure that, following the change to division 2 judges’ immunity, there is no confusion about what protections apply to certain individuals who are exercising quasi-judicial functions. Judicial immunity ensures that judges are able to make independent decisions free from any external influence outside of the law itself. In this way, judicial immunity is about protecting everyone who comes to a court. It does not mean judges are unaccountable, and this amendment is not about protecting the personal interests of judges. We are all entitled to a fair and public hearing by an impartial court, and clarity about the scope of judicial immunity is an important prerequisite to achieving this. This bill would provide necessary clarity about judicial immunity and, in turn, assure the timely and effective administration of justice.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
In Committee
Bill—by leave—taken as a whole.
Senator HANSON: Minister, under this bill, who would be protected by this immunity?
Senator CHISHOLM: The measure would provide that a judge of division 2 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia has the same immunity as a judge of division 1 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia.
Senator HANSON: Would you please explain what immunity is given to the judges of division 1 of the family court.
Senator CHISHOLM: Case law suggests that judicial immunity applies to judges of inferior courts more narrowly than it does to their superior court counterparts. This has created uncertainty for litigants and for judges of the Federal Circuit and Family Court division 2. The bill would minimise the risk of vexatious litigation aimed inappropriately at division 2 judges from those who are dissatisfied with the outcomes of their decisions. This bill would also support the underlying aim of the doctrine of judicial immunity by enabling division 2 judges to discharge their judicial functions impartially, fearlessly and in accordance with their assessment of the facts and their understanding of the law without undue influence or the threat of being sued.
Senator HANSON: If a person was not happy with a decision of the courts and if you’d allowed immunity to that judge, what course of action would the person have?
Senator CHISHOLM: The appeal process.
Senator HANSON: Through the appeal process, you would talk about the decision that judges have brought down. As I said in my remarks, a lot of these people are at their wit’s end, and they don’t have any more money to throw at solicitors to actually put their case forward. What other process could there possibly be for them if they feel that they’ve already spent years waiting for the courts to make the decision? A lot of the parents that I’ve spoken to have said that they feel that there is a bias against them in the courts because of who they are and because of lies that have been told.
My concern is that I’ve spoken to a lot of parents who go to the courts and give their evidence, and in the court system there is perjury, yet they don’t feel that the person who is going against them in their case—their ex-partner, ex-wife or whatever—is being held accountable. Lies are being told—and, I’ve got to say, by men as well. Lies are told in court. There’s no accountability in the court system. There’s no accountability for perjury. The judges don’t pull them up for perjury. Why are we then giving the judges immunity when the judges themselves will not adhere to the rules of the court, where perjury is not allowed?
Senator CHISHOLM: The Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 and the FCFCOA Act empower the heads of jurisdiction to consider, investigate and handle complaints about Federal Court and FCFCOA judges.
Senator ROBERTS: What does that mean?
Senator CHISHOLM: I’ve answered the question.
Senator ROBERTS: Could you please translate that into everyday language.
Senator HANSON: Senator Roberts asked a very direct question of the minister with regard to an explanation of the statement that he just made. In light of that, please make the statement in layman’s terms so that even I can understand it, if you would please. I would like to understand what you’ve just said in this chamber. Can you please explain?
Senator CHISHOLM: As I said, the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 and the FCFCOA Act empower the heads of jurisdiction to consider, investigate and handle complaints about Federal Court and FCFCOA judges. So that’s the additional process. Obviously they’ve got the appeals process that someone could be entitled to pursue legally as well. You’re asking about what additional measures there were. That was the additional measure.
Senator HANSON: If someone feels that they’ve been wrongly treated in the court system, that someone has perjured them as a witness on the stand or that they’ve perjured themselves, what course of action do they have if the judge will not take that into consideration? How does that respondent deal with it? If the judge can’t be held to account for the decisions that they make, you’re basically giving them complete immunity if they make the wrong decisions, such as when they haven’t run their court correctly and haven’t pulled up anyone for perjury.
Senator CHISHOLM: It’s the same answer as the one before.
Senator ROBERTS: How many times have the additional measures been used?
Senator CHISHOLM: I don’t know. I’m happy to see if I can take advice on that and come back to you.
Senator ROBERTS: My concern is the legal system is a closed system. I can give you an example to labour the point: someone has been trying to get justice for nine years. He’s been thwarted by the plaintiff, who is a very large corporation, and thwarted by the lawyers representing him and the major corporation. This is a closed system, a closed club. How can people be reassured that this will not lead to less openness?
Senator CHISHOLM: The courts act independently.
Senator HANSON: What we have a big problem with in our society is the time judges take handing down their decisions. It can actually be as long as one year, two years or even longer before they hand down their decision. By you giving them immunity—meaning someone can’t sue them when for it—where does it leave these people who are so frustrated with these judges that have taken so long to hand down their decisions? What recourse do they have? What can these people do while waiting for these long answers?
Senator CHISHOLM: The standard complaints process would enable them to complain to the chief justice of that court.
Senator HANSON: I won’t keep this going. I have my grave concerns about this bill. I think you’re giving immunity to judges when they need to be made accountable. I think I’ve made my comments quite strongly on that. My concern is for the general public—that they don’t have recourse anywhere. You’re shutting the gate on them. You’re not making these judges accountable to the public, and it’s a real shame. It’s a closed shop, and I hear that constantly.
People are distraught. They don’t know where to go. They turn to politicians. I tell them all the time that it’s a separation of power, that we can’t get involved in this and that they have to keep fighting on. Like I said, when I talk to people on the telephone or when I get called aside in a shopping centre or wherever I go, people tell me their stories of how they’ve been separated from their families, from their children. They’re distraught. They’re at the bones of their backside; they’ve got no more left in them. They’ve got no money. They’ve lost their houses, and this just goes on and on. Yet you’re in this chamber telling me that you’re going to give the judges immunity. Where’s the immunity for the public?
You passed further legislation just last week on the family law courts. You’re going to do more damage to the families there. What’s going to happen in child support? Who knows what you’re going to do with that one when you bring that bill before this parliament! I feel that the people of Australia haven’t been listened to. You don’t have the answers. Like I said, you’re just protecting the judges, who are in fear, who don’t want to be sued. How many judges have been sued? One. Therefore we must make sure that it doesn’t happen to another judge. Yet hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by the court system and what it’s done to the people of Australia.
I don’t believe this. You’re so quick to move to protect the judges from being sued but you don’t worry about the Australian people. You don’t worry about getting it right in your family bills and law bills that are being passed in this place. It’s a real shame, and I’m sure with the next one you pull up, the child support bill, you’ll be doing the same—slapping people in the face. Anyway, I’ve made my point here. I’m sure that the coalition and Labor will cuddle up beside each other on this bill again and pass it with no real oversight or thinking about what the public have to deal with now. One Nation will be opposing this.
Senator CHISHOLM: We don’t see judicial immunity as for the personal benefit of judges; we see it as something that protects everyone who comes to court by ensuring judges can make independent decisions free from external influence. That’s why we think this is important.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, I acknowledge the fact that there are two sides to this. What Senator Hanson and I keep hearing are essentially two points. There’s a hell of a lot of regulation, and that regulation, wherever it’s immense, favours the big boys: the big corporations, the wealthy. The legal system is becoming less and less accessible to everyday Australians—along with housing. Is the government doing anything to make it more accessible?
Senator CHISHOLM: As I said, this is actually about judicial immunity. It protects everyone who comes to court by ensuring judges can make independent decisions free from external influence. We think that benefits everyone who comes before the court in this instance.
The TEMPORARY CHAIR (Senator Hughes): The question is that the bill stand as printed.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/KuqDnpA9HzM/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-24 13:51:132023-11-24 13:51:17Debate on Extending Judicial Immunity for Federal Court Judges
Parliamentarians no longer serve the needs of the people. There are some changes I’ve noticed in the behaviour of the ministers and bureaucrats.
These were brought home to me in the most recent senate estimates. Truth will always win in the long run, and public servants would do well to remember that fact.
Transcript
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, in my criticism of this and previous governments I often use the word ‘accountability’. Here’s why. When I was young, my local member was my electorate’s representative in Canberra. Now my local member is Canberra’s representative in my electorate. Parliamentarians don’t work now for the people; the people work for parliament. In Canberra, decisions are taken in the best interests of the predatory billionaires who are behind every curtain and pulling every string.
This fundamental change in the nature of parliament was brought home in the most recent Senate estimates. When asking questions on behalf of my constituents, the default position of those opposite was not to answer the question. Public Service speak has devolved into word soup, with no meaning, no accountability and often no truth. I have never seen more obsequious answers from public servants in my life. I’ve never seen ministers more interested in preventing truth from coming out instead of providing truthful oversight, and I have never seen committee chairs dedicating their sessions to supressing truth.
Senate estimates is a parody of governance—a parody which sounds something like this: ‘Senator: “Minister, the witness is stalling. Please instruct the witness to answer the question.” Minister: “Why would I do that?” Senator: “Because it’s your job to be transparent and truthful to the public.” Minister: “No, Senator, it’s my job to cover up the mistakes of the last government so they will in turn cover up mine.” Committee chair: “Senator, your time is up.”‘ What a farce! What a disgusting display I saw two weeks ago. Shameful. Everyday Australians are facing a huge challenge from insane immigration population growth, cost-of-living pressures and unaffordable mortgages, and this government thinks the answer is to cover up, deflect and lie. Have you forgotten that in the end truth always comes out?
https://img.youtube.com/vi/dLj72A_OqXg/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-24 13:15:102023-11-24 13:15:12A Government Accountable to Nobody is Trusted by None
When the ANZ CEO, the outgoing Chair of the Future Fund and the Reserve Bank all tell us that immigration and the net zero transition are inflationary, the Government should stop and listen. Instead they are pushing ahead with a massive arrivals program that is causing inflation and making life harder for everyday Australians.
The cost of net zero has been estimated by Net Zero Australia at $1.5 trillion. We are only a few hundred billion into that, so strap in, life is going to get harder still. Labor advertise themselves as the party of the worker but life for workers is harder under Labor.
The tragedy is that we already had a great electricity capacity and the world’s most affordable, reliable electricity. ALP/Greens/Liberal/Teal globalist puppets are tearing that down and building a worse option – weather dependent power.
One Nation will reverse this immigration and energy net zero perfect storm of financial and social mismanagement. We will reverse this perfect storm of dishonesty and stupidity.
Transcript
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I draw the Senate’s attention to remarks on Monday by ANZ Chief Executive Officer Shane Elliott. He said:
Australia’s massive green energy transition and immigration boom will further boost rising house prices.
Lending regulations have made this the most challenging lending environment in 30 years.
The 30 years reference is to Labor Prime Minister Keating’s 17 per cent interest rate nightmare. Labor has form on making life harder. These remarks are confirmation the government’s insane levels of arrivals are one cause of the inflation that’s hurting everyday Australians. The outgoing future fund chair, Peter Costello, warned Australia’s runaway immigration levels represent ‘an enormous adjustment for the property sector and the Reserve Bank’s inflation fight’.
Why is Labor, once called the party of the worker, pursuing an immigration policy that is creating high inflation and harming Australian workers so badly? Australia did not vote for high immigration, and Prime Minister Albanese has no mandate for this insanity, this inhumanity. Nor was the Prime Minister forthcoming in the last election about the true cost of net zero. Net zero Australia puts the cost at $1.5 trillion by 2050. If life feels hard now, we’re only a few hundred billion into the $1.5 trillion. Buckle up, this is going to hurt!
The tragedy is that we already had a great electricity capacity and the world’s most affordable, reliable electricity. And you globalist puppets are tearing it down and building a worse option: weather dependent power. Insane! As Shane Elliott asked, is this the society we want, where people can’t get a home loan or get a loan to start a business? Labor’s answer is clearly yes. That’s what life under Labor means—no home, no business, no future, no energy.
One Nation will reverse this immigration and energy net zero perfect storm of financial and social mismanagement. We will reverse this perfect storm of dishonesty and stupidity and callousness.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/Ysf6VmS7dOY/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-24 11:15:472023-11-24 11:15:51Labor Has Form on Making Life Harder
Treasurer Jim Chalmer plans to cut infrastructure spending at a time when Australia needs to increase its productive capacity.
I make the point that by investing in productive capacity, Australia can increase its productivity and avoid the supply chain shortages which drive up prices of goods.
If the Treasurer is hunting for spending cuts, he need look no further than the federal and state subsidies amounting to $10 billion per quarter. That’s $4 billion more than before COVID.
One Nation knows how to fight inflation. Cut immigration, ditch the UN Net Zero pipe dream, build productive capacity and infrastructure, and stop creating inflation in the first place. The Reserve Bank printed $500 billion out of thin air in response to COVID and now we are seeing the consequences.
Australia does best as a productive nation. Let’s get back to basics and allow Australians to prosper.
Transaction
The coalition is correct to point out the lunacy of Treasurer Jim Chalmers’s comments that he may cut infrastructure funding to fight inflation. The best way to fix inflation is to increase productivity, including through productive infrastructure and productive capacity. In fact, the best way to fix inflation is to make sure it doesn’t happen in the first place. That means stopping the Reserve Bank from creating $500 billion out of thin air and dropping it from helicopters as they did for Scott Morrison in the response to COVID. Never again. That means stopping the record level of net immigration, estimated at 500,000 this year—half a million! That means pulling back on the 2.3 million visa holders in the country right now who are adding pressure to the housing crisis, driving up demand, driving rentals up and driving inflation.
To the Treasurer, if you’re looking for spending cuts to fight inflation, look at subsidies. Australian federal and state governments are still handing out $10 billion in subsidies per quarter—$4 billion more than before COVID. Treasurer, if you really want to cut some infrastructure to fight inflation, cut any money you are putting toward wind, solar, batteries and pumped hydro, like Snowy 2.0. That’s the dog in New South Wales, by the way. That will have a double positive effect, taking the heat out of house construction prices and dropping power prices, which contribute to almost every other product in the country.
Let’s get serious about fighting inflation. Here’s how you do it: cut immigration; ditch the United Nations net zero pipe dream; build productive capacity and productive infrastructure, like ports, dams, railways and power stations; and don’t create inflation in the first place, printing money out of thin air in electronic journal entries as the Reserve Bank has admitted. Get back to sound basics that enable the productive capacity of Australians to prosper.
Whether it’s called “under seabed injection of carbon dioxide” or any other ridiculous name, this latest carbon capture scheme is really just about making climate scam billionaires even richer. It’s all in the name of ‘Net Zero’ with exactly zero known about the consequences.
The fake environmentalists can’t leave nature alone – just like the koalas being euthanised to make way for wind turbines, or the damaged solar panels leaking toxic heavy metals into waterways.
Net Zero lunatics are once again intending to harm the environment to save it. Yet it’s all for nothing. We DO NOT and CANNOT, in any way, significantly affect the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide over and above the natural variation.
As seen throughout history, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not determine temperatures. In addition, increased industrialisation does not herald increased carbon dioxide, nor does a global lockdown result in a cut.
Australia must ditch the United Nations World Economic Forum, the net zero pipe dream and all its insane offshoots, including the Environment Protection Sea Dumping Amendment Using new Technologies to Fight Climate Change Bill 2023.
Transcript
As a servant to the fine people of Queensland and Australia, I want to ask a question. If you want a perfect example of how insane the UN’s net zero pipedream is, look no further than this bill, the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023. Why? We’re going to spend billions on pulling natural trace gas out of the air and then spend billions more to try and inject it under the seabed and hope it stays there. Science and nature show that it cannot.
You may have heard of the concept of carbon capture and storage, commonly abbreviated to CCS. The climate activists claim we need carbon capture and storage to save the world. That’s a lie. I’ll get to that later. But no-one really talks about what storage means in these schemes. It seems our government and bureaucrats and our opposition don’t want to talk about the details, because anyone who explains carbon dioxide storage out loud will immediately realise the concept is stupid and dishonest.
One might think that a bill titled ‘environment protection sea dumping’ would be an amendment saying, ‘You can’t dump things in the sea to protect the environment.’ Think again! The fake environmentalists have decided that the best way to protect the environment is to dump stuff in the sea. Just like the koalas being euthanised to make way for wind turbines or damaged solar panels leaking toxic heavy metals into waterways, the United Nations net zero plan again involves killing the environment to save it.
Carbon capture and storage can be summarised by the following steps: carbon dioxide—a harmless, colourless, odourless, tasteless, natural trace, atmospheric gas that is generated from the burning of materials containing carbon atoms, including digesting food in animal guts and including our own guts, burning trees and bushfires and burning coal in power stations to produce among the cheapest forms of electricity available for human progress. In the case of carbon capture and sequestration or storage, carbon dioxide is captured at the point of production. Carbon dioxide is transported then via ship and/or pipeline to a storage location. The carbon dioxide—wait for it—is injected underneath the seabed via drilling for storage, theoretically permanently. It’s theoretically permanent because there is no guarantee that the carbon dioxide will stay there.
History is full of episodes of spills where companies couldn’t contain the oil they were drilling for. Natural leakage from reservoirs has been the case for nature since time immemorial. Even if it were necessary to bury carbon dioxide—and it’s not—there’s no guarantee it will stay there after being hit by some type of undersea seismic activity or even a very common underocean earthquake.
It’s worth remembering that carbon dioxide makes up just 0.04 per cent of the Earth’s atmosphere. Human beings are responsible for just three per cent of the annual production of carbon dioxide, and Australia contributes just 1.3 per cent of that three per cent. Yet the net-zero advocates tell us that, if we take a fraction of our carbon dioxide and pay an oil-drilling company to dump it in the ocean by injecting it under the seabed, we can save the world. Wow! Amazing! Obviously it’s a bloody lie, an absurd lie.
Carbon capture and storage is just another scheme designed to make some multinational companies rich at the expense of Australians, and you lot are falling for it, while adding huge costs to power bills that will needlessly continue increasing, killing standards of living and raising the cost of living needlessly. That’s what gets on my goat—you’re doing it wilfully.
The second part of this bill deals with allowing permits for research into ocean fertilisation. Ocean fertilisation is an untested, radical experiment with our planet’s natural environment. It involves dumping elements like iron, nitrogen or phosphates into the ocean in the hope that stimulated phytoplankton will take more carbon dioxide out of the air. They’re shutting farms down in Queensland, where I come from, because they say farmers are putting too much nitrogen into the ocean.
One Nation supports research—scientific research, empirical data driven research. We’ll never make any progress unless we test new ways of doing things. Research must be balanced though between the potential risks and the potential benefits. When it comes to ocean fertilisation, an untested form of geoengineering, the potential risks are too great and the benefits are non-existent.
Let’s be clear what we are talking about here. Ocean fertilisation is the wholesale dumping of chemicals into the ocean with the intention of creating systemic changes to the ecosystem, creating unplanned systemic changes to the ocean—unknown. Unintended consequences are almost guaranteed. If it works, we have no idea how a huge systemic change will affect the environment and the ecosystem. The potential risks are unquantifiable and frightening.
The supposed benefit—sequestering more carbon dioxide out of the air—is negligible. We do not need to remove more carbon dioxide out of the air. Carbon dioxide is the lifeblood of vegetation on this planet. No-one has been able to prove to me that human produced carbon dioxide affects temperature more than natural variation does, because they can’t provide that evidence. Ocean fertilisation has huge risks and no potential benefits. It should be opposed.
I’ll sum up this bill for the Australian people. The UN’s net-zero lunatics are yet again saying they need to kill the environment to save it. The Greens; the teals, including Senator David Pocock; the Liberals-Nationals; and Labor all blindly sign up and hurt families, industries and national security. Australia must ditch the United Nations World Economic Forum net-zero pipedream and all of its insane requirements, including the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023. One Nation will be opposing this bill designed to enrich predatory globalist billionaires who donate to the Greens and the teals. Every senator, by the way, should do the same—oppose this bill.
Now I turn to the bill’s underlying premise. I’ll go through the carbon dioxide reality. We’re exhaling it. Every one of us in this chamber is exhaling it. Every human and every animal is exhaling it. When we breathe all animals, including koalas, multiply the concentration of carbon dioxide 100 to 125 times. We take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at 0.04 per cent and we exhale it at four to five per cent. We increase the concentration 100 to 125 times.
Carbon dioxide is essential for all life on earth. This is a fact sheet on carbon dioxide. It’s just 0.04 per cent of the Earth’s air—four-hundredths of one per cent. It is scientifically described as a trace gas because there’s bugger all of it. It is non-toxic and not noxious. Senator Hanson-Young called it toxic. That is straight out wrong! It’s highly beneficial to and essential for plants. Greenhouses inject the stuff into greenhouses to stimulate the growth of plants. In the past, when carbon dioxide levels on this planet were four times higher than today—and they have been 135 times higher than today, naturally, in the fairly recent past—it has resulted in earth flourishing as plants and animals thrive with the benefits of carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide is colourless, odourless, tasteless. It’s natural. Nature produces 97 per cent of the carbon dioxide produced annually on our planet. It does not discolour the air. It does not impair the quality of water or soil. It does not create light, heat, noise or radio activity. It does not distort our senses. It does not degrade the environment nor impair its usefulness nor render it offensive. It’s not a pollutant. It does not harm ecosystems; it is essential for ecosystems. It does not harm plants and animals; it is essential for plants and animals. It does not cause discomfort, instability or disorder. It does not accumulate. It does not upset nature’s balance. It remains in the air for only a short time before nature cycles it back into plants, animal tissue and natural accumulations—and oceans. It does not contaminate, apart from nature’s extremely high and concentrated volumes close to some volcanos, and then only locally and briefly. Under rare natural conditions, when in concentrations in amounts far higher than anything humans can produce—that we can dream of producing—temporarily due to nature, that’s the only time it can harm. It is not a pollutant.
As I said a minute ago, in the past it has been up to 130 times higher in concentration in our planet’s current atmosphere than today. It’s not listed as a pollutant. Prime Minister Gillard invoked the term ‘pollutant’, ‘carbon pollution’—it’s not even carbon. It’s carbon dioxide; it’s a gas. President Obama then copied Prime Minister Gillard on his visit to Australia during her tenure. That’s where we got ‘carbon pollution’. It doesn’t exist. So koalas exhaling carbon dioxide are polluters.
We do not control the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We couldn’t even if we wanted to. In 2009, after the global financial crisis, and in 2020, during the COVID mismanagement, we caused severe recessions around the world. In 2009, we actually didn’t have one in Australia because we were exporting coal and iron ore, but, nonetheless, there were global recessions in 2009 and 2020. All of a sudden, the use of hydrocarbon fuels—coal, oil and natural gas—decreased dramatically. Exactly what we’re being told to do by the teals, by the Greens, by the Labor Party, by the Liberal Party and by the National Party. What happened to the level of carbon dioxide outside in the atmosphere? Did it start going down? No. Did it even inflect slightly and decrease the rate of increase? No. It continued increasing. Why? Because nature controls the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
According to the UN IPCC, the fraudulent climate science mob, the oceans of the planet contain 50 to 70 times the amount of carbon dioxide in dissolved form than in the earth’s entire atmosphere—50 to 70 times as much than when you invoke Henry’s law of chemistry, which has been known for a couple of hundred years, and the level of carbon dioxide in the air depends on the quantity dissolved in the oceans and varies with the temperature of the oceans because solubility of carbon dioxide in the oceans varies with temperature. In the annual graph of carbon dioxide levels, you can see the seasonal variation in the Northern Hemisphere and in the Southern Hemisphere. Carbon dioxide levels follow the temperatures of the ocean, especially the sea surfaces. We do not significantly in any way affect the level, and we cannot affect the level over and above natural variation due to nature.
The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not determine the temperature, unlike what the Greens, the teals, Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals are telling us. There has been massive increase in human production of carbon dioxide from China, India, Brazil, Europe, Russia, Asia and America, yet temperatures have been flat—flat!—for 28 years. Not warming; not cooling; flat. The trend during the massive industrialisation during the Second World War and the post-war economic boom saw temperatures from 1936 to 1976 fall. Over 40 years of massive industrialisation, the longest temperature trend in the last 160 years was cooling. Remember the predictions that we were going to be in for an ice age? In the 1880s and 1890s in our country, temperatures were warmer by far.
Variation in everything in nature is natural. There’s inherent natural variation within larger cycles of increasing and decreasing temperature, rainfall, drought cycles and storm cycles. The CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the United Nations have failed to show any change in any climate factor, just natural variation. It’s not climate change; it’s climate variation. Every uptick is heralded as catastrophic and every downtick is silently ignored.
What’s driving this political scam, this climate fraud? Ignorant, dishonest and gutless politicians are enabling scammers making money from it. Consider John Howard. In 2007, I sent him a letter of appreciation for his role as Prime Minister before I started researching climate. During his term, he introduced the National Electricity Market and the Renewable Energy Target, the first emissions trading scheme policy for a major party, and his government stole farmers’ rights to use their property. He admitted in London in 2013 that he was an agnostic on climate science. Then we have parasites like Holmes a Court, Twiggy Forrest and Turnbull keeping it alive, relying on the subsidy. What’s keeping it alive? Teals such as David Pocock and Greens such as Senator Whish-Wilson and Senator Hanson-Young, invoking fear and doom, yet never providing the logical scientific points and empirical scientific evidence. I encourage people to watch their speeches and see the dearth of scientific evidence.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/HSzDihp5YA4/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2023-11-23 15:50:462023-11-23 15:50:50Killing the Environment to Save It, Again – Sea Dumping for Net-Zero
I spoke in support of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Continuing ACCC Monitoring of Domestic Airline Competition Bill 2023) introduced by the Coalition.
The Morrison Government first put airline monitoring in place in June 2020. For some reason, the Albanese Government decided not to continue this monitoring. Yet, the ACCC’s own reporting has identified ongoing issues due to the lack of competition in the industry — issues with the quality of service, running behind schedule and cancelled flights are becoming far more common.
Qantas and Virgin are failing to keep to expected standards of operation while exploiting their market power to protect their market share. This is crony capitalism and indefensible. Only healthy competition will ensure the airlines maintain their standards.
We have one flag, we are one community and we are one nation. Restoring and defending competition in oligopolistic markets is a government obligation, an obligation that One Nation will work to ensure the government fulfils, for the benefit of airline passengers and the whole country.
Transcript
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak to the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Continuing ACCC Monitoring of Domestic Airline Competition) Bill 2023, and I commend Senators McKenzie and Smith for advancing this bill. The bill amends the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 to direct the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC, to continue its monitoring program of prices, costs and profits in the Australian domestic airline industry.
The Morrison government initiated this monitoring on 19 June 2020, and it sunset in June this year. The Albanese government decided not to continue the monitoring. Perhaps former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce asked the Prime Minister in one of their many meetings for a favour, a favour for Alan Joyce and his masters, Qantas’s shareholders BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Goldman Sachs and their cronies. All love monopolies and oligopolies! This Labor government seems to have opened more doors for captains of industry than it does for everyday Australians.
The ACCC’s Airline competition in Australia report from June 2023 identified ongoing issues connected to insufficient competition within Australia’s domestic airline industry. The lack of competition has led to higher airfares and a decline in service quality. Cancellations have increased from one per cent before COVID to six per cent now. On-time running has fallen from a high of 92 per cent before COVID to just 70 per cent now, which, admittedly, is an improvement on the 64 per cent Qantas and Virgin were managing just a few months ago. By any measure, this poor performance is unacceptable. I remind people that the word ‘Joyced’ has entered the Australian vernacular to describe having one’s travel plans shafted due to Qantas’s incompetence, arrogance and greed.
The reason Qantas and Virgin are still occupying a position of total market dominance—94 per cent of the market—is that they don’t have any competition. I recall being in a hearing on industrial relations in Rockhampton recently with Qantas government relations people sitting in front of us. I expressed my safety concerns because Qantas’s culture has deteriorated despite having outstanding staff at all levels, from pilots to ground staff to stewards to bookings clerks, all thoroughly competent, committed people. That deterioration has come from the top. The staff are wonderful; the leadership is poor.
Look at the ‘yes’ campaign livery of an airliner—a 60-metre flying billboard costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to paint the ‘yes’ livery. That shows the arrogance of the Qantas executives because they know that they have domination of the market. They have market control, and market control brings arrogance. They’re also pushing for short-term gains for executive management under their compensation schemes, and then the former executive, Alan Joyce, serves the government politically, in many ways, and he’s done that repeatedly. My big concern is that, when the culture deteriorates—from Qantas’s fine culture of a few decades ago—safety can unwittingly be compromised. That is a vital concern for me. I’ll point out that it’s not regulation that creates a customer focused operation; it’s a competitor running a customer focused operation.
James Strong did a marvellous job at Qantas—and TAA—before it was privatised. Short of having another wonderful executive come along, it is a competitor running a customer focused operation that creates a customer focused operation and will restore Qantas and Virgin. Free market competition will deliver the lowest price with the highest service and safety every time—if it is allowed to! Sadly, Australia is a small market, and many industries have, over time, become oligopolies. Grocery retailing is another example of a market gone bad into an oligopoly.
Bonza airlines to took 14 years to get in the air over Australia because of our airline industry’s barriers to entry. Six months after their first flight, the Albanese government terminated the ACCC project that helped Bonza finally get into the air in the first place. Perhaps the final ACCC report from June spooked the government’s big business mates, Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street, Goldman Sachs and their cronies. That final ACCC report found that, while the emergence of small carriers has opened possibilities for increased competition in the domestic airline sector, these airlines would need significant growth to genuinely challenge the dominance of Australia’s largest two carriers. There’s no real competition, even with Bonza in. Restrictions remain favourable to Qantas and Virgin to protect them from direct market competition and force the Australian flying public, the consumers, to pay more than they need to.
Over the past 20 years, 90 per cent or more of domestic passengers have opted to fly with Australia’s two largest carriers. As of April 2023, these two airline conglomerates accounted for 94 per cent of all domestic passengers. Former Qantas Group executive and Jetstar chief Jayne Hrdlicka is now head of Virgin. So it’s a nice, tidy little cabal. They force regional flyers to pay exorbitant fares. Regions are the bedrock of Australia, and yet we’re asking them to support a monopoly. This bill largely replicates the previous direction. Monitoring will take into consideration the need for commercial confidentiality. The ACCC must publish each report on the website, and the minister must cause the report to be tabled in parliament. In the House Standing Committee on Economics hearing into promoting economic competition in June 2023 Tim Jordan, the Chief Executive Officer of Bonza Aviation, made this statement:
… the path was lengthy. This project took from late 2009 until early 2023 to come to fruition. That tells you the barriers to entry in Australia—
14 years—
It is a sad indictment of the existing duopolistic environment that, although we would have very positive conversations with potential Australian investors, they would conclude—
‘they’ being the investors—
‘This sounds great, and we believe in the scale of the opportunity, but unfortunately the incumbents will not allow you to prosper.’ That is a sad indictment of the competitive nature of this market segment.
I feel Mr Jordan’s pain and the flying public’s pain.
I know those proposing a new Australian steel industry in North Queensland and northern Western Australia are, despite promising news for the project, hearing exactly the same thing from some investors. The sums add up for an Australian steel industry, adding tens of thousands of breadwinner jobs and national security, yet government incompetence and the woke agenda means these companies will consider investing in foreign markets instead. The actions of the Albanese government in refusing to extend the monitoring are another example of a government that has no clue how to create real jobs and how to lower prices for everyday Australians—at a time of high inflation, high cost of living and high energy prices: stick it to the Australian consumer.
Mr Jordan went on to say:
Going back to your point about the barriers to entry, when you have constrained slots—
That’s the airport gates—
and other entry issues, such as access to a choice of suppliers, it slows down growth and the ability to accelerate and achieve economic efficiencies so as to continue to be viable.
The ACCC has much work to do here. Qantas and Virgin must not be allowed to exploit their market power to protect their market share in a manner that is legally indefensible and thereby force Bonza to fail. Bonza must be allowed access to airport gates, access to maintenance shops and access to suppliers at fair market price. Anything else is crony capitalism.
For those who have been ‘Joyced’—shovelled off to a hotel in the middle of the night instead of sleeping in your bed, had luggage disappear and later return damaged, or missed international connections and been told, ‘Not Qantas’s problem’—no-one could argue we don’t need more competition. No-one could argue that increased competition in the airline industry will lead to increased efficiencies right across the country. Bonza raises the hope of keeping these bastards honest and, at a time of high cost of living and inflation, giving consumers relief. It’s the ACCC’s job to give Bonza every opportunity to do just that.
I thank Senators Dean Smith and McKenzie for their bill, which One Nation will be supporting. We have one flag, we are one community, we are one nation. Restoring and defending competition in oligopolistic markets is a government obligation, an obligation that One Nation will work to ensure the government fulfils for the benefit of airline passengers and the whole country.
