Malcolm’s Official Speeches in Parliament

‘Greensland’ just a bad fairytale

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A broken and smouldering Australia is hidden beneath the Greens’ lies about a solar powered utopia. If we buy into this nonsense, the country will be destroyed.

Transcript

How would Australia fare under a Greens government? In ‘Greensland’, water will be limited to 120 litres per day, per person. After that, smart meters will shut the water off. With no water allowed for gardening, home gardens will die. Rural restrictions will shut down family farms. Productive land will be used to farm carbon, breeding feral pests and noxious weeds, not food.

The Greens’ policy of a smaller farming footprint will lead to big corporations centralising near-city production of food-like substances sold through corporate supermarkets. End-to-end corporate supply chains will exploit this monopoly to create deliberate shortages and raise prices.

The Greens’ policy of unlimited immigration will make these shortages of everything worse to enable more government control. Family homes will be turned into so-called environmentally friendly small homes—boxes—stacked in high-rise blocks in megacities with mass transit replacing the freedom of private car ownership. Travel for recreation will be limited to interurban travel; the bush locked up and returned to the gyre. Electricity will be rationed. Smart meters will remotely switch off unauthorised activity. Real wages will fall as businesses increase prices to meet rising power bills, brown-outs and green imposts.

In Greensland, gender is not related to genitals and can change daily unless a child permanently changes their gender from one to the other using gender mutilation surgery. The inconsistency of that logic escapes the Greens. Sex education will start in kindergarten and drive the Greens war on gender. The Greens are blindly advocating forced vaccinations that enrich foreign drug companies. My Body, My Choice is no longer a Greens’s value. Greens-land is a world of total corporate control without freedom, without joy, without opportunity—a dystopian nightmare for our families and our communities.

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Free Media dead in Australia

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As Government becomes more and more powerful, anyone who challenges the current policies is smeared and censored. The legacy media happily parrots the propaganda, afraid of losing government funding.

Transcript

This parliament’s descent into a one-party state could not have happened without the media’s complicity. The cancelling of Jessica Rowe’s interview with Senator Pauline Hanson is the latest manifestation of a power structure that George Orwell gave these words to in 1941 following a failed attempt to publish his seminal work Animal Farm: ‘The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics by employing veiled censorship. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness.’

In 80 years, nothing has changed. Media and multinationals have the same wealthy owners who use their power to corral thought and enrich themselves. Orwell’s Animal Farm is a metaphor: animals overthrew their farmer to create a fairer society—only for that power to corrupt, leading to less freedom, with the pigs assuming the role of dictators. Ironically, not only are the media acting like the pigs in Animal Farm; the book has been wiped from our curriculum for the crime of making children think about the power paradigm. Our media are not some noble fifth estate; the media are a fourth column, advancing their billionaire owners’ interests at the expense of truth and integrity.

The only solution to the problem of media propaganda is introducing competition, removing federal support for commercial media and expanding the market through a ballot of spare spectrum open to only new media organisations. Instead of the media being protected under the power of their oligopolies, let the media earn their survival on the worth of their coverage. Instead of conflicted journalists promoting the orthodoxy, our community and our nation must have honest, independent journalists who challenge the orthodoxy. We have one flag, we are one community, we are one nation and we want our human rights and freedom restored.

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Climate Nonsense Taking Over

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https://youtu.be/4Ke2GHOrd14

Yet again, the Prime Minister is bowing to unelected overseas elites and forcing unnecessary, broken climate policies on Australia. Our entire economy and your job is at risk so that the elites can have more control and money.

Transcript

[Marcus Paul] Well Malcolm Roberts says that parliament has lost it’s way under the two major parties. He made this impassioned speech just the other day.

[Malcolm Roberts] The issue that is of utmost importance is the integrity of this parliament, the integrity of this country, the integrity of state parliaments, the integrity of the people of this country, and their jobs and their livelihoods. That is of utmost importance to our nation and I wish it was of utmost importance to every single person in this senate. But clearly it’s not.

[Marcus] Well.

[Malcolm] The issue that is of utmost importance is the integrity of this parliament.

[Marcus] There we go Malcolm Roberts. Good morning to you Senator.

[Malcolm] Good morning Marcus. How are you mate?

[Marcus] Alright thank you. You looked pretty annoyed when you made that speech just the other day.

[Malcolm] I’m very very annoyed because I’ve always been a passionate person for the honesty and for the truth. Integrity is extremely important to me and Pauline, and accountability is too. And you know the people of Australia are now paying 19 billion dollars a year in nonsensical rubbish commitments for these parasitic mal investments. Unreliable energy that’s destroying our energy sector. We went from the cheapest energy in the world to now amongst the most expensive.

[Marcus] Alright.

[Malcolm] And the typical family household is now paying an extra 1,300 dollars a year for this rubbish.

[Marcus] Okay but I’d love to know how much we’re paying in subsidies to fossil fuel industries. You always talk about how much money we’re subsidising renewable energy. What about the fossil fuel industry that’s making billions out of our resources, many from overseas corporations that pay little to no tax, Malcolm. And all the rest of it. Are there any figures for, ya know, how much subsidy we’re providing fossil fuel companies?

[Malcolm] The Greens claim that, that the Greens have never ever provided any evidence saying what these circle subsidies are. The closest the Greens have come is to say that depreciation and amortisation on our subsidies. That applies to every single industry, and that applies to the taxation system. So that’s nonsense.

[Marcus] Okay so what you’re suggesting

[Malcolm] The clear

[Marcus] Hang on you’re suggesting we

don’t pay subsidies

[Malcolm] Correct. to the fossil fuel industry?

[Malcolm] We’ll let’s get two things straight.

[Malcolm] First of all,

[Marcus] Course we do.

[Malcolm] It’s not fossil fuels, they’re hydrocarbons. They’re compounds of hydrocarbons.

[Marcus] Semantics.

[Malcolm] No no no no. No it’s semantics. It’s extremely important they’re hydrocarbons. Now what happens with the coal sector, coal fired power section I should say, coal fired power section is now subsidising the other forms of electricity. Because coal fired power sections are competing with subsidised wind and solar and they can’t compete on that basis. So their prices of coal fired power sections are going up because of that. But if you look at the basic costs of coal fired power sections, we can build a new power station in this country and generate electricity for 45 dollars a megawatt hour. 45. There’s nothing comes close. Wind and solar are many times that.

[Marcus] What about the affect that will cause on climate change in the longer term, Malcolm?

[Malcolm] There is no evidence anywhere in the world that carbon dioxide from human activity affects climate. And remember they’ve tried to tax us on this. And the tax was beaten by attorney Evan. One of the good things he did. Think about this Marcus.

[Marcus] Yeah.

[Malcolm] The production of carbon dioxide in 2009 after the global financial crisis decreased. Decreased. And yet the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased. Because nature alone determines the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We don’t control it. Second point, in the last 19 months with the COVID shutdown around the world, we had almost a depression. Yet the level of carbon dioxide reduced from humans using hydrocarbon fuels. Cars,

Power stations

[Marcus] Yep.

[Malcolm] gas heaters, has decreased. And yet the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased. Nature controls it. It wouldn’t matter how much they tax us. How much they throttled us. We will not affect the temperature. The second thing to remember is that despite the human production of carbon dioxide going up dramatically, in the last 25, 30 years, the actual temperature of the planet has stabilised since 1995. It’s been flat. It’s just natural variation, up and down from year to year. It’s been flat. So no matter which way you look at it, this is rubbish. It’s just a matter of controlling our energy,

[Marcus] Well the

[Malcolm] controlling our water,

[Malcolm] controlling our land,

[Marcus] Well okay

[Malcolm] and ripping us off in taxes.

[Marcus] Well the Prime Minister obviously doesn’t feel that way. He’s gonna sign up to net zero by 2050. He’ll drag the Nationals screaming and kicking along the way as well. And he’ll be off to Glasgow. What do you make of that?

[Malcolm] It’s another show. Another show. Look the real issue here is that we have two coalition governments vying for government. We have the Morrison Joyce government that’s currently in power as you know, and we have the Albanese Bant government. And make no mistake, the last labour government, they’ve lost so much support from their key areas that they could only govern in coalition with the Greens. And that’ll be the case

[Marcus] Whoa hold on

[Malcolm] It’ll be Albanese and Bant together.

[Marcus] No all that rubbish.

[Malcolm] The fact is that Scott Morrison has got no data. We know that. Got no data backing up his claims about having to cut down carbon dioxide from human activity.

[Marcus] Alright.

[Malcolm] What he’s doing on this is kowtowing to his globalist masters.

[Marcus] Alright I got a note here I’ll get you to comment on. It’s on the same thing. It’s from one of my listeners. Good day Marcus. Whilst the federal government dithers, bickers, and carries on developing a coherent policy for net zero emissions, the private sector is getting on with it. Rio Tinto, Big HP, the Commonwealth Bank, the CSIRO, Fortescue Metals, Mirvac, Brisbane airport, AGL, Ramsay Health Care, they’ve all pledged to slash their emissions. Atlassian’s founder says he’ll invest and donate 1.5 billion dollars for climate action. The states are all backing clean energy projects. And he concludes by saying in my view Morrison’s strategy is clear, do nothing and allow the others to do the heavy lifting. If the others succeed, as they’re likely to do so, then Morrison will take the credit. If their strategies do not work, then Morrison will not be blamed.

[Malcolm] Very very simple Marcus.

[Marcus] Hm?

[Malcolm] People, humans have a problem in that some people just follow like sheep. I challenged the chief executive officer, the head of coal division, and the chairman of BHP, several years ago, about 2014 from memory, to provide me with the evidence for their policy. They all failed. Every single, Rio Tinto failed to provide it. These people are pushing a globalist agenda. BHP you’ll notice is piling out a thermal coal because it’s mines are so damn inefficient. It’s piling out a thermal coal, steaming coal, power station coal, but it’s not saying anything about it’s coking coal. Coking coal is absolutely essential. And BHP can make money because coking coal prices are so damn high. They can’t make it in steaming coal because they’re inefficient. They’re very badly managed. I’ve challenged the chief executive officer of the ANZ bank. The head of the ANZ bank. And he can’t provide me the evidence. And what’s more, he told it’s not about evidence. It’s not about science anymore because it’s become political and the risks are too great because the globalists that are pushing this scam, and you can go back to Maurice Strong, he started this. He created this whole scam. And Maurice Strong died a criminal on the hunt from the American authority.

[Marcus] Right okay.

[Malcolm] Because of criminal activity. So this is the kind of thing we’re looking at here. And Marcus, the leadership of these companies, some of these companies, is atrocious. I can give you fine leaders who are saying it’s complete rubbish.

[Marcus] Alright.

[Malcolm] Fine leaders.

[Marcus] Okay Malcolm, always good to have you on. It’s great to get your perspective on this and I’m really interested to get your thoughts once Glasgow gets underway and we start hearing more and more about

[Malcolm] Can I?

[Marcus] action on climate, yeah?

[Malcolm] I’ll issue a challenge to you Marcus.

[Marcus Laughs] –

[Malcolm] No no

No one has been able to do this. CSRO, Bureau of Meteorology, no one. The UN panel on climate. I challenge you to provide me with the specific location of the data within a causal framework, scientific framework, and that’s what determines science. That shows we need to cut our carbon dioxide. No one has been able to do that. And what’s more I’ll issue a challenge to anyone in Australia who wants to debate me on the science and on the corruption of science. Anyone.

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Prime Minister backstabs the people who voted for him

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The Prime Minister has caved on an election promise. After telling Australia the truth to get elected, that Bill Shorten’s net zero target would destroy the country, he has signed up to the exact same promise. Gutless, sellout, liar, there aren’t enough words to fully describe this backstabbing of the Australian people.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (09:39): Well, well, well, the Labor Party, as part of the precursor to the Albanese-Bandt coalition government, calls this a stunt. The Labor party is exactly correct. It is a stunt. The No. 1 issue here is integrity and the Greens’ complete lack of integrity. They have never provided the empirical scientific evidence for their claims. First it was Greta: ‘We’ll rely on Greta.’ Then it became, ‘We’ll rely on the Queen.’ Now, it’s, ‘We’ll rely on the Pope’—and most of them are atheists. My goodness, what are we coming to in this country? This mob is hijacking jobs—manufacturing jobs, coalmining jobs, farmers’ jobs. This is an absolute disgrace, because they show no integrity towards the people of this country; they show no integrity towards this parliament, none whatsoever. They tell lies and they make up stuff.

We now see them calling for the science. I want the science. I challenge Senator Waters to provide the empirical scientific evidence that proves carbon dioxide from human activity affects the climate and needs to be cut. She failed to provide it 11 years ago. She ran—

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, please resume your seat. Senator Thorpe, on a point of order?

Senator Thorpe: A point of order, Mr President: the senator over here has called us ‘liars’, and I think that is unparliamentary, is it?

The PRESIDENT: Senator Thorpe, he was referring to the Greens as a whole. My view is that that is not unparliamentary. I will check with the Clerk to be sure, given I’m relatively new to this role. My ruling is correct. Please sit down, Senator Thorpe.

Senator Thorpe interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: Senator Thorpe, there is no point of order. Senator Roberts, you have the call.

Senator ROBERTS: Let’s make it clear: I did not call the Queen or the Pope a liar. I called them ‘not scientists’. They’re not scientists. But this is what the Greens rely on in the fact that they cannot provide the science. The Greens show no respect for science, no respect for humanity, no respect for the people of this country, no respect for hardworking Australians, and no respect for the farmers that they will gut with this 2050 net zero.

I also remind the Senate that it’s now day 772 since I challenged Senator Larissa Waters and Senator Di Natale in this parliament to a debate on the empirical evidence and also on the corruption of the science. I point out that there is no science that backs this up from the CSIRO, and I’ll have more to say about that next week. There is no science from the Bureau of Meteorology, none from the Chief Scientist—I can tell you a story about the previous Chief Scientist if there is time—none from the Australian Academy of Science and none from the IPCC. In fact, we had the Labor Party’s Kevin Rudd dancing around in 2007 saying 4,000 people in white lab coats endorsed his claim. The reality is that only five academics in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change endorsed the claim of warming, and there’s doubt those five were even scientists.

We’ll hear more rubbish from the Greens, claiming that they have science, but the one thing that they are always consistent on is that they never produce the empirical evidence to justify their claim. They see a picture of a tree frog, a picture of a koala, a picture of a dolphin, and they say, ‘This is the science.’ That’s it; it’s complete rubbish. This has been going on for 11 years, Senator Waters.

Let me point out, Senator Gallagher, that the issue of utmost importance is the integrity of this parliament, the integrity of this country, the integrity of state parliaments, and the integrity of the people of this country and their jobs and their livelihoods. That is of utmost importance to One Nation, and I wish it were of utmost importance to every single person in this Senate, but clearly it’s not.

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$19 Billion dollars a year – for nothing!

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While the Liberal/National party tears itself apart over net-zero and Labor wants us to follow the Greens off a renewable cliff, Australians are paying BILLIONS of dollars for subsidies that are making electricity more expensive and killing manufacturing jobs. We have the best and cheapest coal in the world right here, yet our electricity prices are three times as high as China. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was deliberate sabotage from our gutless leaders.

Transcript

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. The core issue here is integrity. We see the Nationals Party and the Liberal Party tying themselves in knots, the coalition unravelling, according to some, the coalition all over the place, according to others. Depends who we listen to. But the core issue is the complete lack of integrity from the Labour Party and the Greens. This parliament, according to Senator McAllister, has seen all manner of scrutiny. Oh, really?

I can remember Senator MacDonald up here, standing, Senator Ian MacDonald, when he was a Senator here, standing up saying that this parliament has never, ever debated the climate science. Never. So this is all being done on nonsense. In fact, the science has never even been brought into this chamber that says we need to cut carbon dioxide from human activity, that we need to go to renewables. Never. Always the parliament tends to go to the second question, how do we do it, rather than should we do it?

The core question, if we’re really being faithful to and serving the people of this country and the taxpayers and the energy users who are being bled dry, is should we do this madness, not how do we do it. How do we do it comes second. The parliament too often in this country goes to the second question.

No one, no one has ever presented the empirical scientific evidence in this parliament, either House, that says carbon dioxide from human activity needs to be cut. It is now day 770 since I asked Senator Richard Di Natale and Senator Larissa Waters a fundamental question. Where is your empirical scientific evidence that shows carbon dioxide from human activity needs to be cut? That’s it. They dodged it. They have never come back with the evidence.

They refuse to debate me. I asked Senator Waters this more than 10 years ago, almost 11 years ago. In fact, it is 11 years ago this month. And she refused to debate me then. Senator Waters then talked about a waste of money. Oh, really? When we’re spending $19 billion a year on this rubbish, destroying our energy sector, destroying manufacturing jobs, exporting them to China.

We send them our coal. They generate electricity using our coal after we’ve shipped it thousands of kilometres. And they sell it for 8 cents a kilowatt hour. We use the same coal here in this country, some of the best coal in the world, and we sell our electricity at 25 cents a kilowatt hour. Why the difference?

Why is it three times as much here? Because of all the renewable regulations, subsidies and climate rubbish. That’s why. Not only do we export our coal, we export our manufacturing jobs, because the number one cost of manufacturing these days is electricity. Not labour anymore. Electricity. We’re gutting jobs, throwing people on the scrap heap. No livelihoods. For nothing. Because no one has ever presented the science that says we need to do this. They run from it.

In One Nation we welcome the debate. We welcome a debate on the science. We will welcome putting both coalitions, the Liberal Nationals and the Labour Greens coalitions, under scrutiny. The policies of the Liberal Nationals coalition are so close to the policies of the Labour Greens coalitions. Where’s the difference, I ask you, other than in slightly in degree?

This is an absolute disgrace with what we’re doing to this country, what this parliament is doing to this country, what this parliament is doing to the taxpayers, what this parliament is doing to jobs of real people, everyday Australians’ jobs getting gutted. And it’s based on a lie. And Al Gore’s making out like a bandit, because the crook has made hundreds of millions of dollars out of this scam, along with several other people, academics, politicians, government agencies.

It just goes on and on and on. This has got to stop.

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Why is data about deaths being held back?

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Mortality data tells us information about deaths in Australia and is usually released every 6 weeks. For an unexplained reason, the latest data is over 15 weeks overdue. There’s no good reason for this, the government needs to be transparent and release the data now.

Transcript

Mr President as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia I have a duty to ensure reasoned and accurate debate.

The Minister representing the Minister for Health, Senator Colbeck has that same duty, to ensure data central to reasoned and informed debate is made public.

For many years following the standardization of mortality reporting between the states mortality data has been made available 6 weeks after the period to which it relates.

The last mortality data covers the period to 30th June 2021. It is now October 18th. Suddenly and without explanation data is being held back for 15 weeks.

The Minister should have been prepared for this question, I did advise his office of the subject of my question today and also directed his office to my question on notice number 3970 asking for this same information.

QON 3970 has been outstanding for 12 weeks.

The data to June 30th shows deaths in Australia in 2021 are above the 7 year moving average and consistently above anything we have ever seen before in Australia.

It is troubling that NSW and Queensland no longer make this information public.

In the absence of Australian mortality data I will quickly reference official data from the UK, which has seen an increase in deaths amongst 15 – 17 year olds of 20% following the start of vaccination of that cohort, trending towards 25% at younger ages down to 4.

More worrying is that this distribution is not even, the mortality rate amongst boys was up 28%, and amongst girls 8%.

This may result from one of the 268 known adverse interactions between the COVID vaccines and other prescription drugs documented by the United States FDA on their website.

Logic would dictate that before giving a patient a COVID vaccine one would check to see what drugs they are already using, and what natural immunity they may have resulting from of a previous COVID infection.

I don’t think the 33 Bunnings Stores in Queensland that offered vaccinations to the general public last weekend asked for that information.

Natural antibodies were found by a very recent, gold standard paper by the University of Edinburgh to offer protection against COVID of 80%, substantially better than the vaccines are now providing.[1]

I am concerned this Parliament’s reckless vaccination crusade is killing people.

Let me pose some wider questions for the Minister to consider:

Is the well documented reduction in health and diagnostic services creating a time bomb in delayed treatment – early detection of cancer, for instance – and is that killing people?

Are widespread lockdowns creating mental health problems that result in increased loss of life?

Is locking up elderly Australians in Nursing Homes with no family contact causing elderly to let go early?

Are business owners who have seen their life work destroyed and bankrupted by capricious and counter-productive lockdowns losing their battle with life?

These are questions any prudent, caring government would be worried about. This Government and this Parliament should be watching mortality data closely, to get guidance on these matters in real time.

Sadly this Government and this Parliament is neither prudent nor caring.

Our community, our nation deserves better.

Release the data.

[1] https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-a-preprint-from-the-siren-study-looking-at-sars-cov-2-infection-rates-in-antibody-positive-healthcare-workers/

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Ensuring Election Integrity – Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Integrity of Elections) Bill 2021

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When I started researching election integrity I was doing it to show that our elections are secure. That is not what I found. There is no requirement to audit the results and no ID requirements to ensure there is no double voting. Our electoral legislation is full of holes. My bill seeks to fix those holes using audits that many well researched committees, agencies and investigations have already suggested. There really isn’t much reason to vote against it.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia I present the the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Integrity of Elections) Bill 2021, which amends the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.

This bill provides for the routine auditing of the electronic component of Australian federal elections and for the provision of voter identification.

It should also be noted that this bill does not look backward to previous elections, but rather forward to ensure confidence in the next election.

During COVID the actions of unelected bureaucrats and incompetent politicians has wiped out small businesses and jobs, disrupted lives and reduced many people to desperation.

The next election will be a powder keg.

It is essential to ensure that Australians can accept the result and move on.

Suspicion of the outcome can be easily fueled, especially on social media, and turned into violence by those who seek to manipulate the result for their own ends.

The level of trust in the result must be commensurate with the current heightened level of risk.

When I started researching election integrity it was to show that our elections are secure. That is not what I found.

The Australian National Audit Office conducted three audits into the 2013 federal election. Their final report came out in 2016. This is what ANAO said about the Australian Electoral Commission (the AEC):

In 2014 the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters wrote to the Auditor General seeking a performance audit focusing on the adequacy of the Australian Electoral Commission implementation of recommendations arising from earlier ANAO audits of the AEC.

The Auditor General decided to conduct 3 related performance audits.

All three reports found that the AEC had not adequately and effectively implemented the earlier ANAO recommendations. The reports concluded that in order to protect the integrity of the Australian electoral system and rebuild confidence in the AEC these recommendations should be implemented.

AUDITOR-GENERAL REPORT NO. 6 OF 2015–16

The report went on to say:

“ANAO plans to undertake a follow-up audit following the next federal election, in 2016, to examine the adequacy and effectiveness of the AEC’s implementation of the ten recommendations made by ANAO across three reports.”

AUDITOR-GENERAL REPORT NO. 6 OF 2015–16

Those recommendations included:

“the AEC must develop a strategy for deeper reform to ensure and demonstrate integrity in all aspects of the election, including a fundamental overhaul of the AEC’s policies and procedures to restore confidence in the electoral process”.

AUDITOR-GENERAL REPORT NO. 6 OF 2015–16

Let me say that again – a fundamental overhaul to ensure election integrity.

Mr President the follow-up audit to test how well the AEC implemented this fundamental review into election integrity never occurred.

Perhaps someone should do a bill to bring on that audit. Oh wait Mr President, I did.

Were ANAO happy for this direction – apparently not.

In their submission to this bill ANAO said my bill was not necessary as they had the power to audit the AEC at any time.

If that is the case then they should get on with it.

Mr President New South Wales and Western Australia have provisions in their electoral acts to audit state elections.

New South Wales conducts an audit before each election to ensure systems are fit for purpose and then audits again after each election to ensure integrity, and to see what can be improved for next time.

Western Australia audits after every election.

There is no audit function currently specified in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.

This bill creates a function for the Auditor General to audit the operation of the AEC twice in each election cycle:

  1. In the lead up to the election; and
  2. From polling day to the declaration of the poll.

 The audit provided for in this bill covers electronic measures, and tests if:

“the use of authorised technology produces the same result as would be obtained without the use of authorised technology.”

Put simply this is asking the Auditor General to ensure that the use of computerised voter rolls, tallying, preference allocations and related matters produced a result that accurately reflects the will of the people.

ANAO felt that was too high a bar to meet, I would consider ensuring the will of the people was accurately reflected in the result was the bare minimum for any election audit.

This bill does not specify what will be audited. The decision regarding the operation of the audit is best left to the agencies conducting the audit.

Secondly, this bill authorises the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) to audit and monitor computer systems for unauthorised access internally and externally.

This is targeting both unauthorised access from within the system and unauthorised external access by malicious entities.

The Australia Signals Directorate is currently conducting a cyber “uplift program” at the Australian Electoral Commission. While the program is most welcome, there is no basis in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 or the Intelligence Services Act 2001 for that program.

This bill brings legislation into line with current practice.

Mr President In May Senate estimates I asked the Australian Electoral Commission simple questions regarding their auditing. I was assured that audits are occurring. On no occasion then or since have the following questions been answered:

  • Who conducted the audit?
  • When was the audit conducted?
  • What was audited?
  • What was the result?
  • Have any changes been made as a result of the audit?

It is disturbing that such an audit could happen behind closed doors without direction or structure. It is more disturbing that this program has no legal basis in the Commonwealth Electoral Act.

We should not have to rely on the admirable conscientiousness of the Australian Signals Directorate. We should be able to rely on the completeness of our legislation.

Mr President I also looked at other issues around election integrity.

First up was a simple question: At the Senate Scanning Centre is the electronic data file containing each vote ever compared back to the paper ballot after the vote has been adjudicated?

That answer is no. At no time is the electronic record of a vote checked back against the paper ballot once the ballot is adjudicated.

Some disputed votes are held back and adjudicated later in the counting process, then filed away.

There is no routine sampling beyond that point. That is not acceptable.

The third part of my bill is for voter ID. Most of the recommendations in the ANAO report, that was never followed up, went to failures in the integrity of voter rolls.

It is too late to go back now and audit those rolls before the next election, by way of re-commencing residency checks, as ANAO recommended.

It is not too late for a quick fix – which is voter ID. Asking for simple identification will act as an audit on the rolls in real time, and ensure every vote cast was legitimate.

This is not my idea. Recommendation 21 of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Inquiry into the 2019 Federal Election called for voter identification to be introduced. This same finding was made in 2016 and 2013.

Schedule 2 of this bill is drafted to give effect to the committee recommendation as literally as possible.

Voters must present a form of acceptable identification to be issued with an ordinary pre-poll or election day vote. Authorised identification must be suitably broad so as to not actively prevent electors from casting an ordinary ballot.

This bill allows a wide range of acceptable voter ID. The AEC is empowered to make further regulations to ensure voters are not disenfranchised.

The AEC noted in their submission to the JSCEM inquiry that:

“multiple voting is frequently the subject of media commentary and social media speculation. Such a degree of focus is entirely understandable: there can hardly be a more emblematic component of trust in electoral results than ensuring eligible voters only exercise the franchise [appropriately].”

Multiple voting is a red herring in this debate. My bill is not concerned with multiple voting, it is concerned with ensuring every vote cast was made according to law.

The Commonwealth Electoral Act (Integrity of Elections Bill) 2021 is about protecting confidence in our elections.

The cyber integrity of our elections and the use of voter identification is essential to that confidence.

I recommend the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Integrity of Elections) Bill 2021 to the Senate.

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Save our children from a mental health crisis

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As state and federal leaders squabble over COVID responses, many families around Australia face yet another day of emotional and mental trauma at home.  The mental health of our  children and teenagers is the collateral damage of the unnecessarily cruel and inhuman responses to managing COVID.  

Mental health needs an urgent chair at the table of decision-making.  Let the children play. Let the people work.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I’m asked questions from constituents. To what depths of insanity and wickedness have we sunk when government believes it has licence to dictate to parents that they are no longer able to look after their grandchildren?

When it comes to care for children, government has no right to intrude into families and decide what a normal household activity looks like. While Victoria takes the prize for this particularly grotesque directive, all state, territory and federal governments have shown stupidity and inhumanity on incongruent, hypocritical and needlessly destructive COVID restrictions.

Quoting former US Vice-President Hubert Humphrey:

… the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly …

State and federal governance during COVID fails this moral test. Our children are forgotten. Physical, emotional, psychological, educational and health needs have been, in the main, ignored. Yesterday, instead of using her Chief Health Officer as her usual shield to avoid an intelligent statement on our state’s future, the Queensland Premier used our children.

Feigning concern, her question was: what’s going to happen to the children if we open borders too soon? We already know what’s happening to our children: a terrifying unfolding tragedy.

In Victoria, the government received a health report on the state of its children, an ugly and mortifying reflection on Victoria’s abuse of people. Yet the Premier ignores it, buries it, deems it largely unworthy of comment and continues to threaten and scold Victorians over noncompliance with his own insane world view.

Any moral, just, competent and compassionate government would solemnly reflect on the more than 340 teenagers suffering mental health emergencies who are admitted every week to hospitals, a 162 per cent increase; the 156 teenagers rushed to hospital every week for attempting suicide or self-harm, 37 of them needing emergency treatment or surgery, an 88 per cent increase; or the 90 per cent increase in children with eating disorders. This is the ultimate transgression, neglect and abandonment.

This is our vulnerable children’s cry for help. Our persistent ignorance and silence on children’s mental health needs is unforgivable, particularly after 18 months of COVID mismanagement. In New South Wales, more than 40 children and teenagers are daily rushed to hospital for self-harm—up 31 per cent.

The number of acute mental health admissions for children and young people is up 43 per cent. At the Gold Coast hospital, there was a 212 per cent spike in eating disorders from 2019 to 2020. Queensland’s Butterfly Foundation says calls for help for eating disorders increased 34 per cent from January 2020 to January 2021.

Eighty-five per cent were first-time callers to the helpline. In August, Lifeline’s suicide-prevention line had its busiest days in its 57-year history. Children may wait six to nine months before seeing a psychiatrist.

Children suffering with depression, eating disorders or suicidal thoughts may not be able to wait nine months. Will this be the final nail in their coffin?

Parents have to work from home and educate their children and are now frontline mental health workers. Our children’s mental health needs have become more urgent, as never-ending draconian restrictions offer no light at the end of a lengthening tunnel, yet our health officials eagerly and excitedly round up our young for mass vaccinations.

We humans are gregarious and our primal need to socialise sustains our very breath. Persistent, externally and capriciously imposed social isolation tears at the fabric of what makes us human, keeps us physically well and holds us literally sane. An adult brain can work hard at rationalising the incursions, the loss of freedoms and isolation. Sometimes, though, it’s even too much for adults.

Children’s brains are vulnerable and underdeveloped, and it’s inhuman to expect children to process and cope with restrictions that adults impose—adults who themselves appear on the edge of insanity. Our children suffer the greatest deprivations: deprivation of liberty; deprivation of education; deprivation of normal development; deprivation of swings, slippery slides, rides on the bike, swims at the beach and local sport; deprivation of crucial friendship supports and separated parents; and deprivation of loving grandparents’ arms and hugs.

Children must urgently return to the anchors that sustain us. Mental health professionals are campaigning for children’s mental health needs, and it’s overdue that we hear their voices.

People are, rightly, increasingly cynical about governments falsely claiming to be keeping us safe—a deeply sad mocking of reality. Governments are driving us to the wall of insanity, and our children are first in line as collateral damage. Without our mental health, we have no solid grasp on living a life.

Our first duty is to save our children—humankind’s hope and promise. We have one flag. We have one community. We have one nation. We have one future.

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The right to protest is protected by a body of law going back 800 years

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Would the Attorney-General like to take another run at explaining why parliaments in Australia are not in breach of the very principles that define our legal system, the Bible and the Magna Carta, reinforced by the much more recent United Nations charter on human rights?

This is Australia in 2021. It’s a disgrace. We need our freedoms back and we need an Attorney-General who understands the basics on which our freedoms are based.

Transcript

Thank you, Madam Deputy President. I reference the response by the Attorney-General, Senator Cash, to my question on freedom to protest under the body of Australian law. Senator Cash fluffed on about what is in fact a basic element of our democracy.

What she seems to have forgotten is that there is an overarching principle: the right to freedom is a basic inalienable right that our body of law has been formed around. Our laws reflect our Christian heritage and should always do so. Our governing document, our national Constitution, for instance, references God in its preamble.

Without being presumptuous, and while I’m not a biblical scholar or a church-goer, perhaps I should have asked myself earlier than this a fundamental question: what would God do? It turns out that the Bible is quite clear on the issue of freedom. From Galatians 5:1:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm … and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

In this epistle, Paul was urging the new churches he had founded in Galatia to stand against those who were trying to subvert the freedom Christianity had given. Paul’s epistle to the faithful in Galatia could have been written today. The battle for freedom and darkness exist now, as it did 2,000 years ago.

We spent 2,000 years writing a body of law to implement Christian principles, including the right to freedom. These freedoms were first enshrined in the Magna Carta Libertatum—literally the ‘great charter of freedoms’ that the head of the church at the time, the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote in 1215.

Our Attorney-General has demonstrated not only a lack of understanding of man’s laws; she has failed to demonstrate an understanding of God’s laws. Being sworn in on the Bible is clearly no guarantee of believing a word of it. While eminent biblical scholars advise that the Bible is properly understood in context, how could the Attorney-General not have looked this up at any time in the five months the senator has occupied her role?

Five months of widespread and sustained media and social media conversations around the right to protest and the Attorney-General, the highest law officer in the land, was missing in action. Was she not curious about what the law actually said? Let me help on that in the time remaining.

The Magna Carta was written in response to King John exercising his powers, using the principle of vis et voluntas, which translates as ‘force and will’—the making of decisions that were above the law and then using force to create compliance, much like parliaments around Australia are doing right now. Lord Denning described the Magna Carta as:

… the greatest constitutional document of all times—the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot”

I looked through the Magna Carta and I couldn’t see the COVID exemption that allows governments to destroy human rights and do whatever they want if they can get the population scared enough to accept it. Of course, there is no exemption afforded power-mad governments and unelected bureaucrats.

In 1948, before the UN turned into the problem and not the solution, the United Nations charter on human rights declared a few things on freedom of protest that parliaments around Australia are conveniently ignoring. Article 19:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference …

Article 20:

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

Article 21:

Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country …

This is what protesters are doing: participating in governance, exercising their right to free speech and free association. That’s the very definition of a protest. These are rights that article 30 of the United Nations declaration of human rights protects. It binds governments from breaching the declaration.

It would appear that the Prime Minister and the premiers are seeking to wind back our right to freedom to that which existed prior to 1215, to give themselves the powers that King John used force to exercise.

Would the Attorney-General like to take another run at explaining why parliaments in Australia are not in breach of the very principles that define our legal system, the Bible and the Magna Carta, reinforced by the much more recent United Nations charter on human rights?

I wonder what Monica is thinking, languishing in jail with the promise that she can get out, providing she renounces her membership of a political party. This is Australia in 2021. It’s a disgrace. We need our freedoms back and we need an Attorney-General who understands the basics on which our freedoms are based.

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Why we voted against Jobkeeper naming and shaming

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In a time of panic and uncertainty last year the government implemented Jobkeeper. Thousands of businesses validly and ethically accepted money from the government without the knowledge they may later be publicly shamed for it. We support accountability, but do it in a properly set system from the start.

That wasn’t the deal at the time, we don’t publicly list every dole recipient and we shouldn’t be doing things retrospectively.

Transcript:

I speak on behalf of Senator Hanson on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021. The key point here is accountability. I know now of organisations that had a disastrous first two months of JobKeeper and then very quickly recovered. They tried to stop JobKeeper payments and couldn’t. We also know that some businesses gamed the system. What this shows is that we need a proper audit.

I’ll give you some background. March and April 2020 was a time of great uncertainty. Deaths overseas were reportedly very high—in the tens of thousands. There was a lot of fear and uncertainty, and that meant erring on the side of safety. So all the parties in the Senate supported the government’s approach on JobSeeker and JobKeeper. We basically gave them a blank cheque and waved it through because it was a time of perceived threat. I warned at the time of a need to get data and develop a proper plan, and that we would hold the government accountable. I noted Taiwan’s stellar performance and Ivermectin.

The government got it wrong with JobKeeper. We all saw that, and that’s not a criticism of the government—so long as the government doesn’t make too many mistakes it’s very easy in hindsight to see that JobKeeper and JobSeeker could be open to criticism. I’m proud to say that I erred on the side of caution and safety in a time of great uncertainty. Senator Hanson and I are not afraid of admitting errors. But it was an error that was based on making sure that we erred on the side of safety, so we cannot hold that against anyone. Senator Hanson later questioned continuing JobKeeper. I did the same. Parliament did not stop it. Labor wanted to extend it and widen it. The parliament failed to hold the government accountable. The federal government continued to support capricious and unjustified lockdowns, and still does. The parliament condones the lack of a proper comprehensive plan, yet has blasted billions out into the community.

That’s the broad perspective. We were faced with a lot of uncertainty. The government made some initiatives. We supported them, and some parties wanted to continue them through until now. Let’s have a look at some specifics. Labor is claiming that, out of the $90 billion paid out in JobKeeper, $25 billion has apparently been paid to companies that did not suffer a decline in revenue.

The Treasurer says he doesn’t know because he does not have companies’ profit and loss statements. And some of them had an increase in revenue and some have paid huge bonuses to executives. So we have a problem. Naming and shaming by itself does nothing, though. The people need action to get the money back from those who’ve rorted the system. We need a better system. We need more accountability to the public. We need a plan and a system in place for the future.

I want to comment on tax law. Tax law has always had secrecy provisions, unless there’s a higher purpose—for example, criminal prosecution. There are many practical occasions when the Australian Taxation Office releases data. Its JobKeeper administration, though, is not part of the income tax system. The Australian Taxation Office systems were used not for tax but for shovelling taxpayer money to companies. That does not affect tax office secrecy provisions.

Our tax system is based on voluntary compliance, including for company tax. Prior to 1986, every individual’s tax return was checked by the ATO. That hasn’t happened since 1986. It is done on a sampling basis. We need to remember, also, that 75 per cent of tax raised is from individuals, so it’s the individual’s confidence in the taxation system and confidence in government spending that needs to be maintained.

Now, the parliament makes the laws. There is only one position in the Australian tax office that is of significance: that’s the taxation commissioner. Why should the commissioner approach the Senate President? Why did he write to the President, when he reports to the parliament? The parliament hires him and fires him. The commissioner, on this occasion, has overstepped the mark.

ASIC will publish the JobKeeper figures for publicly listed companies, and, for them, the context, including the number of employees and revenues, is available. That’s not the case when it’s published for private companies because there’s a need for context. There can be unintended consequences if people simply know the JobKeeper payments without the comprehensive context. We need to prevent various third parties targeting the businesses and taking JobKeeper out of context.

Now, the government will support this in the House of Representatives, whereas Senator Patrick’s original amendment—which we acknowledge and appreciate—would have been defeated. I’m sure that Senator Patrick is doing this to do good, not just look good. So we thank Senator Patrick for his idea, which we have built on and enhanced. Those in the Senate who believe in transparency with safeguards will support this amendment. I want to make two final points. This highlights yet again that central government quite often gets it wrong. We highlight parliament’s lack of accountability. Instead, parliament has been posturing over this COVID situation. We must restore parliament to serve the people. So that’s why we’re moving this amendment, on behalf of Senator Hanson, and I would welcome people’s support.

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