Malcolm’s Official Speeches in Parliament

Will the government make a commitment to actual IR reform?

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Instead of propping up the industrial relations club with excessive, needlessly complex legislation, we need to simplify it. Regulations are written at the moment for the few people, employers and employees, who do the wrong thing.

They should be written for the majority of good people, the fine Australians, with severe penalties for the bad.

We need to turn it upside down: instead of penalising the 100 per cent with the ridiculous workplace arrangements, we need to penalise the real shonks, the real criminals.

Transcript

As an Australian who has been elected to serve the people of Queensland and Australia, I’m very proud to say that I have worked in many countries and I am genuinely proud of Australian workers. We have a phenomenal human resource in this country, unequalled anywhere in the world—the initiative, the hard work, the honesty and the integrity of workers in this country, and of many businesses in this country, especially small businesses, which are the engine room of our economy. More people are employed in small business than in any other sector of the economy. We need to get back the dynamism that has been lost in Australia—lost largely because of the decisions that come out of this building.

The MPI is ‘The Morrison government’s failure to address job security is giving companies that exploit workers an unfair advantage against honest employers.’Let me talk about the example in the Hunter Valley of the exploitation, the abuse and the casual discarding of people who are tossed on the scrap heap when they’re burnt out. Casuals have been exploited in the Hunter Valley by BHP, a major mining company, and Chandler Macleod Group, one of the world’s largest labour hire firms, an offshoot of Recruit Holdings from Japan, with the complicity of the Hunter Valley division of the CFMEU. It would not have happened without all three being complicit and working together.

But let’s go back to the root cause. The root of casualisation started in small business because employers were so confused by the complexity of hiring people and so confused by the complexity when there was a problem to discuss, so they went to employing casuals because it became too hard to deal with disciplinary issues in small business.

Quite often we see a small business having problems with an employee who’s stolen something from their business, and the small business owner then simply trying to address that ends up just paying $8,000 or $10,000. We heard last week from COSBOA, the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, about some companies, some small businesses, paying $20,000 in shut-up money for problems to go away. One of the root causes of the insecurity in this country is the highly complex, needlessly complex and destructive industrial relations situation.

Then what we saw was large companies taking the small business model and using casuals for a ‘try before we buy’. In other words, they would watch the casual worker on their mine site, in their business, and if he or she came up with the goods then they would hire them. That has led to extreme abuse of workers in this country. It’s led to safety hazards, which I have complained about in my submission to the Grosvenor inquiry. But in the Hunter Valley it led to miners being intimidated and being threatened with the loss of their jobs if they reported safety incidents. How stupid is a company when that happens? They’re losing that prime source of information about their company.

I want to give Mr Bukarica, the national legal adviser for the CFMEU mining division, a huge compliment. In Townsville he had the guts, the integrity and the courage to acknowledge that the Hunter Valley CFMEU is part of the problem at those mines in the Hunter Valley because they enabled casualisation to happen. I also want to give him praise because he said that the CFMEU has not done enough for casuals. Indeed, they have caused the casual issue in the Hunter Valley and the casual abuse of casuals. And he’s admitted that his union will need to do more about it.

So what we see is the mess that’s been created in the past by labour laws that have become far too complex and by the Liberals not addressing this issue in 2016 when they should have. Casuals show us the pain of people at work. Casuals are also a sign of the failed industrial relations situation—no getting away from it. What the government is doing in its latest industrial relations legislation, proposed to come before the Senate next month, is shifting the liability for that mess from large business to small business. They’re helping a couple of large companies manage their risk.

We’ve approached this differently. We’ve gone out to listen. We’ve written to 80 different organisations—employers, employee groups, unions, union bosses, welfare associations, organisations, small business groups—and we’ve asked them for their advice, their views. They have come and given us their advice. They said no-one else has invited them to do that; we’re the only ones. In addressing this legislation, we have three aims that ensure security for Australian workers, whether they be in small businesses or large businesses, and security for small businesses and large businesses.

Our three aims are to protect honest workers, to protect small businesses and to restore Australia’s productive capacity. We see the employer-employee relationship as fundamental. It is the primary workplace relationship, and that’s what’s needed to empower workers. We’ve got the best workers in the world. What’s needed is for employers and employees to work together—empowered employees and empowered employers—because that is the only way to create jobs. Government doesn’t create jobs. As much as the Labor Party and the Liberal Party talk about it, government does not create jobs. Honest workers create jobs. Small businesses create jobs. Large employers create jobs. The government creates the environment. Labor and Liberal governments have stuffed this country’s workplace environment.

The Morrison government talks about security and recovery from COVID. How can that be possible when we’ve destroyed our electricity sector? How can it be possible when we’ve got one of the worse tax systems in the world? How can it be possible when we’re not supplying the right infrastructure? How can it be possible when we haven’t got the skills development needed? How can it be possible when we’ve got overregulation? Just go and talk to people, not only small or large business employers but also employees, who are sick to death of energy prices, which have gone from the cheapest in the world to the highest in the world under this government and its predecessor, the Labor Party.

Instead of propping up the industrial relations club with excessive, needlessly complex legislation, we need to simplify it. In fact, I put that to Peter Strong when he was in my office last week. I said to him that regulations are written at the moment for the few people, employers and employees, who do the wrong thing. They should be written for the majority of good people, the fine Australians, with severe penalties for the bad. We need to turn it upside down: instead of penalising the 100 per cent with the ridiculous workplace arrangements, we need to penalise the real shonks, the real criminals. Instead of assuming people are bad—employees are bad, employers are bad—we need to free people to produce. We need to penalise and handicap those who deserve it. That’s what we need in this country: empowering, not frightening.

What we see at the moment is an IR club of big employers, big industry associations, large unions, employee consultants, employer consultants, industrial relations consultants and, above all, lawyers. Again I come back to the ETU legal adviser in Townsville, Michael Wright, and Mr Bukarica from the CFMMEU, who both said that we have far too many lawyers involved in industrial relations and that’s why it’s a mess. They both said they want fewer lawyers, that they want to remove the lawyers. Full credit to the CFMMEU mining division and full credit to the ETU for saying that. The big companies and the crooks are the ones who do the best out of the industrial relations club, because they have deep pockets and they can afford to fund the lawyers and others who live off the backs of Australian workers.

What we need to get back to is a simple workplace relationship. Will Labor make a commitment to properly and honestly reform IR? Will you? Will the Liberal Party and the National Party make a commitment to properly and honestly reform IR, to free people so that they’re free to compete with the people in Korea, China, India, Africa, Malaysia and Singapore? That’s the way to get security of employment: by empowering people. One Nation is the party of energy security and affordability. One Nation is the party of job security.

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Government admits power grid is critical after influx of renewable energy

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My motion successfully carried today in the Senate.The government has admitted they know that our energy grid is at a critical status because of the influx of renewable energy into the system. Despite this, they continue to chase stupid green-left policies for solar and wind that will destroy the country without reliable, coal fired power.

Motion: The Senate-

  1. notes that:
    1. the Energy Security Board stated in January 2021 that the system security of the power grid is at a critical status after the influx of renewable energy into the system,
    2. in February:
      1. the River Thames froze for the first time in over 50 years,
      2. hundreds of United States cities recorded their coldest temperatures in decades,
      3. wind turbines in Texas froze solid, and
      4. solar panels in Germany were blanketed in snow,
    3. naturally variable weather events place serious strain on power grids,
    4. relying on weather-dependent power generation to save us from weather events is a recipe for power failure, and
    5. reliable baseload power is essential to provide safety and security for Australians; and
  2. calls on the Government to urgently commence the construction of reliable, baseload power generation.

https://parlwork.aph.gov.au/motions/825f4de4-5172-eb11-b861-005056b55c61

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Franchising Laws Amendment (Fairness in Franchising) Bill 2020

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Small franchisees are often taken advantage of by large corporate franchisers. They are in a much less powerful position and their fights look like David vs. Goliath. I congratulate Senator O’Neill for her leadership on this bill and actually wanting to protect small business owners, unlike many of her “woke” colleagues in the Labor party.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I note that Senator O’Neill has taken on a real David and Goliath battle, and she’s taken it on well. I point to one corner, in which we have General Motors, one of the world’s largest corporations, which ruthlessly abandoned its franchisees in this country. It did it without any consideration, and the government stood by and watched. Families had put their businesses together over decades.

There had been blood, sweat and tears, and lots of hard work. Small to medium businesses had ploughed so much work into their businesses as well. And what did we see? General Motors just divested themselves of them. They were tossed aside on the scrap heap, and the government delayed. It promised to address this issue, but still it failed to do so.

No wonder people are feeling concerned, afraid, vulnerable and very worried at the hands of large multinational companies with huge imbalances of power. General Motors is treating their franchisees, the Holden dealers right across this country—small businesses, often with decades of history—like dirt.

Now we have Mercedes lining up to do the same, as are Honda and Renault. Honda, a company that has worked with its dealers so admirably around the world, is now looking to quit its dealer network as well. These companies are stealing databases that have been built up over decades.

I turn to the Queensland rural dealerships. Look at our state. It’s the most decentralised of any. It’s the only state with more people in the rural areas than in the capital city. Those dealer networks need support. But it’s not just car dealers; it’s also boat dealers, marine dealers, water sport dealers and motorbike dealers.

And it’s not just wheeled dealers; it’s people with small business franchises right across this country. What they need is support. They need fairness and they need support for locals. They need some security and some certainty. There are 60,000 workers in the auto sector alone, according to Senator O’Neill, and that includes many, many tradesmen and many apprentices. There are good people and local community businesses.

I want to commend Senator O’Neill, because Senator O’Neill came to us to explain her bill. She asked for our support. She did her research. She was willing to be on call at any time to answer questions and to put her staff on call. I acknowledge that—through you, Deputy President—to Senator O’Neill. I appreciate it and I endorse her work. She works. If other Labor senators had the same enthusiasm in general as Senator O’Neill then we’d be able to work much, much better with them. We commend Senator O’Neill for the way in which she came to us freely to offer her bill.

Senator O’Neill, sadly, is one of the very few real Labor senators in this parliament. I know that at least 20 per cent of Labor senators are upset with the way Labor has turned against workers, abandoned workers, in favour of woke policies supporting the globalists’ agenda. Look at things like taxation policy. Look at things like energy policy destroying manufacturing. The Liberals and Nationals are similar; they’re just a matter of grades apart.

The Labor Party’s policies and the Liberal-National coalition’s policies are abandoning manufacturing. They’re swallowing the UN dictates: the UN Kyoto protocol, the UN Paris Agreement—which is not really an agreement—and, going back to 1975, the UN’s Lima Declaration. They all sell out manufacturing. They sell out, to some extent, all industry, including agriculture. What about the so-called free trade agreements? We want, instead, fair trade agreements.

Labor’s support for free trade agreements means that they’re selling out workers and Australian employers, small and large. There are the tax policies, as I said, that let foreign multinationals off the hook. The Labor Party in the era of Prime Minister Bob Hawke let them off the hook with the petroleum resource rent tax. A few Labor senators stand up for workers, but, sadly, they’re in a very small minority.

Look at pay rates, which are stagnant because of the rising immigration we had until COVID. Rising costs and stagnant pay mean living standards are falling. Look at the oversupply of workers. We have an oversupply of workers, which is driving wage rates down. Look at the pressure on housing, driving housing prices up.

Look at the pressure on infrastructure in this country because the labour is tied to this large-country policy of letting in many, many immigrants, far more than we need. Look at the gender bending, the indoctrination in schools and the trendy virtue signalling that is taking over the Labor Party. We have good senators, like Senators Sterle, Farrell, Gallacher, Sheldon and others, who are great to work with. They support workers. They’re honest people. They are saddened that their Labor Party has abandoned them; that the Labor Party has swamped them in woke policies.

While Senator O’Neill supports real Australian businesses, her party has largely abandoned workers. Look at the energy sector. Coal has been tossed on the scrapheap by Labor’s virtue signallers. Look at industrial relations, where Mr Joel Fitzgibbon has abandoned and neglected the abused and exploited workers in the Hunter Valley—workers that I had to come in from Queensland to support, with Stuart Bonds, our candidate in the Hunter.

They are selling out our sovereignty to the UN globalists. These are the things that Labor now stand for.

As Senator O’Neill has shown leadership in working with all the parties on the crossbench and the Greens—Senator Whish-Wilson has complimented her, and rightly so—we would expect that Labor would have a reasonable accommodation in play. We would reasonably expect that the Labor Party would have a more favourable attitude to Senator Hanson’s bill to get foreign companies to pay tax on petroleum resources. Yet Labor denied support to our bill. When we asked them why, there was just a blank stare, no reason or justification.

I will finish talking about this bill by emphasising the two major benefits. It brings compulsory arbitration to rectify the imbalance between those who have enormous power, like General Motors, and the franchisees who have limited power. And there is the massive increase in penalties, all justified to restore some balance in power. However, the Australian Financial Review rightly said today that this is just plugging a hole in the dike.

Labor has lost its way in policy. Labor has lost its way in our Senate. One Nation reiterates again that we would support all parties, yet we expect parties to work with us and to give us a fair go. I support this bill. I thank Senator O’Neill, again, for her leadership in reaching out to me and my office.

We will work happily with Senator O’Neill. I remind the Labor Party that if they ever get back into power they will need to work with us. We will be happy to work with people like Senator O’Neill, Senator Farrell, Senator Sterle, Senator Gallacher and Senator Sheldon—these people, sadly, are in a minority. We will happily work with Senator O’Neill and her like.

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Greens live in a parallel universe

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Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I need to say clearly that the climate change agenda seeks to mislead well-meaning Australians with pseudoscience to introduce and hide an economic and social agenda that Australians would otherwise reject. Senator Rice’s motion does mischief. Australia does not have a carbon budget. The Senate has not voted for a carbon budget. The coalition’s supposed climate action plan cap that underpins government policy does not include a carbon budget.

Our international agreements do not include a carbon budget. The only place one can find a climate budget is in the Greens’ own little parallel universe, where the aspiring elites in the Greens are in control of an economy that is not only green but rancid. The devastation that will be caused to our economy by the measures the Greens propose in order to limit carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will destroy our economy, destroy jobs and steal opportunity from our children.

The insult to real scientists is that Senator Rice calls climate change a science based agenda. No, it’s not—definitely not. The argument in favour of a looming climate disaster is based on unvalidated computer models—nothing else. These are the same models that have failed repeatedly and miserably to predict temperature movement.

The largest single driver of climate is the sun, which has moved into a solar minimum that is tracking the Dalton minimum, when the Thames froze over and crops around the world failed. In fact, crops are failing now. Northern China is experiencing widespread hunger, as exceptional cold destroyed the winter cereal crop. Australia, on the other hand, has moved from a dry cycle to a wet cycle. This is not climate change; it’s a natural cycle.

I have challenged the Greens on many occasions to prove their position with empirical scientific evidence—data—and they have repeatedly been unable to. Indeed, today is day No. 502 of my challenge in the Senate to the Greens to simply provide the scientific evidence for their claims and for their alarm and to debate me on the science. Look at them all, looking at their phones; they won’t look at me. I challenged the current Greens Senate leader 10¼ years ago, and nothing.

That is more than a decade, and nothing. I notice that world-renowned scientist Tony Heller, who relies on solid data, has today challenged the Greens to a debate on social media. That’s not going to happen either. And now we see the Nats. Well, that’s another joke. So the Greens have no carbon budget and they have no idea.

Subject MPI: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansards/0cd97387-e8a2-46f1-92cb-16f6be35aee2/&sid=0148

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Greens anti-development Motion – South Australia Quarry

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Transcript

One Nation will not support the motion. Senator Hanson-Young’s motion proposes to kill off jobs in South Australia. South Australia is a low-opportunity economy because the Greens have stopped billions of dollars of investment in ecotourism, agriculture and mining.

The Greens support for wind farms has endangered species of large birds drawn into the turbine blades and their land management policies directly contributed to the catastrophic loss of millions of native animals in the Kangaroo Island fire—millions!

The Greens are no friend to Australian animals, no friend to the poor who need jobs and no friend to mum and dad farmers who produce food for us to eat. It will be a matter for the government of South Australia to assess the quarry expansion proposal.

Motion 953: https://parlwork.aph.gov.au/motions/e16ad7ce-e361-eb11-b85f-005056b57e20

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Native Title Legislation Amendment

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Yesterday I spoke on an amendment to the Native Title legislation. While I support anything that removes complexities, the government still hasn’t promised to give farmers restoration or compensation of their property rights.

Make no mistake, farmers property rights have been stolen by governments to comply with international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement. They must have restoration or compensation.

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Coal LSL and mining entitlements fraud – Adjournment Speech 2 February 2020

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I spoke on my ongoing investigation into the case of mine worker Simon Turner. A huge abuse has happened here and government agencies have done nothing.

Transcript

As a servant of the people of Queensland and Australia, I have a duty to raise and fix issues that are both hurting and concerning everyday Australians.  As a Senator I work for the people.

Today, I raise a matter of great concern for everyday Australians – particularly our hardworking coal miners.

Australian workers are feeling afraid for their jobs, for their livelihoods, for their future. Workers need fairness, integrity, trust and accountability.  I’m concerned for the many workers and businesses small and large that have suffered from state and federal govt COVID restrictions.  Business leaders and workers are all looking for direction from this government, yet at the same time a government authority is doing the wrong thing and abusing workers.

What I’ve witnessed since coal miner, Stuart Bonds and I took up the cause of the exploited, abused and discarded Hunter Valley casual coal miners, is a mass of evidence pointing to potential systemic failures and possibly corruption inside a government agency. An agency that Hunter Valley CFMEU bosses and Minerals Council of NSW executives jointly govern and direct.  We Australians cannot afford our own government to continue shonky behaviour at a time when we should be spending our money wisely.

Thanks to Stuart Bonds’ voluntary help for abandoned workers like Simon Turner and others the Coal LSL scam was uncovered.  Simon Turner and many workers wrote for help from their local MPs including Joel Fitzgibbon six times and to this day Joel Fitzgibbons has ignored their letters. Six times.

Joel Fitzgibbon has been the member for Hunter since 1996 so it’s surprising that he does not know that coal miners are the key to this area’s future.

The agency involved is the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave Funding) Corporation – better known as ‘Coal LSL’. An Australian Government corporation established to regulate and manage long service leave entitlements on behalf of eligible employees in the black coal mining industry.

What I hear is that governance isn’t just lacking, it’s absent.  I’m yet to hear why causals get a different LSL rate to permanents on the same rosters, same work.

As an example, Coal LSL’s system seems incapable of checking whether an employee actually receives their correct long service leave entitlement. Coal LSL just accepts an employer letter and pays the employer. No validation or checking of payments to entitlements to actual payment to employees.

A recent analysis of information that Coal LSL themselves provided reveals evidence of duplication, even triplication, of transactions paid to employers. The reporting recently provided to me is unclear[1]. Levy reimbursements during 2018 include a category for details “Not readily available”. For example, the $264,000 of refunds, not reimbursements, paid out from July 2017 to November 2018. What are these refunds, where’s the transparency?   Coal LSL makes lump sum payments that, again, make reconciliation complex. For example, one of BHP’s OS entities in the Hunter Valley received $187,881.77 in a single transaction in May 2020. For who?

It seems that Coal LSL may not be able to confirm employees are even real people as they do not collect ABN or tax file numbers. They simply get a name and a date of birth. They’re operating in the dark ages and need a modern system to prevent fraud?

In some cases we have heard of companies in Singleton being reimbursed for long service leave even though they do not work in coal mining. In one case, Coal LSL paid reimbursements totalling approx. $57,000 to the wife of the owner of a Queensland company with no state office. Why?

We have learned of an employee not receiving on-boarding information about the Coal LSL scheme, particularly in regard to the employee option to opt out of the scheme and save money. In one case recently a coal miner reported that Coal LSL debited his entitlement for 250 hours of long service, when he actually had not taken leave from his employer. Where’s the governance?

Concerns have been expressed to me that Coal LSL’s current processes might enable a bogus company to register and then to possibly launder money through Coal LSL and then reclaim the funds ‘cleaned’ and available to be transferred to criminals. Where are the checks in the system?  The CEO whose annual remuneration is a staggering $430,187 and her Governance Officer have clearly been asleep at the wheel.

I have personally challenged Coal LSL many times in Senate Estimates and even they do not understand how entitlements are accrued, invested, reconciled and paid to individual coal miners. The CEO could not provide a satisfactory response to a simple question in regard to how Coal LSL accounts for monies paid in and monies paid to employees.

The question is that if bogus companies have been paid in the last seven years, then how could this not be picked up? I’m informed that Coal LSL takes registered companies at their word. That has already led to Coal LSL admitting serious errors in miners’ accounts and entitlements.

As Coal LSL has revealed in senate estimates, it has not listened to the complaints of many coal miners who’ve found discrepancies in their entitlements. Once raised, Coal LSL is slow or unresponsive.

I encourage all coal miners to check that Coal LSL has correctly stated their entitlements so they’re not ripped off. Simon Turner, an exploited Hunter Valley coal miner is a case in point where, after years of requests and complaints, Coal LSL took the word of his rogue employer, Chandler Macleod. Over solid evidence and over Simon’s legitimate requests for a fair go.

Coal LSL is lax at informing employees of their options with many casual miners not told that they’re entitled to choose to not contribute to the scheme and to instead take their employers’ contributions as cash in hand. Let’s face it, at the moment Coal LSL receives the employer contributions for many casual coal miners who it never has to pay out if employees do not stay for the eight year qualifying period. Where does this mountain of cash go and how is it accounted for? What I do know is that many casuals would be better avoiding Coal LSL.

There are many, many examples of Coal LSL failing in its obligations and failing to have appropriate checks and balances to verify that employees are getting their entitlements.

For all we know there may be systemic corruption on this governments’ watch. Have unaccountable union bosses and Minerals Council of NSW executives on this Morrison government authority lined their pockets using bogus companies at the expense of coal miners throughout Australia? We just do not know? Clearly, it’s time for change.

We’re talking about an authority that thousands of workers rely on to protect long service leave entitlements. An authority with a culture biased towards pleasing the employer not on protecting and being accountable for employee’s entitlements. This is not the Coal LSL clerical staff’s fault. It’s the Board and management who must stand up and be held to account. Governance does not exist and the culture of Coal LSL is not solutions or customer focussed. Clearly, it’s time for change.

For too long, Coal LSL has operated as a rogue government authority. Until I brought them before Senate Estimates they were never called upon to explain their actions.  It was the suffering of exploited and abandoned workers like Simon Turner that put a spotlight on Coal LSL and its culture that ignores abandoned workers. Clearly, it’s time for change. And it must be now.

Today, Stuart Bonds and I are strongly advocating for change in Coal LSL and a reconciliation of all accounts and entitlements to ensure that workers and employers are not being ripped off.

Stuart Bonds and I pledge to work for justice for workers hurting from the actions of unthinking, uncaring, unaccountable government authorities like Coal LSL. Authorities under the joint control of shadowy union bosses and a Minerals Council acting for uncaring mining conglomerates. The same mining companies and union bosses that enabled the exploitation of casual coal miners in the Hunter Valley.

Clearly, it’s time for a change. Coal LSL needs to be taken out of the hands of self-interested parties. Coal LSL management needs a broom put through it. A change to build an open, honest transparent, accountable culture to protect the entitlements of everyday Australian workers.

I implore all workers and everyday Australians – rural and city – to vote with your feet. Please go and tell your local union branch, member of parliament and senator that you expect that workers’ rights and entitlements to be protected.  Tell Joel Fitzgibbon that the time for talk is over and it’s time for action. Tell Joel Fitzgibbon, the NSW Minerals Council and the CFMEU Hunter Valley union bosses that Coal LSL like all government bodies must demonstrate the highest standards of integrity, to protect workers’ interests, to behave with common sense and transparency. Workers deserve integrity and support.

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Cashless Debit Card Explanation

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The Cashless Debit Card is controversial. Last week One Nation voted to extend the trial of the system. Controversial because activists, Labor and the Greens are ignoring the facts and confusing the public with mistruths.

Firstly, it’s not a cashless program. Recipients still have between 20% and 50% in cash. Secondly, this is a program that was requested from communities to help protect children and families. This system stops people from using their entire taxpayer funded welfare payments on alcohol, gambling, drugs and cigarettes.

Reports from those on the system and their communities are already claiming that there are less hungry children and less violence and crime. This program protects children and families and taxpayer welfare payments. There are no plans to extend this program to the pension. This is a scare campaign by the left. And we wouldn’t support it anyway.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Senator Malcolm Roberts, and I’m in Parliament House, Canberra. And I want to discuss the cashless debit card or it’s actually the less-cash debit card because it still comes with cash. Why are we doing it? And why do we support the government’s trial? Because it’s all about kids and families, protecting kids and families.

Making sure that kids get a belly full of food and it’s not just consumed, the money is not just wasted on alcohol and booze from their parents. So it’s about the future of our country because kids learn better at school. They develop better physically when they’ve got full bellies and not starving. It’s about kids and families.

Making sure that the money from taxpayers goes to people who deserve the welfare. So that leads me to my second point. And that, that as a Senator, I have responsibility not just to the people who need welfare and support, but to the people who pay for the welfare and the support, the taxpayer. So we have to make sure that the taxpayer’s money provides value for the taxpayer.

‘Cause it’s a lot of money for taxpayers, who have worked hard to get that money and to see it wasted on booze and drugs and gambling and cigarettes, is just not on. The third thing is that, I hinted to it earlier. It’s a less-cash card, it’s not a cash-less card. There’s cash still involved, the proportion of cash varies from 20% through to 50%, depending upon the community.

This is a trial and they’re trialling many different parameters. And that means that as people learn from the trial, and the trial has now been going for a few years. As people learn, they tweak the trial because they learn from their mistakes and let’s remove the mistakes, and they see other opportunities. And so they wanna make sure that people benefit from that.

And remember, the less-cash card came out of requests from communities where there was massive abuse of kids and families. Waste of money, tearing up the communities. Those communities approached government and wanted help. Liberal National Party Government, and the Labour Party Government under Gillard.

So this is about protecting our future, and protecting taxpayers, and above all, protecting kids. So it is a difficult issue, an emotional issue. It’s been distorted by various people using lots of lies and slang, but it is about protecting kids, protecting families, and protecting taxpayers, and making sure that Australia gets value for its money.

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Industrial Relations Reform Speech

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Last week in Canberra I was unable to give this speech in the Senate so I recorded so you could hear. The government is proposing changes to the the Industrial Relations system and I wanted to put my views on the record and say to the government that the IR system is broken and needs fixing. And simplifying.

Transcript

I serve the people of Queensland & Australia and want to discuss our shared need for:

  • Improving industrial relations to protect honest workers and employers
  • the bigger picture and a vision for a secure future.

And I will shine a light on the Industrial Relations Club, known as the IR Club. The root cause of most IR conflict.

We have listened to workers – casual and permanent – across Queensland and Australia. From Thursday Island to the Hunter to Tasmania, from Brisbane to Perth. We have listened to union bosses and union bodies. We have listened to small and medium sized businesses. We have listened to employer and industry groups.

We have listened to the government and to the opposition. I’ve worked underground at the coalface in five regions across our country, managed mines and negotiated and introduced IR changes improving safety, productivity and security. As a mining executive I introduced the Australian coal industry’s first radically new enterprise award, one proudly based on matching employees needs and employers’ needs.

Our people set records that stood for decades with extremely high worker retention and Australia’s best safety performance for large underground coal mines. Listening reveals that across our country, people are hurting, feeling vulnerable. Afraid for their jobs, afraid of the future.

Add to that Australians are hurting from the economic fallout from COVID with restrictions and lock-downs keeping us away from our jobs, businesses and loved ones. People feel confused, often despairing, even hopeless. Many feel powerless to improve their situation or their business, frustrated that this government didn’t listen and just listens to the IR Club.

And people like HV miner Simon Turner crippled, exploited and discarded due to abuses proving the complete failure of current Industrial Relations laws. People are angry. The “Industrial Relations Club, the IR Club” is alive and well. It keeps its members fat, well paid and secure – lawyers, courts, employer peak bodies like the BCA, major UB’s.

Driven to perpetuate conflict so they have something to “fix,” a reason for staying in existence. Using complexity to conjure issues that need lawyers and UB’s to sort. The primary workplace relationship between employee and employer has been shoved aside. The IR system is broken. And that’s destroying Australian industry and exporting jobs to China.

The IR Club perpetuates artificial restrictions that needlessly destroy productivity and job security and suppress wages. Restrictions hurting workers and employers. The Building & Construction General On-Site Award is almost 150 pages long with 80 separate allowances on top of the prescribed wage schedule.

Australia’s cabotage is another IR Club casualty – and guts national security, sovereignty and tax revenue. The IR Club’s other victims are small and medium sized business. Our economy’s engine room. The IR Club insists on a one size fits all from large multinationals with huge teams of lawyers through to small businesses. Queensland’s 445,000 small businesses are now under even greater pressure as a result of the govt’s COVID response.

And, as a result of the IR Club, small businesses are left with complex, unworkable IR rules that are not fit for purpose. The IR Club is one reason why small businesses and honest big businesses are angry. We need honest, competent leadership making decisions based on solid data and facts with strength of character and a willingness to serve our country’s people, Australians. A Prime Minister who tries to do good, not just look good.

One Nation protects workers’ rights and knows that only employers, entrepreneurs, small businesses and workers create jobs. The govt’s COVID restrictions have done enormous damage. Yet the govt-induced collapse is not an excuse to cut pay or job security. Instead, let’s reform IR together properly.

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PFAS Contamination Update

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Transcript

Thank you madam acting deputy president. I was told in meetings with defence last year that the PFAS task force was working on the problem with PFAS contamination by applying a whole of government response. So I asked for the minutes of their meetings to see what a whole whole of government response looked like. I was refused. I did a document discovery. Still no minutes arrived.

This third attempt has succeeded. It should not have been this hard to get hold of a simple set of minutes. Having read them, I do understand why they had to be prized away from the task force. The Morrison government’s PFAS response is all talk. It is a process that has no destination and as a result is achieving nothing. It seems to be aiming to stall and to avert. The last concrete action by this government was in 2018 to award $55 million for a drinking water programme for affected areas and $73 million for research into PFAS.

There are now over 900 PFAS sites around Australia. The government is remediating four defence sites. Bases at Williamtown, Oakey, Edinburgh and Katherine. Four down, 896 to go. While the PFAS task force is sitting around holding meetings and reissuing old guidances, the residents of the red zones continue to live with the nightmare every day.

Residents are trapped in homes that are unsaleable. One resident that I’ve spoke with many times and visited his house on a number of occasions, David Jefferis and his wife Diane Priddle from Oakey in Queensland purchased their property in 2004 for a combined $2.4 million investment. At that time, the defence department knew his land was affected by PFAS and yet they kept quiet.

Once the contamination was made public the property became unsaleable. Dave and Diane’s successful cattle breeding and grazing business had to close because nobody wants to buy contaminated cattle or genetics. They have a stud property. A very clean, tidy operation. David and Diane’s property and business was recently valued by a registered valuer at just $400,000.

A $2 million loss through no fault of their own. It’s an outrage that the Morrison government is allowing these residents to remain trapped in red zones while the PFAS taskforce drifts around from meeting room to meeting room in search of direction. While a recent class action lawsuit was settled, Dave and Diane received just $120,000 compensation and he hasn’t got the money yet.

The government’s own PFAS subcommittee has made the same recommendation in the last two update reports which called for remediation, compensation and like for like relocation. That’s fair. I hope the third head of that subcommittee in just two years, Senator McCarthy, has more success in getting their recommendations implemented.

The way forward now must be to remove residents out of the contaminated red zones, install remediation units and treat the groundwater before these toxic plumes spread further and ruin yet more lives.

Now last year, I asked the then Minister for Agriculture Senator McKenzie if it was safe for producers like David and Diane to send their cattle to auction and Senator McKenzie replied, quote,

“There is no reason why farmers cannot send their produce to market.”

End of quote. Well, let’s examine that statement. Food standards Australia specify a safe level for PFAS exposure of 20 nanograms for PFAS and 160 nanograms for PFOA. These can be present together for a total PFAS level of 190 nanograms per kilo of body weight. On the 19th of September 2020, The European Food Safety Authority set a new safety threshold for PFAS contamination.

The limit which now applies across the EU, is just 4.4 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per week. A fraction of what Australia allows. The European body considered the decreased response of the immune system to vaccination to be the most critical human health effect of PFAS exposure.

So I ask. Has the PFAS task force considered that the Morrison government is about to introduce a vaccine for COVID that might be put at risk through our tolerating PFAS levels that are 40 times higher than the new European Safety Standard. Cattle in the red zone from RAAF Base Richmond have been tested at over 1000 nanograms per kilo.

Newborn calves are testing at over 300 nanograms. This is the product that former Minister McKenzie says is safe to sell and consume. It is not safe to sell. By sending contaminated products to the EU, we’re risking food and livestock exports of $2 billion a year. This is not just affecting Oakey, this is affecting the whole beef industry.

The Morrison government can find billions to give to its big business mates for corporate welfare in the name of COVID but can’t find a lesser amount a much much lesser amount to find a like for like relocation and compensation scheme for everyday Australians caught up in the nightmare of the government’s making despite the committee recommending it do so. It’s time for the prime minister to fix this problem. And I seek leave to continue my remarks.

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