Malcolm’s Official Speeches in Parliament

A Bill to Correct Gender Definitions and Protect Women is Rejected!

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I support Pauline’s Bill to correct the definitions of men and women under the Sex Discrimination Act. I highlighted that sometimes the law can be absurd, asserting that if someone identifies as female, they are legally recognised as such, regardless of physical evidence to the contrary.

I used my own height as an example: just because I claim to be 6 feet tall (when I’m actually 5 feet 4 inches) doesn’t make it true. This law is delusional.

I also raised concerns about men who identify as women invading spaces meant for biological females, such as public restrooms, as well as biological men competing against women in sports, like boxing, which leads to disgracefully, unfair matches. I want to clarify that my criticism isn’t directed at diverse lifestyles or same-sex relationships; rather, it’s about the infringement on women’s rights by those who misidentify their biological reality.

Transcript

This bill, the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Acknowledging Biological Reality) Bill 2024, needs to be sent to committee to ensure that sensible and reasonable discussion can address the inherent error that exists in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984. It’s been said that sometimes the law is an ass—or an arse, some say! What this means is that sometimes a law is made, validly through parliament, that contains a blatant, obvious, overt, logically impossible, glaring factual error. There are many examples. The error in this case is that a mistaken concept from simply saying something, perhaps based on a mistaken belief, becomes a fact, but it’ll never become a fact because it is not the truth. 

The mistake made in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 is that if a person identifies as a particular gender such as female, despite biological evidence to the contrary, they should at law be considered female. This law is insane and delusional, and only normalises those persons with the illness called gender dysphoria when they should be receiving psychiatric care, support and loving compassion. I’m not talking about people who have a preference to partner with a person of the same gender, or those who prefer to dress in the style of a person of the opposite gender to which they were born. I’m not talking about those persons who are born with both male and female genitalia—true hermaphrodites, who are very few in number but nonetheless exist. For me to identify as being two metres tall does not make me that tall; that’s the way it is. Thinking it or saying it does not make it true. The Australian basketball team, the Boomers, is not going to select me to join the team. Passing a law that says I am two metres tall does not make it true. That’s the stupidity and falsehood of the effect of the current Sex Discrimination Act 1984—a true example of what George Orwell predicted could happen in a future chaotic world. 

The women’s rights movement took a massive leap backwards when Julia Gillard’s changes to discrimination law started. It made possible the extreme examples where definitions of what constitutes male and female became blurred. We’re now confronted with issues where a female enters a female-only space such as a public toilet and confronts a person claiming to be female who is visibly and biologically male. He is invading her space. She may well be fearful of her personal safety and privacy. That’s very important to consider. 

Women have fought hard for equal rights only to have pseudo-women, not biological women, attack women’s rights, wanting to access the privileges of women-only spaces and opportunities. The encroachment of pseudo-women into women’s sports events became a debacle at the recent Olympic Games, when a biological male claiming to be female battered women into submission to win a boxing gold medal. Battering women into submission is now a recognised sport because the International Olympic Committee is afraid to confront the truth. At the hands of the Greens and Labor, this insanity that defies and contradicts biology and defies science is overriding women’s rights. The biologically male boxer used his strength and physical male advantage to defeat all the true women opponents in the lead-up events. This has led to the world condemnation of the Olympic committee, and I note the International Boxing Federation bans biological males from competing against biological females, as do an increasing number of international sporting bodies. These are all real issues that this bill would address and would do so simply by reasserting biological definitions of what constitutes a male and a female. 

I support the amendment to move this bill to the committee for inquiry. The people of Australia need to have a say. Julia Gillard’s bill did not give the people a say. This Senate can rectify this. Let’s listen to the people. Let’s engage in honest inquiry, and I must point out Senator Hanson is a woman. 

The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Roberts. I do remind you, when referring to former prime ministers, to use the correct title. The question is that Senator Hanson’s amendment to Senator Gallagher’s amendment to the Selection of Bills Committee report be agreed to. 

The Senate divided. [11:40] 

(The President—Senator Lines) 

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Net-Zero Advocates Confronted with Reality

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For years, net-zero campaigners have refused to admit that wind and solar cannot keep the lights on during the evening and morning peaks. Climate realists using the phrase “when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow” have been mocked for years. 

That ridicule has now gone down the memory hole and net-zero advocates are now acknowledging the truth of that statement by introducing a policy called “firming.” This involves the process of storing electricity generated during the day for use during peak demand in the evening and morning—exactly what I’ve been saying for 15 years. 

The issue here is the cost: batteries and pumped hydro costs a fortune and batteries only last 10 to 15 years before needing replacement. There’s also an energy loss to consider—batteries lose about 10% of the energy put into them and another 10% on the way out, while pumped hydro uses more electricity to pump water uphill than it generates on the way down. 

I asked the Minister about the cost of “firming,” and her answer was quite embarrassing — she didn’t know. It’s likely to exceed $100 billion. 

Transcript | Question Time

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator McAllister. Minister, during evening and morning peak hours, electricity generation from industrial solar and wind averages just 10 per cent of rated capacity, because solar doesn’t work in the dark, and wind goes quiet at night. Big batteries can transfer electricity from daytime to the evening peak. Minister, how much battery capacity is your government planning to build to maintain electricity supply between sunset and sunrise?

Senator McAllister: I thank Senator Roberts for the question. The senator is right to point to the fact that Australia’s electricity system is changing. We have, as I think most senators understand, a fleet of ageing coal-fired power stations that require replacement. I can tell you: they are not getting any more reliable. In fact, over the last year, I don’t think there’s been a day when we haven’t had a circumstance where at least one of the coal-fired power generators in the national electricity market has been offline for one kind of maintenance or another. Of course, this arises because we went through nearly a decade when the coalition, while in government, did not land an energy policy. They had 22 policies; none of them landed. Our task as government—

The PRESIDENT: Minister McAllister, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts?

Senator ROBERTS: I have a point of order. Standing order 70 (3) (c) says, ‘Answers shall be directly relevant to each question.’ I asked about how much battery capacity your government is planning to build to maintain electricity supply between sunset and sunrise.

The PRESIDENT: I will draw the minister to your question.

Senator McAllister: Of course, our task is actually to restore some measure of order to the energy system so that the investors who build the generation capacity that is necessary to power homes and businesses have the confidence to invest. And that is what the Capacity Investment Scheme has been designed to do. We have just been through a round of the Capacity Investment Scheme where we received very significant commitment to underwriting very significant battery capacity. We do understand the significance of this technology. What the experts tell us is the most cost-effective way to establish a national energy market that can meet the energy requirements of Australian homes and businesses is a combination of wind, of solar, of batteries and of gas, and that is the policy setting that we— (Time expired)

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, you couldn’t tell me the battery capacity your government is planning to build, so you may not be able to answer this question. But let’s just say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, please. What is the capital cost of that battery backup, and how much of that bill will taxpayers pay? Simple.

The PRESIDENT: I will just wait for silence, particularly on my left. This is Senator Roberts’s question.

Senator McAllister: As I have indicated previously to questions asked by Senator Roberts in this chamber, the cost of the transition is regularly estimated out to 2050 by AEMO, and it is included in the Integrated System Plan, which is regularly published and updated. Different states have different arrangements in terms of the ownership and investment in generation, and so the investment that will take place will look different depending on the ownership arrangements that are in place across the national electricity market. However, we understand that there is a measure of support required from the Commonwealth government, and it is why we have put in place the Capacity Investment Scheme which aims to provide support for those who are seeking to invest in new capacity, whether it is in batteries or other forms of generation in the national electricity market.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: So the minister cannot tell us the battery capacity required, nor the capital cost of that battery backup. So, Minister, AEMO is working off a figure of 60 gigawatt hours of storage at around $1 billion an hour, which is $60 billion. How much will electricity prices and supermarket prices rise as a result of having to spend that staggering amount of money?

Senator McAllister: Well, the one thing I can say is that we will take advice from the experts about the optimal investment that’s necessary to build out the national electricity market. It’s a different approach to the one taken by those opposite, because right now we have a coalition government whose plan is to invest taxpayers’ money in the most expensive form—

The PRESIDENT: Minister, please resume your seat.

Senator McKenzie: You can’t tell us how expensive yours will be!

The PRESIDENT: I’m waiting, Senator McKenzie! Senator Roberts.

Senator ROBERTS: A point of order on relevance. I didn’t ask about the coalition government, as you said. I asked about the Labor government now.

The PRESIDENT: I will draw the minister to your question, Senator Roberts. And while I have the attention of the chamber, I will ask senators, particularly those on my left, to listen in respectful silence. Minister McAllister.

Senator Thorpe: You lefties need to listen!

The PRESIDENT: Senator Thorpe, that includes you! Order! Minister, please continue.

Senator McAllister: Thanks very much, President. The senator asked about our plans. The Capacity Investment Scheme will deliver 32 gigawatts of renewable and clean dispatchable capacity to fill emerging
reliability gaps. The truth is that will put downward pressure on prices, because one of the consequences of the failed policies of those opposite is that we do have capacity capabilities that need to be filled because energy capacity is leaving the market and it has not been replaced. We are taking steps necessary to replace it. (Time expired)

Transcript | Take Note of Questions

I move: 

That the Senate take note of the answer from the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator McAllister, to a question without notice I asked today relating to energy. 

My question was quite simple: how much is the government’s net zero policy going to cost just for firming? Firming is the provision of what used to be called stable, synchronised baseload power to keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. Firming wasn’t needed when we had coal power because coal plants provide stable, synchronised baseload power day and night. Solar and wind don’t. 

AEMO estimates Australia will need 65 gigawatt hours of firming to guarantee grid stability. Depending on the time of year, that storage will need to be refilled each day to get the grid through the next night, including most of the evening and morning peak hours. Australia’s energy consumption in 2023-24 shows that, in summer, for the morning peak hours we needed 36 gigawatt hours of power and for the evening peak hours 28 gigawatt hours. So AEMO’s figure of 65 gigawatt hours of firming is about right. The $64 billion expense—billion dollar expense—will be added to every Australian’s power bill, or it will go onto your taxes. Either way, under the Albanese government you will pay. 

The $64 billion cost is just for one night. These batteries need to be refilled the next day with power from the grid. That means that every day we need a huge amount of solar and wind just to charge the batteries. One wet day preventing large-scale generation from solar and wind means the batteries will not be recharged, resulting in blackouts and energy management that I’ll discuss tomorrow. It’s clear that 65 gigawatts of capacity at $64 billion is not enough to avoid blackouts. We’ll probably need twice that, as well as having to build extra solar and wind just to charge the batteries. 

Everyday Australians are up for hundreds of billions of dollars just for firming. That’s in addition to the electricity needed on any day. This is an insane impost on every Australian struggling with paying for their groceries and insurance and with the cost of living under Labor. End the net zero mandates now. 

Question agreed to. 

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Study Reveals Carbon Credits are a Scam!

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A reputable study says that 70-80% of carbon credits “are devoid of integrity”. This is a market that is costing Australia roughly $5.5 billion based on carbon credit units that even the Greens agree is a scam. This is driving up prices even higher in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

It’s time to stop the corruption and cancel these ridiculous net-zero policies.

Transcript

Carbon dioxide credits are a scam and an absolute fraud, and the Greens agree with One Nation on this. Yes, you heard that correctly. It’s difficult to believe. Australians may wonder what we agree on Granted, the Greens and One Nation have come to the same conclusion for very different reasons. Nonetheless, we share the conclusion that carbon dioxide credits are a scam. They are rife with opportunities for fraud. 

The Clean Energy Regulator has issued 140 million carbon dioxide credits. At the current spot price of $35 each, this represents a racket potentially worth $4.9 billion. That’s expected to grow by 20 million credits, or $700 million, this year alone, making it $5.6 million. 

The Greens and One Nation aren’t the only ones to criticise Australian carbon credit units, or ACCUs. In 2022 Professor Andrew Macintosh, environmental law expert at the Australian National University, and his colleagues published a series of papers absolutely tearing apart the ACCU system. Keep in mind that this is a $5.5 billion market that’s being fabricated, in part to give the UN income, ultimately. As usual, they enlist parasites who benefit while pushing UN policy for them. For example, the major banks. Rothschild Australia, the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch had on their advisory boards in this country at the time the CSIRO chief executive, Dr Megan Clark—a conflict of interest? 

Back to the study of ACCU carbon dioxide credits. The study was done under Professor Andrew Macintosh, who said: 

The available data suggests 70 to 80 per cent of the ACCUs issued to … projects are devoid of integrity … 

So 20 to 30 per cent may have some integrity. Remember, this is a $5.5 billion market. Here’s another quote: 

What is occurring is a fraud on the environment … 

‘A fraud on the environment’, I say to the Greens. This is what Dr Macintosh said: 

What is occurring is a fraud on the environment, a fraud on taxpayers— 

Australian taxpayers— 

and a fraud on unwitting private buyers of ACCUs … 

In response to these revelations, the government commissioned what they call the Chubb review. The government should just have been honest and called it what it really was: a whitewash, a distortion and misinformation. Actually, the Chubb review is disinformation. In the past, when Professor Chubb has been requested to provide empirical scientific data within a logical scientific point backing up claims of climate change due to human carbon dioxide, he has repeatedly failed to produce it. He has never produced it, yet he’s often advocated for it. He’s part of the climate fraud industry and has received a lot of money to push climate fraud. He has been heavily rewarded by both Liberal-National and Labor Party governments. The Chubb review, in this case, addressed nothing of substance and provided no evidence for its claims that problems have been fixed, yet the government held the report up as proof that everything’s fine. As Professor Macintosh and his colleagues outlined in their response to the Chubb review, it spent less than six pages discussing the ACCU rules, which relate to a $5.5 billion market. They say: 

The– 

Chubb— 

report does not contain references to the evidence relied upon to reach its conclusions … 

I’ll say that again: 

The– 

Chubb— 

report does not contain references to the evidence relied upon to reach its conclusions, and includes very little analysis to support its findings. And importantly, the panel does not address key questions around the integrity of the scheme’s rules. 

What use was that? This is ‘a fraud on the environment, a fraud on taxpayers and a fraud on unwitting private buyers of ACCUs’. Here is another quote: 

Bewilderingly— 

I don’t find it bewildering; it’s straightforward, as I’ve been watching this scam unfold for years– 

in its assessment of the methods, the panel does not refer to the findings of a review it commissioned from the Australian Academy of Science … The academy … found numerous flaws in the methods and the associated governance processes. 

There were ‘numerous flaws in the methods and the associated governance processes’. This is so typical of this government. It is so typical of the Liberals, the Nationals and Labor, pushing the climate fraud. Here is another quote: 

The— 

Chubb— 

review … acknowledged the scientific evidence criticising the carbon credit scheme, but says “it was also provided with evidence to the contrary”. Yet it did not disclose what that evidence was or what it relates to. The public is simply expected to trust that the evidence exists. 

Maybe the dog ate the evidence for breakfast. This is what the government says is assurance and integrity for taxpayer money. 

While the Greens, Professor Macintosh and I may agree on the integrity issues with carbon dioxide credits, here’s where I leave them behind: there is no reason to reduce our output of carbon dioxide or trade credits for it. Carbon dioxide credits can never have integrity because they are a scam designed to transfer wealth from the pockets of everyday Australians and their families and small businesses to the bank accounts of billionaire net zero scam artists and parasitic multinationals sucking on the financial payout from climate fraud and associated financial scams. I note some of these points. I won’t go into them in detail. The government that introduced the renewable energy target, a scam, and the national electricity market that is really a national electricity racket—it’s not a market; it’s a bureaucratic controlled entity—stole farmers’ property rights across the country so that they could comply with the UN’s Kyoto protocol. They put in place the first policy—not legislation—advocating for a carbon dioxide tax. It wasn’t Julia Gillard. It was the Howard government that did all these things. The Howard government laid the foundation for all of this. It went around the Constitution to steal farmers’ property rights around the country. Then, six years after being booted from office and after the Liberals and Nationals in the Howard government told us that it was all based on science, John Howard, in a major lecture to sceptic think tank in Londan said that on the topic of climate science, he was agnostic. He didn’t have the science, and now our electricity sector has been crippled because of the renewable energy target, the national electricity market and an alphabet soup of bureaucratic agencies. 

There has never been—there never is—any empirical scientific data and logical scientific points that human carbon dioxide is warming the planet. There is not any from the CSIRO—I’ve done freedom of information requests and held them accountable in the Senate—nor from their publications ever. There is not any from the Bureau of Meteorology. It’s the same deal. There is not any from the United Nations. It’s the same deal. There is also no policy basis. There is no documented effect per unit of human carbon dioxide on climate factors such as air temperature, rainfall, heat waves, drought severity and frequency or storm severity, frequency and duration—none at all. There is no basis for the policy on which the carbon dioxide credits are based. There’s been no cost benefit analysis. There’s been no business case. Ross Garnaut, who produced a report for the Rudd-Gillard government, said in his report on the science that there basically was no science and he was going on the consensus. Yet he is parasitically sucking on solar and wind subsidies, driving up electricity prices and putting Australians into poverty. Remember, the money that goes to the extra costs of electricity in this country is a highly regressive tax on the poor in our country. 

In 2009 and 2020 we had two global experiments showing that human carbon dioxide has no effect on carbon dioxide levels in the air. We had a major downturn with the global financial crisis in 2008. We then had a recession in 2009. COVID hit us. It arrived on our shores—it didn’t really hit us; the government hit us—in 2020, and then 2020 was almost a depression because of the restrictions and lockdowns. In both years, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued rising unabated. Yet we’ve been told for decades now that by cutting back on human production of carbon dioxide we would see the levels in the atmosphere start decreasing and go down. We had a major reduction in industrial activity and a severe recession in 2009 and 2020. The production of carbon dioxide from human use of hydrocarbons, coal, oil and natural gas decreased dramatically, yet nothing happened. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere kept increasing. 

I asked the CSIRO why. They said that there is an inflection. I asked them for the details of that inflection, to characterise it statistically. They failed to do it. I asked the Bureau of Meteorology, and they said, ‘Senator Roberts, it would take years for that to come through.’ Here is the CSIRO saying that we’ve already seen it and the Bureau of Meteorology saying that we will see it eventually, but it will take a long while to come. You can’t make this stuff up! What the experiments in 2009 and 2020 showed is that the production of carbon dioxide from human activity will not affect the level of carbon dioxide in the air. Once you understand Henry’s law—the quantities of carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean are 50 to 70 times more than the entire atmospheric carbon dioxide—then you start to understand why that’s the case. But not content with climate science fraud, the CSIRO is perpetrating gen cost, which is energy fraud based on bogus assumptions that have been completely debunked. Aidan Morrison has done a marvellous job; others have done a marvellous job. 

There’s no basis for this scam, this fraud, but let’s return to the fraud. A report in the 2010s said Europol found 95 per cent of carbon dioxide trading credits were suspicious. That’s easy to believe because there’s no physical basis to the measurement of reductions to carbon dioxide produced. They’re all projections. They’re all based on guesses. They’re formulae based on estimations. They were never quantified and are still not quantified. China is producing record quantities of carbon dioxide, and so are Russia, Brazil, the United States and the European Union—Australia are a small player—yet temperatures are flat and have been flat since 1995. That’s almost 30 years of flat temperatures. I urge senators to establish this inquiry so that we can get to the bottom of how taxpayer money is being fraudulently abused. 

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The Costs and Risks of Australia’s Largest Solar Project: Sun Cable

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This is another of my ongoing questions into understanding the cost of net zero. The Sun Cable project is an insane proposal to cover 12,000 hectares of the Northern Territory with solar panels, at a cost of over $30 billion. There are multiple problems with this project, including environmental damage, power loss during transmission and site remediation once the panels reach the end of life.

These large energy companies are not required to, and don’t set aside funds for remediation. This means Australian taxpayers will end up footing the bill for billions of dollars in cleanup costs when this project inevitably fails.

Despite this being the world’s largest solar project and carrying significant sovereign risk, the Minister had no clue what I was talking about.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator McAllister, and it’s regarding the SunCable industrial solar project in the Northern Territory. Minister, please advise the Senate of the total value of guarantees and, as a separate figure, the total value of subsidies available to the project. 

Senator McAllister: I am aware that the Minister for the Environment and Water has recently provided approval for the SunCable project. This is a project that, as I understand it, seeks to establish renewable generation capability in the Northern Territory and also significant transmission capability, which will allow that generation to be used within the Australian grid but potentially also to be exported to our Singaporean neighbours. This is potentially an extremely important project. It is also one that is first of kind in the Australian context— 

Senator ROBERTS: I have a point of order, under standing order 72(3)(c): ‘Answers shall be directly relevant to each question.’ I asked about the total value of guarantees and the total value of subsidies. What are they? If you don’t know, please just say so. 

The President: I will draw the minister to that part of your question, Senator Roberts. 

Senator McAllister: The senator asks me to comment, I think, on policies that exist in the Australian context to support the rollout of reliable renewables, and of course— 

The President: Minister McAllister, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts, on a point of order? 

Senator ROBERTS: I asked about the total value of guarantees and the total value of subsidies. That’s it. 

The President: Senator Roberts, the minister barely said seven words, so let’s just hear the answer. I have reminded the minister of the question, and I will continue to listen carefully. 

Senator McAllister: The Australian government takes our advice about the future of the energy system from experts, and all of the advice that has been provided to us is that the most cost-effective form of new generation to replace the older, ageing assets that are shortly to retire is reliable renewables. 

Senator CASH: He just wanted to know what the figure is. 

The President: Order! Senator Cash, this is not your question. 

Senator McAllister: We take our advice from experts because we believe that Australians deserve the most cost-effective form of energy that is available to us. We can’t actually go back to doing things the way that they were done under the previous government. 

The President: Minister McAllister, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts, on a point of order? 

Senator ROBERTS: I remind the minister that I asked about the total value of guarantees and the total value of subsidies. 

The President: I have reminded the minister of the question, and I will remind her again, Senator Roberts. 

Senator HENDERSON: It’s okay to say you can take it on notice. 

The President: Order! Thank you, Senator Henderson. 

Senator McAllister: My advice is that this project has been— (Time expired) 

The President: Senator Roberts, first supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: The project proposes to generate electricity in the Northern Territory and send it to Singapore using a 4,300-kilometre-long cable, mostly undersea. This is five times longer than Norway’s 760-kilometre Viking Link, the current longest cable. Viking Link loses 3.5 per cent of its generation through transmission loss. What percentage of the project’s Australian generated electricity will be lost in transmission to Singapore? 

Senator McAllister: The senator asks about, essentially, the economics of the project that has been approved, and what I can advise the senator is that this is a matter for the project proponent. The government’s role is not to assess the economics of this project. The minister has made a decision in relation to its environmental approvals. This is part of a broader transformation of the Australian economy. We are blessed with abundant sunshine, wind and land, with skilful engineers and skilful personnel, with a mature commercial and legal environment and with a natural electricity system that many other countries seek to talk to us about because of its strengths. These are strengths for Australian communities. They are strengths for Australian regions and they are potentially a source of significant economic opportunity for Australians living in regional communities. (Time expired) 

The President: Senator Roberts, second supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: The minister can’t or won’t tell me about guarantees and subsidies nor a core project assumption, so, Minister, my second supplementary question is: how much is SunCable lodging as a rehabilitation bond for the 12,400 hectares of land that will be covered in solar panels? 

Senator McAllister: The senator asks about the terms on which the approval for the SunCable project has been provided. I can tell the senator that Minister Plibersek applies the terms of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to all of the matters that come before her. This is a project proposal that intends to establish a significant source of new generation in the Northern Territory, as you indicated in your first supplementary question. 

The President: Senator Roberts, on a point of order? 

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, is there a rehabilitation bond in place to cover the desecration of the environment? 

The President: Senator Roberts, it’s your responsibility to seek a point of order, not to re-ask your question. If you have a point of order, I invite you to make it. If you don’t, I’ll ask the minister to continue. 

Senator ROBERTS: President, the point of order is one of relevance. 

The President: I believe the minister is being relevant. She has outlined to you the approval processes. So I will ask her to continue. 

Senator CASH interjecting— 

The President: Order! Order! Senator Cash, which bit of ‘order’ doesn’t apply to you? Minister McAllister, please continue. 

Senator McAllister: The minister’s responsibility, of course, is to apply the law when a project is put before her. Since coming to government we have sought to do so in relation to all of the projects before us, but we are pleased to see new renewable projects coming online. Since coming to government, we have given the green light to more than 55 of those under the

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Government Will Take Power from YOUR Solar Panels and EV

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For years, the Government has subsidised rooftop solar and, more recently, wall batteries. This isn’t so you can have cheap power, it’s so they can have YOUR cheap power.

Half of Australia’s solar energy is generated from rooftop systems. During the morning and evening peak hours, when the sun isn’t shining and wind energy reduces by 90%, the government will take the charge from your wall battery and EV to keep the grid going. This is called “grid connectivity”. Under net zero policies, you will receive only as much electricity as the officials in Canberra decide you can have.

One Nation will end the net zero scam, build new high efficiency coal plants and restore wealth and prosperity to Australia.

Transcript

I thank Senator Van for this matter of public importance. Without criticising the science, cost and impracticability of net zero, which I did last night and will do again tomorrow, it’s certainly possible to talk about wasted capacity in the electricity sector. The ad hoc stance towards solar power in Australia has meant that a lot of people have fitted solar panels without battery storage. This is a distortion in the market as a result of government interference—subsidising solar panels early on while only subsidising wall batteries much later. In fact, the distortion in the energy market as a result of government interference is exactly why energy prices in Australia are out of control. In the most energy rich country in the world we should have the cheapest retail electricity in the world; it should not be amongst the dearest. 

Remember, though, that One Nation is the party of free enterprise. If an Australian homeowner, body corporate or business wants to spend their own money to install solar power, connect it to a battery and then use that investment to start trading in electricity, all power to you. In fact, homeowners organising themselves to direct the output of their solar panels into community batteries is a way of getting into the energy business.  

The government promised community batteries, and I know it has so far funded 370. Only one of the 370 grants went to a community organisation. The other 369 were to either government departments or energy companies. Why are we giving grants to energy companies to build big batteries when the proceeds of those big batteries will be sold back to the grid? Can’t they finance themselves? The Albanese government are handing out taxpayers’ money to their big business mates at a time that everyday Australians need the money for themselves.  

Electric vehicles are another area where energy trading could be an option. Modern EVs use a battery which can hold 100 kilowatt hours of electricity. If charged from the owner’s own solar panels during the day, selling that electricity into the grid during peak hour will help stave off blackouts. Instead, all of these measures fracture energy generation and make the task of maintaining the reliability of the grid harder and more expensive.  

There is a better solution. Modern clean-coal technology allows for the retrofitting of a device which captures all of the gas coming out of a coal fired plant and converts the gas into useful products like fertiliser, AdBlue and ethanol. In the language of the woke, that means zero emissions. This process costs less than $100 million per power station and works best using sea water. Instead of spending more than $1 trillion and up to $2 trillion to simply replace our electricity generation and convert to electrification, clean coal will achieve the same objective for a few hundred million dollars. Clean coal is the real wasted resource in the Australian energy market. Clean coal will reduce the cost of living under Labor. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Hughes): The time for the discussion has expired.  

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Senate Urged to Uphold Free Speech and Peaceful Assembly

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I thank my fellow Senators for their participation in a successful debate on my Motion in defence of free speech and peaceful freedom of association. I’m not sure if some understood how the Government’s “Misinformation and Disinformation Bill” (MAD for short) will limit the right to protest. As demonstrated during COVID, posts promoting protests were banned and organisers arrested. This Bill would allow the Government to ban posts that promote protests as a threat to public order, which is why my motion mentioned both free speech and the right to protest.

In my speech, I drew attention to the bigger picture – that predatory foreign billionaires have bought Australia, and this Bill prevents us talking about it.

One Nation will continue to fight for human rights and I am pleased to know we will not be alone.

Transcript

I move: 

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: 

Freedom of speech and peaceful freedom of assembly are inalienable rights which the Senate must defend. 

What do the billionaires who run the world do when we, the people, realise how much has been stolen from us—how much money, how much sovereignty, how much opportunity? 

In the next few minutes, it will become obvious what this has to do with the misinformation and disinformation bill—’m-a-d’ or ‘mad’, for short. The world’s predatory billionaires do not wield their power directly; they hide behind wealth funds such as BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and First State. These funds act in concert with political change agents, including large superannuation and sovereign wealth funds such as Norges. The racket these subversive elements are running really is racketeering. They use their wealth to buy shares in companies that are then required to follow the agenda. This is not my opinion; these are the exact words of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. Buying out Western civilisation is an expensive business. The never-ending quest for more money, more power and more control is being noticed and resisted. Much of that resistance has been a result of Elon Musk buying X and allowing the truth to live in one mainstream forum. 

The minute the BlackRock racketeers walk into a boardroom, any notion of public interest is abandoned. A case in point is Coles and Woolies, who used to pride themselves on providing the necessities of life—food and clothing—at the lowest possible price through competition. With the presence of an almost complete set of predatory wealth funds on their share registers, in recent years, Coles and Woolies no longer compete against each other. Instead, they collude to pursue a pricing strategy designed to maximise profit from our necessities of life, profit that’s sent overseas into the coffers of these sovereign wealth funds, leaving Australians permanently poorer. 

In 2022-23, around an election, Woolies donated $110,000 to the ALP. In 2022-23, other industries under the control of these predatory wealth funds, including the big pharmaceutical industry, donated a million dollars to the ALP. What do they get for their money? Last Tuesday, I spoke in favour of the community affairs committee inquiry report into a prospective terms of reference for a royal commission into COVID response. Despite me simply agreeing with the committee report and despite my using only peer reviewed and published science to support my position, Senator Ayres from the Labor Party chose to describe my words as—listen to this: 

… damaging misinformation and disinformation … there is a reason why the ASIO director-general highlights the role of extremist misinformation and disinformation in terms of its corrosive effect. It does lead to some of the acts of violent extremism here and overseas, motivated by the same vile conspiracy theories that we’ve just heard … 

Wow, what a rant! No data, no argument; just empty labels. 

Our New Zealand friends started their royal commission into COVID in December 2022. New Zealand has now decided that the royal commission unearthed so much behaviour that was cause for concern they’ve expanded the royal commission to include looking into COVID in much greater depth, including vaccine harm. The New Zealand royal commission now closely resembles the royal commission the Senate standing committee on community affairs recommended following their inquiry initiated on a One Nation referral. For Senator Ayres to say this is extremist misinformation and disinformation likely to lead to acts of violent extremism is a complete slap in the face to New Zealand’s royal commission and one that Senator Ayres would be well advised to reconsider. 

This is the trouble when the government panics that $1 million in donations is at risk and brings on a bill that will shut up any opposition to the rule of the billionaires through their front companies—in this case, pharmaceutical companies—a rule that is, quite simply, a threat to the future of our beautiful country. With total clarity, Senator Ayres has drawn the battle lines here. What’s the truth in New Zealand parliament is ‘extremist misinformation and disinformation’ in Australia, if the Ayres government says it is. This bill has no protections, no checks and balances—it should rightly be renamed the ‘crush any opposition to the billionaires’ bill. 

While the Labor Party’s desire for totalitarian censorship is no surprise, the people need to be aware that the Morrison-Littleproud Liberals and Nationals introduced this bill. Opposition leader Dutton makes no indication of whether he intends to oppose the bill, I guess because when he gets in he’ll be happy to use its onerous provisions. While I don’t have time to go into the Liberal Party’s donations from companies under the control of the world’s predatory billionaires, the same issue affects both parties. The Morrison-Littleproud government kept the COVID vaccine contracts hidden from our requests to make the contracts public for those who paid for the injections—taxpayers. The temptation to have extra money to spend in an election campaign has proven far too much for the major parties, and their independence, their objectivity and their common sense have been compromised. The world’s predatory billionaires’ downfall will be their hubris. The question is: who will go down with them? 

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Government-Owned Bank Back on Labor’s Agenda

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On August 29th, The Australian newspaper reported that a government-owned bank, created out of Australia Post, may be back on the Labor government’s agenda. This move is seen as a response to the recent closures of numerous bank branches in regional Australia. If this report is accurate, I applaud the Government for this welcome development. 

Years of regulation have not succeeded in forcing the banks to act with honesty, decency, and compassion.  Additional regulation is not the answer, as large banks typically have access to superior legal resources compared to the Government.  The answer lies in establishing a People’s Bank that can provide competition to the Big Four banks oligopoly, or more accurately, the cartel. 

A People’s Bank could rewrite their Banking Code of Practice, restoring protections that successive Liberal Governments have removed—such as face-to-face banking, cash transactions and a guarantee of banking services to prevent the problem of political de-banking. People’s Banks worldwide have proven their ability to be secure and profitable, and to hold commercial banks accountable, as outlined in my speech. 

Transcript

The Australian newspaper reported on 29 August that ‘a government owned bank created out of Australia Post is understood to be back on the Labor government’s agenda’ and that it is ‘seen as a response to the closure of numerous bank branches in regional Australia’. I hope this report is well founded, and, if it is, I applaud the government for this welcome development. 

Years of regulation have failed to force the banks to behave with honesty, decency and compassion. More regulation is not the answer. Big banks will always have better lawyers than the government. The answer is a people’s bank offering competition to the big four bank oligopoly—or, more accurately, cartel. As someone who participated in the inquiry into bank closures in regional Australia, I attest that there is a desperate need for a public bank to revolutionise Australia’s banking system, the way the original Commonwealth Bank did, which the Fisher Labor government established in 1912. 

Today the big four cartel controls 80 per cent of the market and dominates banking. They’re acting together to remove face-to-face banking, which doesn’t stop customers from needing face-to-face services. It just forces customers to travel further. It’s not just in the regions; it’s as difficult for the elderly in the city to travel to the next suburb for their banking as it is for a regional customer to travel to the next town. 

We saw numerous instances of the banks’ dishonesty when closing branches, and we’re seeing it again right now with ANZ’s closure of its Katoomba branch. The ANZ treated Katoomba as a regional branch until it promised to not close the regional branches as a condition of its merger with Suncorp Bank. Lo and behold, suddenly ANZ claims Katoomba is not a regional branch so is proceeding to close it. The big four have concentrated close to 70 per cent of their lending into residential and investor mortgages, with more money fuelling the increase in house prices, while neglecting small business lending and regional communities. 

All four are aggressively pushing customers away from cash and into digital banking and transacting so they can surveil and harvest your data and collect fees on all non-cash transactions. They now gouge Australians out of more than $4 billion per year in transaction fees and surcharges. In short, the big four serve only themselves and use their oligopoly power over a captive market to exploit their customers. 

There’s a dire need for a public bank that can set standards of service and break up the banking cartel. A post office bank is the perfect way to do it, operating under a modified banking code of practice to restore protections to customers that successive Liberal-National governments have removed and guaranteeing cash and banking services, face-to-face banking in a branch, best interests of the customer and protections against politicisation of banking. 

The Commonwealth Bank originally started in post offices in 1912, from which it provided banking services to all parts of Australia, even remote areas. It raised loans for the government at one-tenth the cost of the private banks. In the panic of 1914, it protected deposits in all the banks. It supported Australia’s agricultural production in World War I and funded the emergency purchase of a fleet of ships in the war, which became Australia’s first national shipping line. It made development loans to local councils all across Australia for crucial infrastructure, and it made affordable housing loans to returned soldiers. It accomplished all of this in its first decade, before its political enemies reduced its ability to compete with the private banks, until later when another Labor government unleashed it again in World War II. 

Public and post banks are very successful around the world. The Japan Post Bank is one of the world’s biggest banks and was the secret to Japan’s postwar economic miracle, funding their government’s investments in infrastructure and industries. France’s post bank, La Banque Postale, started in 2006 and is already Europe’s 18th biggest bank and the biggest lender to local councils in France. Kiwibank started as a post bank in 2002, quickly growing into New Zealand’s fifth largest bank and the only bank that can compete with New Zealand’s big four banks, which Australia’s big four banks own. Its first achievement was injecting competition which stopped all branch closures in New Zealand for seven years. In the global financial crisis, Kiwibank was the only bank to increase lending while the private banks all reduced lending. Listen to this: the Bank of North Dakota, not a postal bank but a brilliant state owned bank, supported North Dakota’s public finances and its farmers for more than a century, making a profit in every year of operation. In the 2008 financial crisis, North Dakota was the only United States state to stay out of crisis. 

I applaud the news that the government is in talks with Australia Post on this solution, and I urge the government to have the vision to create a powerful bank that can once again serve the people of Australia. 

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The Uni-Party’s Net Zero Utopia

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The government claims they’ll build 40 huge wind turbines every month, 22,000 solar panels every day and at least 10,000 kilometres of power lines – in less than 6 years. Despite their promises of a ‘net-zero’ utopia, they have no idea how many has even been built.

As coal power stations are forced to shut down and nothing has been built to replace them, Australia is heading towards a scary place.

Blackouts and an environmental wasteland will be the reality of the uni-party’s ‘net-zero utopia’.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator Wong. Minister, exactly how many wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and kilometres of transmission lines were built last month? 

Senator Wong: Thank you, Senator. I don’t have a monthly breakdown of what has occurred in terms of renewables since we came to government. But what I can say to you is that we have invested $22.5 billion to, over the next decade, help make Australia a renewable energy superpower. We have a budgeted plan that is backed by the experts at AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator. They have an Integrated System Plan that looks at the total cost, out to 2050, of generation, storage and transmission of renewable energy, which the government is working to and is contributing to. 

I would also make the point, Senator—and you do understand markets—that the uncertainty under the coalition meant that 24 out of 28 coal-fired power stations announced their closure. We did not have new investment to replace them at the scale needed, and that is because the market knew that, with 20-plus energy policies, there was no certainty to enable investment in additional generation and supply. If we want to bring prices down and ensure reliability, we have to have more supply. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: Unlike with coalmines, there’s no obligation for industrial wind and solar sites to rehabilitate the land. The cost of pulling down wind and solar sites is left completely with landowners and farmers who have no idea what they’re signing up for. Minister, does your wind and solar plan rely on saddling farmers with the entire cost of disposal, or will your government legislate rehabilitation bonds for wind and solar projects? 

Senator Wong: Senator, what I would say to you is that there has been a lot of investment and a lot of interest from Australians, in terms of both investors and landowners and landholders, to be part of this transition. It is true that there are a lot of challenges associated with it, including investment in transmission, which is one of the reasons the government is working on both increasing the flexibility of the system and also ensuring that more capacity is delivered across the country. For example, our Capacity Investment Scheme has delivered over 32 gigawatts of capacity. We’ve had the largest ever single tender for renewable energy, which is currently open for bids.  

In relation to your issues, I don’t have advice on—(Time expired) 

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Backing Our Diggers Means Holding the Brass Accountable

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A report revealed from a motion I put into the Senate, that the government kept a helicopter flying for more than 5 years with a defective engine part.

That MRH-90 helicopter that crashed in Jervis Bay without any fatalities was a stroke of luck. Four months later, another helicopter crashed in the Whitsundays, resulting in the death of four Defence personnel. This report reveals that senior “leadership” of Defence was willing to put people’s lives at risk with defective engine parts. The question must be asked – how many other risks were they willing to overlook or explain away?

One Nation backs our Defence Personnel.  The Government can’t claim they do unless they hold senior members of the Defence Department accountable for their failures.

Transcript

I rise to speak on the document produced in response to order for the production of documents No. 200. This order relates to the MRH-90 Taipan helicopter crash in Jervis Bay in May 2023. The helicopter call sign Bushman 82 was hovering low to water on a training exercise, with divers suspended below, when it experienced a catastrophic failure of its left-hand engine. The helicopter ditched into the water—in a stroke of luck, without any fatalities. Just one month later, Defence gave the MRH-90 helicopter a completely clean bill of health and authorised it to continue flying. The Senate agreed to this OPD in May 2023, requiring Defence to hand over any safety reports and documents in relation to the crash. We wanted to know how Defence had certified the helicopter as safe so quickly after such a significant incident. In defiance of the order of this Senate, the Minister for Defence refused to hand over any documents, citing an ongoing internal investigation, despite the helicopter already being back in the air, threatening lives. The government and Defence advised that that investigation should conclude in October 2023. 

In June 2023, a month after, the Senate reiterated its order for the documents in motion 243, with a new deadline of November in accordance with the advice of the government. We gave them a go. They failed to produce even a response to that order until the Senate sought an explanation in December of 2023. We can see how time marches on and is irrelevant to Defence. 

Now we fast forward to September 2024, 18 months after the crash and nearly a year after the government promised to respond. We finally have a response and documents, yet it is not a compliant response. It’s a redacted version of an executive summary to a single report. The order very clearly specified ‘all incident reports, safety evaluations, briefing notes, correspondence and information held by the Department of Defence, the defence minister or the defence minister’s office’. The executive summary to one report clearly doesn’t satisfy this request. 

Minister, where are your briefing notes? Where is your correspondence? Are you telling the Senate that you and your office had nothing to say about the Jervis Bay ditching? The executive summary is dated 2 August 2024. That’s three months and two weeks ago. Did Defence sit on this report before giving it to the minister? Why the delay? The six pages of redacted executive summary we do have are from the Defence Flight Safety Bureau’s aviation safety investigation report. From what we do have, a few things are clear: 

The engine failure was caused by the rupture of Blade 34 from the High Pressure 1 (HP1) wheel in the High Pressure Turbine (HPT). 

They know the cause. Another quote reads: 

… in 2017, as a result of several HP1 failures across the global fleet, the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) issued a NH90 Service Bulletin recommending that operators … replace HP 1 blades with modified blades. 

Another quote reads: 

The investigation highlighted that there was no definitive evidence of the completion and recording of hazard analysis and safety risk assessments related to HP 1 failures during MRH-90 PCS operations. 

Defence decided to keep flying the helicopters without the modified parts and eventually get around to it while failing to consider and document the risk that these things would lose an engine during low-level flight because of this. In 2023, five years after the bulletin was given to Defence, Bushman 82 was still flying in Jervis Bay, without the recommended modified parts. 

This report, while not compliant with the Senate’s order, is important because it again demonstrates Defence was willing to overlook serious risks when it came to this helicopter—risks involving lives. How many other problems with the MRH-90 helicopter did Defence overlook? How many times did they allow this thing back in the air, knowing it would unnecessarily put our defence personnel at needless risk? How many potentially catastrophic issues, like the TopOwl headset, were supposedly mitigated or did Defence just explain away? 

These documents are important because this helicopter should have been pulled from service a decade ago. The MRH-90 should have been permanently grounded after Bushman 82 ditched into Jervis Bay—the latest, at the time, of a series of incidents. It wasn’t pulled from service, and, four months later, Bushman 83 crashed in the Whitsundays, resulting in the death of four personnel: Warrant Officer Class 2 Joseph Phillip Laycock—Phil, as he was known; troop commander Captain Danniel Lyon; Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent; and Corporal Alexander Naggs. May they rest in peace. Blood is on the hands of the Defence leadership and successive defence ministers who kept this helicopter in the air when it belonged on the ground. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. 

Leave granted; debate adjourned. 

News Article from The Australian

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Education, not Indoctrination!

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The State Governments constantly come begging to the Commonwealth for money for schools which are State Government responsibility. This money inevitably ends up going towards ‘woke’ agendas, such as those promoted by Queensland Premier Steven Miles.

Drag queen story times, welcome to country and gender affirmation in schools is ridiculous and taxpayers shouldn’t be funding such programs.

I have long called for education to be about the basics: Education NOT Indoctrination!

Transcript

The schooling resource standard, or SRS, estimates the amount of public funding that schools need to meet their students’ educational needs. As of 2024, the Commonwealth is responsible for providing 20 per cent of public schools funding and, in line with this arrangement, states are required to take on 75 per cent, leaving a five per cent gap. The Commonwealth wears extra loadings for medium and small schools, which is estimated to cost the federal government $600 million in 2024 alone, as well as other student based loadings. 

This scheme was agreed upon between the federal, state and territory governments under the National School Reform Agreement. Australia is a federation of states, and education is a state responsibility. Not only are the states failing to meet their 75 per cent target; they’re demanding that the federal government tip in more money for an additional five per cent. It is hypocrisy for the Victorian education minister, Ben Carroll, to suggest that the federal government should cut its funding to non-government schools to make up for it. The Commonwealth is already paying its fair share and meeting its target as outlined in the schooling resource standard, and the states are not paying their fair share—their agreed share. The states have even declined the offer of the federal government taking on an additional 2.5 per cent to help in closing the gap. They are asking for the full five per cent. How can the states ask for anything when they’re not even meeting their own target? 

It’s worth noting that, in Australia, states and territories are responsible for the majority of public school funding, to which in 2024 alone the Commonwealth government is contributing $11.2 billion. Contrary to union bosses’ claims, the federal government over the past decade has taken on a greater share of the responsibility of funding schools. In fact, in 2013-14, states were responsible for 87 per cent of public school funding. Today that share is 12 per cent lower. It’s not the Commonwealth’s job to make up for the states’ fiscal illiteracy and mismanagement or the states’ pursuit of woke agenda. Look at Steven Miles, the Premier of Queensland. He is driving an agenda that includes gender bending and kiddies talk. 

Senator Allman-Payne interjecting— 

Senator ROBERTS: Senator Allman-Payne was talking about human relations. This is bending our children. That’s what we’re paying for. We should not be paying for that. Reading kids drag queens’ story times in schools—ridiculous! It’s left to the parent to defend their children and come in and stop it. One Nation stands on the fundamental idea that education is a state responsibility. We support Senator Tyrrell’s matter of public importance, and we thank her for it. 

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