Marcus Paul from 2SM and I discussed our support for JobMaker, Joel Fitzgibbon on losing support of blue collar workers and renewables destroying our productive capacity.
Transcript
[Marcus Paul]
Ah look, interestingly I noticed that One Nation have kinda changed course. If we’ve got time, we can put it up now. They’ve changed course a little in relation to JobMaker and JobKeeper and issues in the Senate allowing the passage of the change of legislation. We’ll talk to Malcolm about that in just a couple of moments and also I mean, JobMaker itself, the legislation’s very important. It involves subsidies for employers to hire two groups of unemployed people, et cetera. I mean they supported two of the labor Green’s 11 amendments and so an extension is now happening. What do you make of it? One Nation itself, how it operates, I mean they’ve copped a little bit, certainly in Queensland of late. So anyway, let’s speak to Malcolm now, we’re good to go.
And now on Marcus Paul in the Morning, Senator Malcolm Roberts.
There he is, hello Malcolm.
[Malcolm Roberts]
G’day Marcus, how are you?
[Marcus Paul]
I’m well, thank you very well. So JobMaker, tell me what’s happening here.
[Malcolm Roberts]
Well, as you pointed out that Pauline and I both opposed this when we first spoke about it on Tuesday but you know we have the courage and the integrity to change our mind when we get new data and there are two pieces of data that are really important. 10.4% and 4% and Pauline had a talk with the treasurer yesterday then consulted with me and we changed their mind on JobMaker because the people under 35 years of age have an unemployment rate of 10.4% but people over 35 years have only, well only 4%. And that means we need to get young people back to work, they’ve been hit harder by the COVID restrictions, we need to get them back to work, prevent the life of drugs and crime, get them on the right path quickly. So that’s why we changed their mind.
[Marcus Paul]
Okay, I mean look, obviously with younger people, they’re generally involved in the industry’s hardest hit by the pandemic, whether it’s hospitality, in retail and that’s, yeah it makes perfect sense to me. That’d be why the unemployment rates for those under 35 is so much higher than those over.
[Malcolm Roberts]
Yes and you know the impact of COVID restrictions on the unemployed in Australia double the unemployment. In other words, have increased unemployment by a hundred percent. But the unemployment of people under 35 went up by 150%. So whichever way you look at it, the young need a lot of help and there’s protections already with JobSeeker and JobKeeper that are already available. But we have to have to get hold of the young and we have the courage and the integrity to change our mind, we’re not worried what people say because it was the right thing to do so we did it.
[Marcus Paul]
Well that’s right and that’s the beauty of having One Nation and others there. I mean, I don’t think you’ll find any disrespect because it’s obvious you’re a minor party but you do make a lot of difference. That’s why it’s important to get key legislation across the line to have people like you and Pauline who are able to listen, analyse the data and then make decisions accordingly.
[Malcolm Roberts]
Yes and we don’t get into fights like we saw the labor Party and The Greens yesterday trying to pit young people against old people. That kind of division is just pure politic and it’s rubbish, it hurts our country. We’ve gotta work for the benefit of the country, work in the national interest.
[Marcus Paul]
All right. Now I spoke to Fitzy yesterday on the programme and I’ve been very strong in my editorial stance on this this morning. I’ll just tell you my stance and then you and I can have a blue about it, okay? Look, what I’m saying is I believe that labor is imploding a little at a federal level. For labor to have any chance if you like, at the next federal election, the party needs to be more pragmatic about its climate change targets and policies, that’s not to say that climate change isn’t important but it needs to be tempered with the realisation that the party can’t leave blue collar workers behind. Now whether Albo and other senior labor members accept it not, I mean they should, they need to look at what happened with the last federal election. Blue collar workers, those in mining, manufacturing and other sectors relying on strong power supply, believe the party has forgotten them. And also Joel Fitzgibbon obviously he’s stuck between a piece of coal and a hard place up there in the Hunter. Well, I mean he believes that mine workers and blue collared workers in his constituency have been forgotten about by labor. What do you make of it all?
[Malcolm Roberts]
What did you, you said we were gonna have a blue about this. I agree with you, I agree–
[Marcus Paul]
That’s to come All right, we’ll do it the next time. We’ll fight over the US election, okay?
[Malcolm Roberts]
labor has lost its way and that’s absolutely correct because they’ve abandoned the blue collar workers. And Joel is not the only one who’s taken this path in labor. We know there are a number of senators, I’ve spoken with them. They think that the, what the labor Party is doing is lunacy not just abandoning miners, but abandoning blue collar workers across all sectors. And labor Party, but you know what really Marcus? labor Party’s fault is just not looking at the data. It’s exactly the same with the Liberal, Nationals and Greens. They’re not looking at the data. The data says you do not need to do anything about carbon dioxide from human activity. You do not need to stop burning coal, oil, natural gas, it’s all rubbish. And Joel Fitzgibbon he’s on the right path to try and drag his party back but it looks like a path that’s gonna be very difficult for Joel because his party is just resolved to abandoning people, abandoning blue collar workers. It’s just insane.
[Marcus Paul]
Well, I mean, obviously Albo’s a part of the extreme left if you like of the labor Party, Joel is the head of the right faction and never the twain shall meet which isn’t good when you need to have a united front hitting into a federal election and the will to- See the problem is that’s why I believe that labor need to be a little bit more pragmatic about this, be realistic. You can’t make any changes from the wilderness of opposition and that’s where they’ll find themselves in the next federal election unless they alter their stance on it. Unless they accept that, look setting targets in 2050 is, well it’s just unrealistic. I mean, look what’s happened with, We’re supposed to be going into a federal budget surplus and then comes COVID-19. You can’t predict bush fires, you can’t predict droughts, you can’t predict floods. You can try and do everything you can to mitigate them in some respects but at the end of the day, if we stop burning coal, it doesn’t mean there won’t be any more bush fires, it doesn’t mean there won’t be any further droughts and other issues. The climate does change.
[Malcolm Roberts]
Yeah, you’ve nailed it, you’ve absolutely nailed it. And the thing is, there’s one other point that I would add to what you’re saying. 170 years of human history has shown us, the last 170 years from 1850 onwards, the industrial revolution, one clear trend. Ever decreasing prices in real terms after inflation of energy. And when you have that, you have a dramatic increase in productivity. When you have that, you have dramatic increase in wealth and general community prosperity. And that is what’s driven human progress. Think of how far we have come in the last 170 years. That’s an eye blink in the history of this planet an eye blink in the history of human civilization. And yet we have come so far and now labor Party and the Liberal Party and the National Party and the Greens want to destroy that and it’s just insane. In the last 20 years, we’ve reversed human progress and increased the price of electricity through stupid regulations that are not necessary.
[Marcus Paul]
All right, maybe this is where we start our blue but that does not mean Malcolm that we can’t look at newer, greener technologies in the future to include in the mix. Now I’m one of those, I’m a pragmatist, I understand we need baseload power and the only way to get that and the only way to keep the lights on is to continue on the path we’re at. But down the track, we do need to have private investments, let them take the risk in more wind field, more wind farms and solar farms and other renewable sources of energy and include them in the mix. Because I think we do need to at least acknowledge that there are some things we can do to look after our environment.
[Malcolm Roberts]
Marcus after we’re gonna have a blue, I happen to agree with you. Again on this one. You still can’t get me into a fight because I agree with you mate. But you know there’s just something really simple to remember. The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones, it ran out, the stone age ended because we got better metals and materials. And each of the ages has not ended because we ran out of something. The Copper Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Coal Age will end because we’ve come up with a better form of electricity generation and energy generation and that will probably be some form of nuclear. But fundamentally, the second point I’d make is that fundamentally with physics, you cannot get sufficient energy density out of wind and solar, absolutely impossible. That’s why they will always take more resources to make a wind turbine, more resources to make a solar panel than you will ever get out of the damn thing. And so that’s why they’re very expensive and there’s no end to that, they will always be expensive. But there will be other things developed and I agree with you, let the private sector do that, let them take the risk.
[Marcus Paul]
All right. Speaking of the Stone Age, when is the caveman going to vacate the White House? The time’s up, I mean–
[Malcolm Roberts]
Now we’re getting a fight.
[Marcus Paul]
You can do it, you can recount as many states as you like but Donald needs to accept that he’s on the outer and off he should trot.
[Malcolm Roberts]
No, not at all. The presidency, the presidential elections are not declared by the media, not declared by one of the candidates, not declared by the political parties, not declared by the commentary. The presidential election is declared by each state legislature. Not even a governor in the state, but each state legislature and that’s not even close to being declared. And what we’ve seen now is a hell of a mess in America with the Democrats, all of the, I think almost all of the changes that they’ve found that need to be made in vote counting has gone away from the democrats. And that’s because there’s a lot of corruption involved and Trump is absolutely right. And he’s not gonna walk away from this. I think he will bow gracefully once the count is finished but we’ve got–
[Marcus Paul]
Hang on, that’s almost sounding a little like conceding a bit. I know we know Donald won’t concede are you conceding that he may concede eventually.
[Malcolm Roberts]
No, no, not at all.
[Marcus Paul]
But I think he might be Malcolm, I think he might be. You just said–
[Malcolm Roberts]
I honestly think Trump’s got it. I think Trump will win this but we won’t know and what I’m then saying is that, that Trump if he does lose, he will vacate.
[Marcus Paul]
He’ll have no choice. The Secret Service will wander in there, lift him up and throw him out by his big boy pants which he fails to wear every day, get out.
[Malcolm Roberts]
No no, I think Trump is actually, he’s got America at heart and he will do what’s right for the country and he’s got to pursue these illegal votes from the democrats. There’s a lot of fraud going on, he’s absolutely correct and we’ve known that for years in the Democrat Party in America. This is the first time a Republican has stood up and I think Trump anticipated this, he planned this before months.
[Marcus Paul]
Here we go. All right mate. Malcolm, it’s always great talking to you. Look, I’ve gotta go, next week let’s concentrate on the bail in situation and the legislation that certainly does need to be changed. We don’t want banks taking our money just to keep themselves afloat. We’ll talk about that next week mate, okay?
[Malcolm Roberts]
All right mate, thank you very much.
[Marcus Paul]
Have a wonderful day. There he is, Malcolm Roberts, see he’s become a bit of a sparring partner and I love it.
