We have to leave the investigation of criminal offences to the police. If the presumption of innocence is abandoned in this country, many things will fall in this country. Also in this interview: Labor proposes giving preference to gay, lesbian and trans refugees, Woolworths backs down on proposed cash ban in stores and Nationals join One Nation in support of vaping.
Transcript
[Marcus] G’day mate! How are you, Malcolm?
[Malcolm] I’m well, thanks, Marcus, how are you?
[Marcus] Good, thank you. It’s been a very busy morning. Ministers are like all people, entitled to presumption of innocence. Parliament is not a court. It should not get into police work other than holding police accountable when police have failed the people. I mean, in your opinion, is there a problem with the culture under, you know, one of our most sacred roofs, Parliament House in Canberra?
[Malcolm] Marcus, I think there’s always a problem with where there’s an imbalance of power. Senior levels of corporations, we’ve seen some union bosses in strife over these kinds of things, and it really comes down to the human condition, and people having that ego, and let’s face it: there’s a lot of power in Parliament and a lot of people there for the wrong reasons that have come to exercise their power.
I’m not just talking about politicians, I’m talking about staffers, and so wherever you’ve got something like that, there’s potential for the people who want to exercise their power to have power over other people. So that’s the real issue, and that does come down to culture, but it’s not going to be fixed by a law.
Culture is up to people like myself, for example. We had a cultural statement that guided all of our recruiting, and we made that very clear to everyone who was interviewed for a job in my office that they had to abide by that culture, and we wanted their commitment before they even started. And so that’s how we sorted things out, and we have systems in place to make sure that people abide to that way, but what we really need is to understand that culture is so important.
It’s the most important driver of productivity in any company, Marcus, and so we know it’s that important. So it’s a huge driver of behaviour, so it’s up to individual politicians, and I think the media should be chasing people, but ultimately, it’s the law that convicts someone, no one else. The police officers, the courts, that’s the process we need to follow.
[Marcus] All right. What about the government or Parliament as a whole? I mean, if the prime minister himself, and Anthony Albanese a short while ago, again, repeated calls for the prime minister to launch an inquiry into this culture, into the whole Christian Porter affair, et cetera, I mean, if the prime minister feels there is a culture that needs addressing, then of course he should address it, but I don’t think he has.
I’ve got to be honest, I do not believe Scott Morrison has done the right thing, this is just my opinion, by the women of Australia. I think he’s a victim blamer, I think he’s almost misogynistic, and I think that he’s lacking in empathy.
[Malcolm] I don’t agree with those verdicts that you have, but I do agree that he’s a facade builder and he’s a marketing person. He likes to look good, not do good. And he had a– Remember when Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop retired as ministers, and they went straight into cushy jobs, each of them, that looked to have conflicts of interest with their past work as ministers.
Now he appointed, after a lot of pressure Scott Morrison appointed an internal investigation, and it was headed by Martin Parkinson, who was, at the time, the top bureaucrat in the country. He was the Secretary or Head of Prime Ministers and Cabinet office.
Now, the Labor Party and I, and a couple of liberals, pursued him in an inquiry into the investigation, and I got pretty relentless and held him accountable Martin Parkinson, the top bureaucrat in the country, and eventually after a lot of questioning from me he said, “Hey, I don’t have any power to investigate,” and I went, “What?! You’re investigating this, “but now you tell us after relentless questioning from me “that you don’t have any power?”
So what Scott Morrison has done has appointed, I believe Gaetjens, I’ve forgotten his first name, to investigate this, and that’s not adequate, but we need to leave it in the hands of the police. Now, if it comes to investigating culture, then we need to have a proper committee, an external committee. But you know what, the best thing of all? If we had an independent corruption inquiry committee that looked into corruption in Parliament.
That’s what we need. And so Scott Morrison has run away from that, the Liberal Party has run away from that, the Labor Party is not that powerful about it either, but ourselves, the Greens, and the independents are pushing for that a, fair dinkum one.
[Marcus] All right. What about Grace Tame? I mean, you’ve mentioned her this morning. Well, on the notes that I’ve got here, callers have mentioned her as well. What did you make of her commentary yesterday? Am I reading right here, saying that you think she’s hijacking this issue?
[Malcolm] No, no. I think she’s criticising. She’s really done a great job, full credit to her. No, as I understand it, Marcus, I haven’t seen the actual note, but Grace Tame has criticised the media for using victims and hijacking issues.
[Marcus] Sure, okay.
[Malcolm] And I watched that young lady’s speech when she accepted the award for Australian of the Year for 2021, what a remarkable woman.
Did you hear her criticism yesterday of the prime minister?
[Malcolm] No I didn’t. What did she say?
[Marcus] Well, she basically turned around. There was a really good question that was asked of her. I’ll play it for you, I’ve got a bit of time here. I’ll just make sure I get it up on my screen. She basically turned around and said that the prime minister, well, she called him out on a little bit of the language that he’s used in this whole debate, I’m just trying to find it here. Sorry, mate. I’m just trying to– anyway, what we might do, we might– have you got time to hold on till after eight?
[Malcolm] Yeah, sure.
[Marcus] Yeah, I might do that, ’cause I think I want to talk further with you on this issue and the news is, we’re about to bump into it. So Malcolm, just hold on there please, mate, and my apologies for today, holding you up, because I want to get onto your thoughts on Labor’s immigration policy as well, the Woolie’s cash ban that’s been defeated, and also we’ve had some conversations recently with Matt Canavan, good conversations on this programme about vaping and e-cigarettes.
I want to get your thoughts on that as well. So I’ll just get you to hold on there, mate. Thank you for being so patient and understanding.
[Malcolm] You’re all right, Marcus.
[Marcus] Just hang on there. Malcolm Roberts, he’ll be back after the eight o’clock news, some other issues I want to get into. All right, Malcolm Roberts, welcome back, mate, thank you.
[Malcolm] You’re welcome, Marcus. All right, now I’m going to play you the audio that Grace Tame was involved in yesterday. Australian of the Year Grace Tame was asked what she thought of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s use of the phrase “as a father”, referring to a chat that he had with his wife Jenny when he responded to the allegations by Brittany Higgins, this was her response to it yesterday. I’ll play it now.
[Grace Tame] It shouldn’t take having children to have a conscience. And actually, on top of that, having children doesn’t guarantee a conscience.
[Marcus] And it’s been reported widely this morning that she didn’t miss. What do you make of that?
[Malcolm] I’ve got goosebumps listening to it. What a wonderful lady, what a very bright young woman, admired. I agree with her totally. You know, conscience is a matter of what our inner guidance says, and that is what should be driving this, and that should be about values that are tied to Australian values.
And you know, Marcus, in many ways, rape is the most horrendous crime there is because it invades someone. I mean, it’s just sickening because that person has to live with that for the rest of their life. Now, murder is terrible too, obviously, you can’t take away someone else’s life, but a murdered person, that’s the end of it for them, but a raped person has to live with it for the rest of their life, and it’s just, it’s never– it’s always been something that has just repulsed me. It’s just beyond it.
[Marcus] Let’s move on to another issue here. Labor’s immigration policy of–
[Malcolm] Before we do Marcus, I think that, you know, there is a need to understand something else that drives Parliament.
[Marcus] Right.
[Malcolm] Parliament is no longer driven by data and facts. We don’t have policies and decisions coming out of the Liberal and Labor Parties based on data and facts, and when that happens, fantasy takes over. It’s okay to fudge things. It’s okay to tell lies. It’s okay to wield power over people.
But the people who pay the price are the everyday Australians. That’s who pays the price, and what we need to do is call out the voters, because voters are putting up with this nonsense. We have family law that’s been an issue for 50 years.
[Marcus] Mm, very true.
[Malcolm] It took Pauline Hanson to get stuck into that, ’cause that drives a lot of the abuse. We have energy prices that are being driven on an insane whim, that carbon dioxide affects the– that human carbon dioxide affects the climate of the whole world, it’s absolute nonsense.
There’s never been data presented to Parliament for that. Then we have question time. I mean, you look at the behaviour of Parliamentarians in question time by Senate and House of Reps, absolute disgrace. There is no respect for the institution of Parliament amongst those MPs, there’s no respect to the voters who put them there, and the voters need to say, “I’ve had enough “of the Labor Party and Liberal Party playing games.”
These are too important. We need to see people being held accountable for data and facts and decisions based on data and facts. While ever the voters keep putting these two parties in, they will keep getting the crap being dished out to them.
[Marcus] All right. Immigration has been a volatile topic for the Labor Party in the past two decades. In the 2021 draft platform, the party proposes giving more government support to asylum seekers, especially gay, lesbian and trans refugees, while maintaining support for offshore detention.
Obviously like, look, I don’t need to really go too far. I mean, I’ll probably speak tomorrow to your colleague, Mark Latham, about this. He’s been very critical of this, but what do you say?
[Malcolm] Well, you know, the ultimate– the first thing we need to take care of is our own Australians, put them first. We’ve got veterans currently homeless in our country. Then we need to accept sensible, genuine, sorry– genuine refugees in sensible numbers, and not accept them based purely on what gender or sexual orientation they currently claim to be or identify as.
Australia has a very generous refugee intake and welfare. We have very strong welfare systems that look after people. They can come here and they get a lot for nothing. Now, Labor’s policy, as the Australian reported, is based on giving preference to gays and transsexuals. Well, it’s entitled to have that policy, but I don’t think that reflects the everyday Australian.
Entry to Australia should be on the basis of merit, and how people fit into Australian culture, values, laws. When someone, you know, a gay man in an Islamic country where they throw gays off roofs and kill them, or a white South African farmer, if they’re the two options they should be treated objectively. They shouldn’t be treated on the basis of race or religion or colour or anything else.
They should be treated on how they will contribute to our country and the values they uphold. But why are we discussing this when we can’t even allow people into the country right now? It’s just beyond me.
[Marcus] That is true. All right, but again, that’s– I dunno, look, maybe, the cynic in me says, because, well, you know what’s happening this weekend. It is Mardi Gras time, and it’s a time when this community does get a lot of the spotlight.
I’ll agree to slightly disagree with you there, Malcolm, I think we should be welcoming people who are sadly objectified and vilified and even worse in other countries around the world. But one thing we do have common ground–
[Malcolm] Well, we should be welcoming them but we shouldn’t be discriminating against them, we shouldn’t be discriminating in favour of them.
[Marcus] Fair enough.
[Malcolm] We should be treating everyone on the merits of the case.
[Marcus] The Woolie’s cash ban. It’s a bit of a win. We know that in a number of cities, they’ve been trialling you know, card only terminals and all the rest of it. I think it’s bad enough that these big corporations are sacking checkout operators and replacing them with machines.
I don’t go to do my shopping to replace workers. I shouldn’t have to scan my own groceries. They say, it’s all, you know, to save you time and so we can keep our prices low. Well, that’s bullshit. What they’re doing basically is trying to save or cut back on their costs. Malcolm.
[Malcolm] Yes, that’s an interesting perspective. We just looked at the cash ban as something that was brought in for the wrong reasons. They told us it was about anti-money laundering, which is complete nonsense, and we’ve got the facts to show that. Initially, when the government brought this into the lower house, the cash ban bill, Labor supported it in the lower house.
It got through to a Senate committee. We went to work very strongly. We convinced the Greens to join us, We convinced in opposing the cash ban. We convinced the crossbench senators, who weren’t aware of it at the time, to jump in.
Then we actually embarrassed Labor into it, and then the government realised it was dead, so we moved a motion to get that bill, cash ban bill, off the books in Parliament, and that’s what happened, so we won. Then we put pressure on Woolie’s with our recent petition. But the real thing here is that there’s people power, and we listen and work actively with people, and what the people have done is told Woolie’s, “Stick your cash ban.”
And so while it is an interesting argument you make about preserving jobs, people will go to whoever gives them the best service, you know, and so it’s important to let people have the freedom to decide whether they will use cash or not. It’s not up to some government implementing an IMF policy from overseas globalists to tell us we can’t use our cash because they want to control us. That’s where it’s headed.
[Marcus] Well, it’s current tender, and to be perfectly honest, if you turn up somewhere and you’ve only got cash, you know, you should be able to use it regardless.
[Malcolm] Exactly.
[Marcus] All right, finally, e-cigs and vaping, we spoke to– who did we speak to on this last week, Scruff? There’s so much going on at the moment. Oh, Matt Canavan, we spoke to Matt about it. He’s been doing a little bit of work on this issue. Senator Stirling Griff’s motion in the Senate against vapes and e-cigs has been defeated.
Your position is that vaping and e-cigarettes are as safe as the solution that they’re in. They should be available in Australia using the established Therapeutic Goods Administration procedure for Schedule 3 pharmacy-only medication.
[Malcolm] Yes, we’ve been pushing this issue for a number of years now, and it’s very good to see Senator Matt Canavan at last join us. I pushed a bill with David Leyonhjelm when he was in the Senate back in 2016-17, but, you know, e-cigs have been shown to be a way of getting people to cut smoking altogether.
They have reduced smoking rates. They do not introduce people to smoking. That is nonsense. They have been very effective in cutting down the use of cigarettes, which are harmful. E-cigs look as though they’re not at all harmful, at all, and a good way of getting people away from harmful activities like smoking.
So that’s why we’ve been in favour of it, and it’s pleasing to see that Matt’s joining us on this as well as some other policies that they have long opposed, they’re changing as a result of the pressure we’re putting on them.
[Marcus] All right. Thank you, mate, great to have you on the programme as always. We’ll talk again next week.
[Malcolm] Look forward to it, Thanks, Marcus.
