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Parental Rights at Stake: Debate Over Bill is Crucial 

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The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 is important for families and parental responsibility, yet we were given only one hour to debate it. It’s another Labor-Liberal stitch-up to control everyone through digital identity and misinformation bills.   

We support the Greens in this, because parents should be the ones to supervise their children, not the government. Age verification and facial recognition have failed globally. We should instead, make device management easier for parents. 

This bill will lead to constant surveillance and push children into unsafe online spaces. We must stop the Uniparty’s globalist agenda and work for our country. We support the referral.

Transcript

Well, isn’t this a wonderful day! The Greens are normally helping the government to truncate debate, to guillotine debate. Now they’re talking about adding more time for debating—and we agree with them this time, because we agree with debate. Debate is the way to truth. We agree with their amendment and we will be supporting their amendment. 

This is a vital bill, an absolutely crucial bill. It has serious consequences, and not just for people under 16 years of age. It has serious consequences for the Australian family and who has responsibility for children in this country. Is it the government, or is it going to remain the parents? Parents have already had their responsibility, their authority, whittled away at state and federal level. We need to enshrine responsibility for children with parents. That’s critical. It’s fundamental. This bill has important social and family consequences, and we’ve been given one hour! 

This is a stitch-up between the Labor-Liberal uniparty, yet again. Digital identity; identity verification bill; misinformation/disinformation bill; working on digital currency; children under 16 banned from the internet—these are all working together to capture everyone in this country; we’ve said it for the last four years. We were the first cab off the rank with regard to the Morrison government’s misinformation/disinformation bill and the same with the digital identity bill. Oh, sorry; they called it the Trusted Digital Identity Bill! It’s a stitch-up. 

We need scrutiny, and we will be supporting the Greens on this. Let me tell you why I’m saying this. Parents must be the ones supervising their children in their own home. It is a parent’s responsibility, a parent’s duty, a parent’s right, and you are affecting those things—parental responsibilities, duties and rights. You’re undermining parents. 

Age verification software and facial recognition must be used in every device, whether it be a phone or a computer. Why do we know that? Because this banning of children under 16 years of age has failed in every country, because the bureaucrats can’t control it. So, as to what you’ve set up with your bills, one of the earliest in this parliament from the Labor Party government was identity verification software. We will need the cameras on all the time. What we should be doing, instead of sidelining parents, is making device management easier. Apple, Microsoft and Android could make parental locks easier and more powerful. 

I want to acknowledge Senator Rennick’s comment a couple of days ago when he said that you can already get apps—some free, some for a price—that enable parents to control the apps that are downloaded onto a child’s phone. They’re already there. We don’t need this bill at all. We notice that opposition leader Peter Dutton has joined in supporting the need for this bill, but there’s no need for it. As I said, no country has made age limits work because bureaucrats cannot see us using the device. That’s what you need and that’s what this bill gives you with your preceding bills. We see Mr Littleproud speaking on Sky News in support of this and a huge backlash—devastating comments against Mr Littleproud. If the bill goes through, parents allowing children to watch cartoons on YouTube will be breaking the law. It will need facial recognition and monitoring of key strokes for content to police this. Hackers and burglars will be in paradise. They will be able to come in and watch your activities in the house through your camera 24 hours a day and find out when you are going to be out of the house. Parents watching a cooking video with their child on their lap will be locked out because the child is under 16. Children will be forced into the dark corners of the web—peer-to-peer messaging—with no protections against illegal material, hate, phishing, sextortion and hacking. 

We have already seen these bills being introduced in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries simultaneously. This goes beyond the uniparty in this country; it goes globally. We have seen in the United Kingdom police raiding journalists and commentators who have been criticising the Starmer government and jailed. That is where this is heading. We have seen the digital ID, misinformation and disinformation bill, identity verification started and introduced by the LNP—the Liberal-Nationals. Stop working as the uniparty for globalists and start working for our country. We will support the referral.  

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Social Media Ban is an Attack on Parents’ Rights

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The Labor-Liberal Uniparty has been advancing this bill based on a  case where bullying on social media led to a tragic suicide. In submissions on this bill, it became apparent that banning children from social media would cause as much harm as good. The best response to these tragic cases would be to empower parents to better manage their children’s use of social media.  This can be achieved by enhancing parental lock technology, making it more powerful, easier to use, and free (the best Apps available are commercial).   The Government ignored concerns raised by experts in their submissions and testimony, and pushed ahead with a bill that introduced a blanket ban for under 16.

Let’s be clear – this is a ‘world-first’ because the rest of the world knows such a ban is counterproductive.

Tech-savvy kids will get around the ban, and that’s where the real harm begins. The ban does not cover chat rooms in video games, which lacks the supervision present on social media platforms. Peer-to-peer chat apps are making a comeback, and some children may even turn to TOR, which is not supervised at all and by it’s design, is almost impossible to supervise. This bill will have the outcome of exposing kids to even worse forms of bullying.  

One Nation and the Greens united to stop Labor’s guillotine. We forced the government to remove the bill banning under 16’s on social media and extend scrutiny until February. Then, incredibly, the Liberal Senate leader, Simon Birmingham, moved to get the bill back in the guillotine process.  Barely hours later, Simon Birmingham informed the Senate that he was leaving. It’s clear he knew he was leaving and this was his parting gift.

I want to thank Senators Alex Antic and Matt Canavan for crossing the floor to vote against the Liberal-Nationals-Labor guillotine.  

One Nation will continue to fight against the social media ban, returning power to parents and families.  

Included are comments around Digital ID, which—despite claims to the contrary—will inevitably become part of this outrageous power grab.

Transcript

My remarks are directed to the minister but also to people listening at home to the Senate and to researchers and historians that will look back at this vote today in an attempt to understand what the hell the Senate was thinking. The amendment the government circulated, no doubt with the approval of the Liberal Party, answers that question. The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 can act to force every Australian to be the subject of a digital ID in the name of keeping children safe—and that’s what my question is about.  

The government accepted widespread public concern that the bill was designed to force everyone to get a digital ID and promised to include an amendment to specifically rule that out. In this government amendment that you’ve moved, SY115, new provision 63DB(1) excludes use of government issued identification or use of digital ID. That is great, except 63DB(2) provides that, if social media platforms can come up with an alternative means of assessing age that does not involve digital ID or government documents, they can—wait for it—accept a digital ID identification. In effect, this amendment specifies that a social media platform cannot use digital ID by itself but it can use digital ID as part of a more comprehensive verification. There’s no need to guess what that could be; this bill contains the answer: age-assurance software. The company which has been awarded the tender for the age-assurance trial is a British company called Age Check Certification Scheme. whose main business is provision of digital IDs backed by age-assurance software. 

TikTok has used age-assurance software to remove one million underage accounts from TikTok in Australia. This software can tell if a person is, for instance, under 12. That’s useful. The smaller the gap between the user and target age—16 in this case—the less accurate it is. This software can’t tell age within six months, and there’s no way of knowing a person turned 16 on the day of their application. You just can’t tell that from face scan. Accessing social media on your 16th birthday and, most likely, for months afterwards will require a second identifier containing the child’s facial scan and their date of birth, which is a digital ID, which this company specialises in. You’re setting them up. 

I have criticised this bill as an opportunistic attempt to capitalise on the public desire for better regulation of social media to force all Australians to get a digital ID. I’ll say that again. I have criticised this bill repeatedly, as have others, as an opportunistic attempt to capitalise on the public desire for better regulation of social media to force all Australians to get a digital ID. This amendment requires a change in my language, which is now that this bill is an opportunistic attempt to require every child, once they turn 16, to get a digital ID if they want to access social media. What age does the government’s digital ID start from? Sixteen. What a coincidence! This wasn’t the intention all along? That’s misinformation. 

This amendment exposes the original intention of the bell. Your amendment exposes the original intention of the bill, which was hidden in what looked like a poorly drafted bill. It wasn’t poorly drafted; it was deliberately dishonest, and the short committee referral, which the government fought against, has exposed the deceit. The truth is now out there, and the decision before the Senate is a simple one. A vote for this bill is a vote to require every child to get a digital ID on their 16th birthday. 

Compulsory digital IDs aside, there are many other reasons not to pass this bill. I will now share with the Senate and with posterity the words of Australian Human Rights Commission on the bill. One Nation fully supports the commission’s position, which deserves to be included in the Hansard record of the debate: 

Social media is a vital platform for young people to share their ideas and opinions, engage in dialogue, and participate in social and cultural activities. It can be a valuable educational tool by providing access to diverse perspectives, news and learning opportunities, as well as vital information about health, well-being and safety. A blanket ban risks unjustly curtailing these freedoms. 

Social media is integral to modern communication and socialisation. Excluding young people from these platforms may isolate them from their peers and limit their ability to ability to access much-needed information and support. This is particularly important for young people from marginalised, vulnerable or remote communities. 

These are the words of the Human Rights Commission. 

The social media ban will rely on effective age assurance processes being adopted, which means that all Australians may be required to prove their identity in order to access social media. This may potentially require all Australians to provide social media companies with sensitive identity information, which poses a risk to our privacy rights in light of recent examples of data breaches and personal information being stolen. 

Technological workarounds – such as VPNs and false age declarations – may undermine the effectiveness of the ban. Additionally, a ban will not address the root causes of online risks or make the platforms safer for everyone. 

The workarounds to this measure have not received enough debate. The bill carves out gaming sites, many of which have a chat feature. Children will move over to chatrooms and gaming sites which are not supervised. Tor—or, more accurately, onion routing—will provide another avenue for communication which is designed to make supervision exponentially harder than on mainstream social media platforms. I have advice from a leading internet security company that peer-to-peer social media, which again is harder for parents to supervise than current social media platforms, is making a comeback. As a result of this legislation, children will be exposed to more harm, not less. I had a call from a constituent— 

Senator Hanson-Young: You are right. 

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: It’s not often Senator Hanson-Young tells me I’m right. A moment ago, I had a call from a constituent who had called their local Liberal member of parliament about this bill and was told, ‘Oh, it’s okay; you can just sign up for your children.’ With age-assurance software, that will not work. With Digital ID connected to age-assurance software, the social media platform will know what you’re doing. Don’t be telling people: ‘It’s nothing. You can defeat it. You can still talk to Grandad on Facebook.’ You won’t be able to. Children may be able to use VPNs, virtual private networks, and the new PPNs, personal private networks, to appear to be in another country. That really won’t work either. The keystroke logging that accompanies the age-assurance software will assume someone pretending to be in Canada but interacting with Australian accounts is probably using a VPN. 

Minister, why did you say that this won’t lead to Digital ID when your amendment says exactly that? 

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Social Media Age Ban Faces Powerful Testimony in Senate Hearing

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Today, the Senate held a Committee Hearing on the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024. This expedited inquiry was scheduled with just one day’s notice, as the Liberal and Labor parties want to rush this legislation through. The first witness, Ms. Lucy Thomas OAM, CEO of Project Rockit, delivered six minutes of the most relevant, heartfelt, and inspirational testimony on the issue of censoring social media for those under 16. Her insights demonstrated the benefit of lived experience.

Before taking a position on this bill, take the time to listen to her testimony.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you all for being here. Ms Thomas, there are harms and benefits at school, and there are harms and benefits in life generally. Claude Mellins, professor of medical psychology in the Departments of Psychiatry and Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University, stated: ‘For young people, social media provides a platform to help them figure out who they are. For very shy or introverted young people, it can be a way to meet others with similar interests.’ She added: ‘Social support and socializing are critical influences on coping and resilience.’ They provide an important point of connection. She then said in relation to Covid: ‘On the other hand, fewer opportunities for in-person interactions with friends and family meant less of a real-world check on some of the negative influences of social media.’ Isn’t the professor making an important point? It’s not about stopping real-world interactions it’s about balancing social media with real-world interactions. Isn’t it about a balance, not about prohibition? Isn’t it also the fact that parents and not governments are best placed to decide how their children develop?

Ms Thomas: Thank you for the question. I think you’re speaking to that idea of balance that a lot of us have been trying to refer to. We are acutely aware of the harms, and I think they’re beautifully captured in that quote, and acutely aware of the risk that we may create new harms by cutting young people off. I think this is a really important point, and I’d like to give you one example, a quote from a young person, Rhys from Tamworth, who commented: ‘Social media has helped me figure out and become comfortable with my sense of self, as there is a large community that is able to connect me with people all over the world. Living in a regional area, it’s difficult to find people dealing with the same personal developments, and social media really helped.’ This is beyond just direct mental health intervention; this is about finding other people like you. This is about finding spaces where we can affirm ourselves, use our voices and mobilise around actions that we care about, just like we’re doing here today. I’d love to point out that the Office of the eSafety Commissioner has done some fantastic research into the experiences of specific groups—those who are First Nations, LGBTQIA+ Australians, and disabled and neurodivergent young people. All of these group face greater hate speech online. Actually belonging to one of those communities, I can say that we also face greater hate speech offline. What was really important is they also found that young people in these communities that already face marginalisation are more likely to seek emotional support—not just mental health support, but connection, news and information, including information about themselves and the world around them. So I take your point.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I have another quote from Deborah Glasofer, Associate Professor of Clinical Medical Psychology at Stanford University:

Whether it’s social media or in person, a good peer group makes the difference. A group of friends that connects over shared interests like art or music, and is balanced in their outlook on eating and appearance, is a positive. In fact, a good peer group online may be protective against negative or in-person influences.

Is this bill throwing out the good with the bad, instead of trying to improve support in digital media skills to allow children and parents to handle these trials better?

Ms Thomas: I think there is a risk of that, yes. I think we really need to, in a much longer and more thorough timeframe, interrogate and weigh up all of these risks and unintended possible impacts. I’d like to draw another quote from Lamisa from Western Sydney University. You spoke about influencers; we tend to imagine those being solely negative. Lamisa says: ‘Social media has given me creators who are people of colour, and I think it has really allowed me to learn that I don’t have to justify my existence, that I am allowed to have an opinion and that I am allowed to have a voice about who I am.’ So I absolutely think that there is a risk that we’ll throw out these experiences; in our desire to protect people, we create unintended harms that they have to live with.

Senator ROBERTS: I just received a text message from someone in this building, a fairly intelligent person, and he said: ‘I was born with a rare disorder. I spent more than four decades feeling isolated until I discovered people with the same disorder on social media. This legislation would prevent people under 16 from linking with the communities online that can provide them with shared lived experience.’ What do you say?

Ms Thomas: I’m going to give you one more quote. I’m aware that young people aren’t in the room, so I’m sorry I’m citing these references. Hannah from Sydney says: ‘Where I struggled in the physical world thanks to a lack of physically accessible design and foresight by those responsible for building our society, I have thrived online.’ The digital world has created so much opportunity for young people to participate and fully realise their opportunities. We just need to be very careful.

I know in talking about all these benefits, I’m probably going to receive an immediate response about some of the harms. I’m not here to say that harms don’t exist. They do. If anyone is aware of them, it’s me. I’ve been working in this space for 20 years. I started Project Rockit because I wanted to tackle these issues as a young person fresh out of school. We know they’re there, but we have to be very careful not to impact these positive benefits young people face.

Senator ROBERTS: Ms Thomas, isn’t there very important access to parents and grandparents on social media for their support and experiential interaction. A lot of children interact with their parents and grandparents through social media?

Ms Thomas: Am I allowed to answer this one?

CHAIR: Yes.

Ms Thomas: I think one of the big, grave concerns around implementation and enforcement is that it won’t just be young people who need to verify their ages online; it will be every Australian. The methods available, every Australian sharing their biometric data or presenting a government issued ID, are going to pose challenges for those Australians that you are talking about—older Australians who are already facing higher rates of digital exclusion and those from marginalised communities. Absolutely, this is a vital tool for grandparents and kids, for intergenerational play and learning, and we risk cutting young people off but also cutting older people off.

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Social Media Ban or Big Brother Control?

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The government, with support of the Liberals, is proposing a ban on children under 16 accessing social media, justifying the measure by claiming it’s “popular.”  Oh, really? It’s ironic that the same parties that accuse One Nation of populism are now pushing a measure not because it’s workable, but simply because it’s supposedly popular!   

A true conservative party, Mr Dutton, would support parents to supervise their own children in their own homes. A true conservative, Mr Dutton, would not be promoting big government replacing parents.   

The eGovernment is also trialling age-assurance technology, which uses facial scans of every social media user to confirm they are over 16. If there’s any doubt, the system will cross-check the person’s Digital ID for verification to ensure it matches. In addition to facial scans, the “Assurance AI” will monitor keystrokes, audio patterns and “other measures” to determine the user’s age.   

By now you may conclude, as I did, that enforcing a social media age limit of 16 would require verifying everyone’s age using the device camera and their Digital ID—which everyone would be forced to have. So much for Digital ID being voluntary. Even adults will need one to continue using social media.   

In the unlikely event they can actually make this work, children would move to other platforms that are less regulated, less safe and more prone to child exploitation.   

Even more alarming is the fact that conversations would be monitored for signs of age, yet what happens to the voice prints and keystroke logs this system collects?   

To make this work, cameras on devices would need to run constantly to ensure a new user hasn’t hopped on to an existing computer session. This means cameras would always be on, capturing everything – video and audio – that is happening in the room.   

This creates a perfect scenario for hackers to access the feed. 

One Nation opposes this legislation. The best people to monitor and regulate children’s internet use are parents—not a Big Brother government. 

Transcript

I move: 

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

The need to recognise that a blanket ban on social media for children under 16 expropriates parental power, and for the Senate to affirm that parental responsibility rests in the parents, not the Federal Government. 

The government is proposing a ban on children under 16 accessing social media and justifies the measure because it’s supposedly popular. Oh, really? It’s ironic that the same parties who accuse One Nation of populism are now promoting a measure not because it’s workable but, rather, because it’s supposedly popular. 

A true conservative, though, would support parents supervising their own children in their own home. That’s not what Mr Peter Dutton is doing. A true conservative opposition leader would not be promoting big government replacing parents. Instead, he would be making device supervision easier for parents. 

The government, repeatedly, is giving more power to social media giants under the guise, they say, of transparency. They’re not revealing anything. We still don’t see the algorithms of the social media giants—international players who have control over our space. What we’re doing is not making device supervision easier for parents. We’re not making it easier for parents to fulfil their responsibilities as parents.  

It’s time that social media companies—plus Apple, Microsoft and Android—made their parental locks easier and more powerful. So let’s start there. No country in the world has made age limits work, because bureaucrats or social media platforms in far-off countries can’t see who’s using the computer or phone. The only people who can see what the child is doing with their device are the people in their home with them—the parents. It’s a parental duty, a parental responsibility and a parental right to raise their children and to supervise their children. If this proposal from the government goes through, parents allowing their children to watch cartoons and educational shows on free-to-view social media, including YouTube, would be breaking the law. Parents supervising their children would be breaking the law. Watching the same material on Foxtel at $99 a month would be legal. Does that seem right? To me it doesn’t. 

Essential and YouGov polling showed a majority of Australians support higher age restrictions on social media. This is the same Essential poll which found 17-year-olds should be able to buy alcohol and watch pornography and also recommended the age for criminal responsibility be raised to 14. Who did they ask? Are these next in the uniparty’s embrace of populism? My speech earlier today gave information on the unintended consequences of this idea. I will post the speeches together on my website. This problem is as old as the internet, and it’s not going anywhere. Let parents parent. That’s fundamental to raising children. 

We’re seeing the opportunity in education now. States and the federal education department, which doesn’t have a single school, allow indoctrination programs through the national curriculum. Instead of being education, it’s now indoctrination. They’re grooming young children for the globalist agenda. They terrorise children: ‘The climate is changing. The globe is boiling. The world will end. You’ve only got five years to live unless we do something.’ These are the terrorists for young children today—the globalists who are pushing this agenda and this legislation around the world. 

One Nation supports this matter being referred to a Senate inquiry, where technology experts can testify on the harms and unintended consequences of replacing parental supervision with government overreach and government control. We need to let parents parent. Instead of giving more power to the globalist corporations and to the internet behemoths, we need to put the power back with parents and let parents look after their children. As I said before, it is a parental duty, a parental responsibility and a parental right. I am sick and tired, and so are so many parents and grandparents across this country, of the government trying to be a nanny state to protect their kids all while grooming their children for control, whether directly through education or indirectly through social media. What we need to do is actually look at what people need and then act accordingly. One Nation is not in favour of this. We are surprised that the Liberal Party, including their leader, seem to be lining up in support of censoring teens on the internet. 

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Social Media Ban for Under 16’s: A Gateway to Government Surveillance and Control

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We all know the real intent of the Digital ID agenda. The United Kingdom, with laws similar to ours, has shown alarming developments. In the last two weeks, British police have visited and advised hundreds of journalists and commentators to stop criticising the Starmer government’s policies. Some have even been arrested and imprisoned merely for expressing their opinions.  

The Digital ID, misinformation laws and facial verification systems are all part of the control mechanism that facilitates government surveillance and tyranny. The mask has come off quickly. Only recently, Minister Gallagher reassured Australians that digital IDs would not be compulsory. Yet, without one, life will become impossible.  

Now, there is a proposal to introduce age verification for social media. This would require every user—not just adults, as initially told to us, but also children—to have a digital ID.  

Age verification has never been successfully implemented anywhere in the world. The only way it can function is through a Digital ID with facial recognition, which would require constant re-scanning of the user’s face, potentially every minute, to confirm identity. This setup would necessitate keeping the computer camera permanently on, exposing children to significant privacy risks, including hacking.  

One Nation firmly believes that the best person to oversee internet use is the one present in the room with the children: their parents. We oppose intrusive government and support the primacy of the family in raising and protecting their children.

Transcript: Question Time

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Communications, Senator McAllister. During Senate estimates on 5 November, the age assurance verification trial and social media age verification proposals were examined. For those who missed it, let me see if I have this correct. The system the government is considering will require two things: firstly, a digital ID to access social media for all users and, then, to make sure nobody is using a dodgy digital ID, age verification assurance technology, which will scan the user’s face, monitor their key strokes for content and technique and calculate their age. If it finds the person might be underage, it will compare it back to the biometric data in the person’s digital ID and check their identity and date of birth. Is that an accurate, concise explanation of the system being examined? 

Senator McALLISTER: No. I suppose I could sit down, but, no, that is not accurate. We are obviously engaged in an important policy reform process to protect children from some of the harms that they are exposed to on social media. I would be really surprised, Senator Roberts, if you hadn’t heard about this amongst the people that you talk to in your constituency. I think every senator in this place has had a conversation with a parent or perhaps with a teacher who was concerned about the kind of information that children are seeing online and accessing online and the inability of parents to actually engage and protect their children from some of those harms. 

We want Australian parents to actually know that we’ve got their backs. That is the underlying motivation for embarking on the reform. It’s, of course, about protecting kids. We still want them to be connected. We don’t want to punish children. We don’t want to isolate them. But we do want them to operate in an environment that is safe, and that’s the reason that we have committed to bringing forward legislation for a minimum age limit for social media this fortnight. We have worked with a pretty wide range of stakeholders, and we’re very grateful for the support that we’ve received in doing this work. Obviously, the National Cabinet has taken a very strong interest in this, and first ministers in that forum have agreed that the Commonwealth will legislate a minimum age of 16. 

I think one of the implications of your question and the way that you framed it was a concern around privacy, and that’s a legitimate question to ask. We will not put at risk the personal information of Australians, and the regulations will include robust privacy protections for personal information with significant penalties for platforms that breach— (Time expired) 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary? 

I predicted during the digital ID debate that one person could sign a younger person into social media, and the only solution is keeping the device camera on permanently, which is an outrageous breach of trust and privacy. While you’re peeping into the camera feed of all social media users, hackers will have an easy hack to spy on families in their bedrooms, to learn daily routines and to work out when the home can be safely burgled. Minister, in the name of supposedly keeping children safe, are you building a surveillance apparatus for perverts and thieves? 

Senator McALLISTER: No. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary? 

The government’s solution still requires a camera to be permanently on. There will be continuous surveillance of the computer user in their own home by the government. If a parent has a child on their knee watching a children’s video or a cooking video on social media, will the system lock them out because the child is under 16? Minister, in your brave new world of internet regulation, do parents have any rights over their children’s lives or is the Albanese government cancelling parents? 

Senator McALLISTER: Almost nothing in the set of propositions put forward by Senator Roberts in his question to me were accurate, true or based on anything that has been said publicly by the minister or anyone in the government, and I want to make that very, very clear. Our focus is, in fact, on protecting children from an environment that has not been designed to secure their safety, and the reason that we know that is we hear that all the time from the parents that speak to us. 

Our interest, in fact, is in creating an environment that is supportive of parents who are trying to engage in a constructive way to deal with the information that their children are exposed to. Our interest is in supporting those parents who say, ‘We wish to do better in terms of the harms our kids are experiencing, but we don’t have the tools.’ That is the focus of our legislative— (Time expired) 

Transcript: Take Note of Answers to Question Time

I move: 

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Emergency Management and Minister for Cities (Senator McAllister) to a question without notice I asked today relating to age verification on social media: 

We all know the real intent of the digital ID agenda. The United Kingdom has almost the same laws that we have here, and in the last two weeks the British police have visited and advised hundreds of journalists and commentators that they should stop criticising the Starmer government’s policies. Some were arrested and imprisoned for nothing more than an opinion. The digital ID, misinformation laws and facial verification laws are all part of the control mechanism that facilitates government surveillance and tyranny. The mask has come off quickly. Only recently, Minister Gallagher reassured Australians that the digital ID was not compulsory, yet, without it, life will be impossible. 

The digital ID started life under the Morrison Liberal government. As recently as April, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, championed the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024, and the Liberals support social media age verification. Age verification means the government forcing the digital ID on everyone, paired with frequent facial scans from the camera on your device. That means the camera on your internet enabled device will be on permanently. One Nation opposes a world where children become hackers and subversives before they’re old enough to drive, just so they can keep in contact with their friends and relatives on social media. Children will be forced into the dark corners of the web like peer-to-peer messaging, where no protections exist against illegal material, hate, phishing, hacking and sextortion. Adults will no longer express their opinions for fear of that 4 am United Kingdom-style raid from the thought police. Australians should have the option of a regulated private verification service if they see fit, because mandating digital ID is an unacceptable infringement of personal sovereignty. The government running the scheme and having all your data in real time is absolutely terrifying. 

Senator Hanson and I tried to move a Senate inquiry into the referendum to enshrine freedom of speech in our Constitution—it was opposed. One Nation will repeal the digital ID and related bills. We will protect free speech, protect the rights of parents and defend the human rights of all Australians. 

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Podcast: You’re The Voice

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I joined Efrat Fenigson on her podcast where we discussed the anti-human agenda and how it has manifested in Australia over the last several years. We discuss the climate change fraud, COVID injections, economic changes needed, Digital ID, and lots more.

Efrat’s Introduction

My guest today is Senator Malcolm Roberts, an Australian politician from Queensland and a member of the Australian Senate. With a background in engineering, mining, business and economics, Senator Roberts is a climate realist, challenging mainstream climate science and exposing lies in this field. Unlike most politicians these days, Senator Roberts is a Truth teller and does not shy away from any topic: public health, Covid, immigration, finance, economics, sexual education for children and more.

In this episode we talk about the anti-human globalist agenda and how it manifested in Australia over the past few years. We cover the Senator’s fight against climate fraud, his efforts to help Covid-19 jabs injured, to expose excess deaths and more, while holding politicians accountable, encouraging people to reclaim their power. The Senator criticizes the centralization of government and the media by globalists, introducing new levels of censorship on Australians. The conversation concludes with monetary and economic changes in Australia, including the move to a cashless society, CBDC, digital IDs, 15-minute cities and more.

The senator highlights the importance of simplicity and the power of individual responsibility in creating positive change and waking people up to the truth. He concludes with a message of hope, urging individuals to be proud of their humanity and to share information to help others become informed.

Chapters

00:00:00 Coming Up…
00:01:06 Introduction to Senator Roberts
00:03:19 Politicians in Today’s Reality
00:11:06 Ad Break: Trezor, Bitcoin Nashville, BTC Prague
00:13:03 Why Politics?
00:16:56 About Human Progress
00:23:04 Australian Politics & Activism
00:25:02 Political Structure in Australia
00:28:47 Balancing the Exaggerated Power of the State
00:30:38 Truth Telling, Simplicity & Education
00:35:02 Efrat’s Resistance to Green Pass During Covid
00:38:01 Senator’s Climate Fraud Views
00:44:30 How To Break The Narrative?
00:49:21 Admitting Being Fooled About Covid
00:55:40 Excess Death & Vaxx Injuries in Australia
01:03:08 Australia’s During Covid & Bigger Picture
01:12:46 Compensation Plan For Vaxx Injured
01:14:24 Media, Censorship & Fear in Australia
01:22:04 Role of Regulation, Legislation, Censorship
01:26:53 CBDC & Digital IDs in Australia
01:32:29 Globalists Vision For Useless Eaters
01:33:58 Money Agenda, Cashless Society & How To Fight Back
01:44:05 Protecting Your Wealth & Family
01:48:04 Bitcoin & Nation States
01:50:01 Globalists Control & A Message Of Hope

Links

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One Nation Pushes New Data Rights Bill to a Vote!

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The Treasury Laws Amendment (Consumer Data Right) Bill 2022 has finally come up for a vote after more than a year of efforts by One Nation to push it forward.

This legislation grants everyday Australians the right to know who is accessing their data, to refuse permission for its use, and to request its deletion.  The protections in this Bill will make it easier for individuals, class actions and regulators to take legal action against companies that abuse your data under the Digital ID Act.  One Nation supports the Bill, believing these protections are long overdue.

However, there are still significant gaps. For example, the Bill lacks provisions for auditing data companies to ensure they are handling data responsibly.  As it stands, the Bill depends on whistleblowers to come forward. One Nation remains committed to defending your right to live your life without big brother, intrusive government surveillance.

Transcript

It’s about time the Treasury Laws Amendment (Consumer Data Right) Bill 2022 came up for a vote. I wonder why it is that bills which take away rights, like the Digital ID Bill, are guillotined, debate denied, committee
processes rigged to produce the desired outcome and then rushed through the Senate in an eye blink yet bills that give people rights are held back for years. One Nation supports this bill, which should have been passed at the same time as the Digital ID Bill—a piece of legislation that relied on the protections provided in the consumer data rights bill.

This week the Minister for Government Services, Bill Shorten MP, released plans for the government’s own digital ID, which he calls the Trust Exchange. I don’t want to rain on the minister’s parade, yet I’m compelled to state the obvious: the government does not have any trust to trade—although the use of the word ‘trade’ is significant, because it shows the government doesn’t understand what it’s doing. When you use a digital ID, the circumstances of its use are recorded. There is a data trail that holds rich information about the person being verified—about you.

The private intermediary who’s performing the data handling can retain a copy of that data for a specified period. Does anyone really think they will delete that data when the retention period ends? That data is worth billions of dollars on the data market. The Digital ID Bill provided no protection against illegal data retention. The consumer data right bill does provide some protections, and it includes an overarching statement of fairness and honesty that would make prosecution of big data for misbehaviour much easier.

The minister has announced, apparently proudly, that the government will keep on file a record of every digital ID transaction. Imagine being proud of that! Such a record will be triggered multiple times a day: on public transport, at the shops and, as the minister himself said, in the pub. Can you believe it? It will happen when entering public buildings, like this one; when signing contracts; when using an ATM; and, as announced this week, when accessing social media. As I foretold when the Morrison Liberal-National government introduced the Digital ID Bill, and again when the Albanese Labor-Greens government pushed it through the Senate with no debate—no debate at any stage—each of these uses for the digital ID is in active development. I thank the minister for his honesty in admitting that the government will retain each of these transactions in its myGovID master file.

The Trust Exchange QR code, which is to be branded ‘TEx’, is a massive technological undertaking. I do not trust that this government and our bureaucrats have the technical knowledge to pull this off. I have to wonder how Minister Shorten can pursue justice over the tragic robodebt data-matching horror show so aggressively and then turn around and repeat the same mistake with TEx. Mismatches will be the norm; they’ll be normal. Data outages such as we’ve seen in recent months will occur again and again and cause chaos again and again. Yet the government is intent on creating a centralised database of every citizen, accessible from every business in the country through intermediaries who inevitably will be large foreign companies that make their money selling data.

Here’s an example of what could and does go wrong. Do you remember when this Labor government demanded a myGov account was needed to register for a director ID? Remember that, Madam Acting Deputy President? It wasn’t so long ago. The process was outsourced to Accenture, which immediately treated the exercise as a dataharvesting opportunity, a windfall, and started demanding that applicants for a director ID also provide details of their bank accounts, superannuation accounts, Centrelink account, Medicare number, tax return, drivers licence number and passport number. Yet the only thing the enabling legislation allowed for was the tax file number—one thing, and Accenture harvested seven. One word from the government and big business did whatever they liked with the data of millions of Australians.

Accenture committed theft on a fraudulent basis. It was fraud. My office notified the government, and it stopped. There was no punishment, no punishment at all. What happened to that data? Was all that private information destroyed? I’ll bet it wasn’t. In fact, no, it wasn’t. This government actually paid the big data company millions of taxpayer dollars—your money, our money—to harvest data for their own commercial benefit, and they went against the law to do it. So excuse me if I don’t trust this new TEx system. It’s appropriately named, though: TEx will be a digital Wild West where the bad guys, big data, exploit the public for profit and power.

Earlier, when I said this wasn’t a trade, here’s why. For it to be a trade everyday Australians would get something out of it that we, the people, do not currently have. People already have a photo ID. They already have government issued identification sufficient to meet any request. The government does not need to know if a person went to the pub today. Do you know who does? Life, motor vehicle and insurance companies. Do you know who else?

Employers. They would love to know how often, where and what time of the day an employee goes to the pub. This is why the value of the data industry worldwide is expected to be worth trillions in the future. In reality, a bank does not trade in money; it trades in risk. Imagine the money they will make if they can entirely eliminate the risk from their books by knowing everything about their customers—everything all the time! Imagine how the government could use that data. The answer is provided in the UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s behaviour.

Right now he is rounding up people for wrong think and wrong speak. I spoke about that lesson in communism on Tuesday night.

This is the future, your future, under the Albanese Labor government or under the other uniparty wing, the Liberal-Nationals, who introduced the Digital ID Bill and introduced the misinformation and disinformation bill. Trust has been lost. Mr Albanese and his Labor government have lost the people’s trust, lost the people’s confidence, lost the people’s support. After the Morrison government grossly and dishonestly mismanaged COVID-19, Mr Dutton and his Liberal-National opposition have not yet earned people’s trust, confidence and support. We need a strong crossbench of true conservatives to stop Australia’s slide into poor governance. The election cannot come fast enough.

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Digital ID, Independent Media and the Future of Conservatism in Australia

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I recently joined Melinda Richards on TNT Radio to discuss pressing issues facing Australia today. I emphasised the importance of independent media.

Our conversation turned to the Digital ID bill, which echoes the Australia Card proposal from the 1980’s—a proposal Australians firmly rejected.

We also discussed the erosion of conservative values within the Liberal Party and the urgent need for strong leadership to uphold these conservative principles.

Transcript

Melinda Richards: I’m joined by Senator Malcolm Roberts, one of the few politicians in Australia standing up for Australians and puts Australians first and his country first.  Thank you again, Senator Roberts for joining me today.

Senator ROBERTS: You’re welcome and thank you for doing what you do on TNT because we need an independent news media.  Part of the problem is that the governments are owned by major corporations who are in the media and that the messaging is false.

Melinda Richards: Yeah, it’s interesting.  I just spoke about that this week that the government has now invested nearly $33 million into Channel 10 and had a little bit of a rant about that.  And having government owned media is the worst idea that could possibly be put forward to a supposed free society.  Senator Roberts, I wanted to talk to you about also the Australia card.  You’re of the age, and I’m of the age, where we can remember the Australia card being proposed by Bob Hawke back in 1985 and he was intent on doing what the digital ID is going to do now.  Of course, the digital ID would be 1000 times worse because we have the technology now, but back in the 80s, Australians said a resounding no to the Australia card and then they talked about it again a couple more times and Australians said a resounding no each time it came up.  So of course, Australians probably would say a very loud, resounding no to the digital ID.  Should this have gone to a referendum to the people?  Because of course, this is going to be the biggest change that society’s going to have in the next coming decades.

Senator ROBERTS: Well, that’s one way certainly of doing it.  We’ve got a One Nation policy – Citizens Initiated Referendum, which means that the people – it operates in some countries, Switzerland for example, and it brings accountability to the federal parliament.  That’s where a citizen can say I don’t like a bill, he or she can make a petition, get sufficient signatures.  Then the bill is put to, even if it’s been passed by the parliament, is put to the people and the people can say go to hell, remove the bill. 
They can also hold politicians accountable and say we don’t like what you’re doing, Melinda, you’re out.  You know that’s what we need, accountability.  So yes, it should be put to the people.  But the Australia card is a really important lesson because I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time.  But as I understand it, Melinda, that was about making sure that people receiving welfare payments from the government, which is really from the taxpayer, were accountable and there’d be no cheating.  And we see a lot of cheating on welfare these days.  So that’s the intent.  But even with that intent, the taxpayers say no, I’d rather lose my money than have the government watching over us.

Melinda Richards: We’d rather have people cheat then have people track US, have people follow, follow the ID number, have our ID number continuing to go through different aspects and parts of our society.  The people of Australia at the time understood the implications.  Are we a little bit more apathetic now or is it just that we are not really understanding what is being passed through parliament because it’s not being talked about much in the mainstream media?

Senator ROBERTS: You’ve, you’ve nailed it.  The mouthpiece media, the legacy media, the Big Brother media, whatever you want to call it, do not talk about it because their masters are wanting this Digital ID to go through because they’ll be part of the corporations that it’ll be widened up to in the future.

Melinda Richards: I mean, we’re still looking at the money train then.  We’re still looking at the people that are going to profit from this by controlling us and then pushing through different things and different subsidies and different parts of bills and ideas and things that we won’t even have a say in either.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s correct.  Remember the three words, two points – control and wealth transfer.  This is what it’s about.  We’ve got the identity verification, which is a bill that went through earlier, a couple of months before, or a few months before the digital ID bill – that was about enabling biometric data to be used. Digital ID bill came up.  The Misinformation-Disinformation bill was introduced by the Morrison Government, and it has been retracted or withdrawn – paused in its process through this parliament.  So that’s coming up as well.  That’s where they will control what you say and what you then do.  So, this is all heading for control and enabling wealth transfer.  Because we also know, thanks to my questioning at Senate estimates, that the Reserve Bank of Australia has been working on a digital currency and has been tying that up to work overseas on a global digital currency.  I mean the Reserve Bank admitted it.  So, this is putting everything in place for social credit score.  And there were several amendments considered in the – it wasn’t a debate – in the passage of the bill through – the hijacking of the bill through the parliament.  And not one word of debate was allowed on any of those amendments.

Melinda Richards: That’s incredible.

Senator ROBERTS: Yeah.  And then the media doesn’t even report this going on.  But this is typical of what the UNI party is doing.  It’s not just the Labour Party.  All of these bills, including the Digital ID bill, were introduced by the LNP, the Liberal National Party government.

Melinda Richards: I mean, do you think this is a really big problem for the conservative movement in Australia?  I just had Andrew Cooper on earlier today talking about CPAC, talking about where the conservative movements going in Australia, particularly in light of what’s just happened in the UK election.  I mean, the digital ID has got to be something, hasn’t it, that that the politicians, the conservative politicians in Australia and the conservative citizens of Australia should now be rallying behind almost as strongly as they did with the Voice referendum.  I mean we know with the positive outcome that happened there that when we do rally, when we do understand things, when we look a little deeper into what’s going on, we can actually get a great result.

Senator ROBERTS: You’re absolutely correct.  And there are a few conservatives, true conservatives in the Liberal Party, but most of them are in One Nation and Libertarians these days.

Melinda Richards: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: Alex Antic, for example, he drafted a bill that’s called, I think the Repeal Digital ID Bill.  He invited genuine conservatives to cosign it and co-sponsor it.  So, he invited me, Pauline Hanson, Ralph Babet, Gerard Rennick and Matt Canavan.  And so, the six of us are all co-sponsors of the bill.  And the bill’s very simple.  It just says repeal the Digital ID bill – that’s it.  And then there’s the consequential amendments, which is repealing any changes of the digital ID caused in other legislation.  So, it can be done.  You look at the Liberal National Party, Gerard Rennick is one of the best senators and he’s been put in an unwinnable position pre-selection.  You look at the true conservatives, Kevin Andrews from Victoria – gone, not pre-selected.  You look at the senators they’ve appointed recently, they’ve been from the left wing of the Liberal Party.  You see Connie Fierravanti-Wells, Eric Abetz – genuine conservatives sidelined and taken out of federal politics.  So, what we see now is a Liberal Party that is a clone of the worst parts of the Labor Party.  You’ve got factions now within the Liberal Party, you’ve got very, very few Conservatives and so what we’ve got now is a Uni-Party and we know that every major energy bill, for example, climate and energy policy was introduced by the Liberal National Party, not the Labor Party.  The Labor Party came in and ramped it up and that’s what they’ve done across the board.

Melinda Richards: Yeah, that’s right.  And it’s been a shocking revelation for a lot of conservatives over the last probably 15 years or so that the conservative movement is not being represented by the Liberal Party, the Liberal National Party and this has been a bit of a wake up call for the conservative movement in Australia and certainly in the UK – they’ve woken up. It took them 3 elections.  I think we need a strong conservative leader in this country to bring us back to some of our core values.  And there are things that the conservative movement is going to have to, as I said earlier, grab a hold of and fight back pretty strongly.  And the group of politicians you mentioned, Senator Roberts, you are the true heroes of our political movement at the moment in Australia because you are putting Australians first.

Thank you so much for joining me today, Senator Roberts.  I certainly hope we can talk again very soon.  You’re listening to Melinda Richards on TNT.

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Our Dystopian Future of Digital ID Prisons

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The ink isn’t even dry on Minister Gallagher’s Digital ID Bill, yet abuses are already surfacing. Digital ID is supposed to be voluntary, with an alternative method of identification available, however this is not happening.  Federal and State Government departments, alongside crony corporations, are mandating Digital IDs and failing to offer paper alternatives. This blatant disregard for their own legislation reveals the government’s true intention: to force everyone to get a Digital ID for greater control.

Thanks to Minister Gallagher and Prime Minister Albanese, we’re falling into a dystopian future of digital prisons.

Transcript

In the break, opposition leader Peter Dutton joined Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to support a uniparty age ban of 16 on social media. When Minister Gallagher introduced the digital ID, she promised that every Australian over 16 would need a digital ID and that it would be voluntary. The ink was not dry on that legislation when the uniparty advanced this idea for a compulsory social media age limit, a simple idea raising many red flags. The issue is not who signs into social media; the issue is who’s using the account. This requires the device camera to always be on, to check the user’s image against their digital ID to prevent, for instance, younger siblings from taking over the session. Penalties for spreading misinformation, or opinions, as they used to be called, can then be levied against the correct person, with a photo of you making the post to prove it was you.  

The uniparty campaign to stamp out wrong-think on social media will require a camera in every adolescent’s bedroom, running every moment their computer, tablet or phone is in use. Hacking into cameras is easy. This proposal will be a paedophile’s paradise and will increase crimes against children. Using social media in public— cafes, public transport, shops—will be a nightmare. Social media companies will need to run artificial intelligence to work out which image is the person operating the device and which is someone in the background. 

To answer the question, ‘Is this person over 16?’ will require every Australian’s biometric data. Who knows what else this identification and surveillance AI will do without our knowledge? The uniparty that introduced this bill under Mr Morrison and passed it under Mr Albanese will produce unintended consequences that far outweigh any benefit. One Nation believes in the primacy of parents over the state. Parents must be free to raise their children as they choose, not as the government dictates. 

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher. The Digital ID Act was passed with the promise that it would not be compulsory, per section 74(1). Your act includes a provision that alternative methods of establishing identity must be provided, in section 74(1A). My electorate office is receiving complaints from members of the public who are being required to obtain a digital ID in order to, in one instance, get their own medical report as part of a job application. This was a real-world application, not an online application. Minister, what options are available to a person who is not offered an alternative method of identity verification, as the act requires? Where can people complain, and what penalties are imposed on an entity who fails to follow your legislation?  

Senator GALLAGHER: I thank Senator Roberts for the question. As you’d know, Senator Roberts, the digital ID legislation has not come into effect yet. It doesn’t come into effect until 1 December this year. Essentially, we’ve legislated the existing system, which was unregulated. That’s what we’ve done with that legislation.  

There is a requirement, in the legislation, to continue to provide alternative opportunities or ways for people to engage with government for their personal use. Of course, businesses already engaging with the tax office do use the myGovID system, but, for your personal use, the law is very clear that there must be alternative ways provided for the community to engage with government. That has been made very clear across government. 

I would say that, if you want to forward me that constituent’s issue, even if it’s de-identified, I’d be very happy to look at it, but we have been very clear that it is a voluntary system, it is a safe system and it is a secure system. It’s simply a means of verifying yourself in a way that gives you control of your own documentation. So, instead of having all your ID documents photocopied or emailed around the place, you are the one verifying your identity and you’re able to hold those documents to yourself. It’s actually a much safer way of engaging with government than paper based systems, and I am very hopeful that more people will take it up once the legislation and the regulator are in place. Of course, once that legislation is enacted, there will be a regulator. The ACCC will perform that role. So there would be the ability to make complaints and have those complaints investigated. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: The entity responsible was the Queensland state government. Will you now instruct the Queensland Labor government to follow the legislation and ensure an alternative option is allowed or will you do so after the legislation is enacted? 

Senator GALLAGHER: The legislation does enable a national digital ID system, or ecosystem. There are private sector digital IDs and there are also state government versions. But what the legislation means is that those state governments can apply for accreditation through the national system, and we are hopeful that they will do that. In fact, in a meeting I had on Friday with states, they are all certainly indicating that they will be part of that national system. But, for a state based system which has its own processes for engaging on rates and other things, that is a matter for the Queensland government and would have to be taken up with the Queensland government. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, was the failure to include penalties for not providing alternative verification options a failure of this government or was the imposition of a mandatory digital ID the plan all along? 

Senator GALLAGHER: The legislation is very clear. It’s a voluntary system—that is, people, for their personal engagement with government, have the right to choose whether they use a digital ID or they use the more traditional way of engaging with government. In terms of penalties, the legislation does set up the ACCC as the regulator of the system. That would be the way that complaints and other issues would be assessed. So there is a system in place. I don’t have the legislation right in front of me, but we were very clear that putting the digital ID ecosystem in legislation is actually about ensuring that it is safe and that consumers’ needs are fundamental, are front and centre and are protected through a regulated system. At the moment, I have a digital ID, but it doesn’t exist under a regulated system. All that the legislation did was take a lot of what’s happening now outside of a regulated system and regulate it. 

 

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: I move: 

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice I asked today relating to digital ID. 

The Digital ID Act was presented to the Senate and to the Australian public as a convenient way to establish identity and that it would not be compulsory. It has taken precisely two weeks to discover that’s a lie. Already federal and state government departments are demanding digital IDs be created for the most mundane tasks. A constituent of mine in Queensland who attended a health clinic to undergo a physical before starting a job with the Queensland government for which a medical was mandated was told he couldn’t have the results of his physical until he got a digital ID. This is a real-world transition. The clinic knew who he was because he had to prove his identity before starting the physical. The digital ID requirement came from the Queensland government. In this case, there’s no earthly reason for a digital ID except that the public service have taken it upon themselves to impose a digital ID on every person in the country. Without penalties, there will be no attempt to provide the alternative method of verification that the minister promised. 

COVID proved the power of using employment for the purposes of blackmail, and it’s a lesson the government has embraced. The digital ID website, digitalidentity.gov.au, rolled out the new webpages for the digital ID within days of the legislation passing. The public education campaign on TV and online started within just a few days. The regulations upon which so much of the bill relies are finished and on public display already. All the ducks were in a row to introduce a digital prison in Australia before the Senate even voted and well before the new law’s implementation date in December. No wonder the government did a dirty deal with elements of the crossbench, guillotined the debate—there was no debate—and delivered government the powers they crave. What a disgraceful display. What an abuse of the social contract between the government and its requirement to act in the best interests of the public. One Nation will repeal the digital ID and legislate privacy protections for all Australians. 

Question agreed to. 

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Digital ID Repeal & COVID Response Commission Bills Introduced

It’s been a big week for cross-party collaboration on issues we’ve been strong on from the very start.

Digital ID Repeal Bill 2024

I co-signed the Digital ID Repeal Bill alongside Senators Antic, Babet, Canavan, Hanson and Rennick, which was introduced into the Senate Wednesday, 26 June 2024.

This Bill aims to repeal the government’s dystopian and ill-conceived Digital ID Bill.

What everyday Australians need is a Bill that protects their privacy, not one that removes it.

The way this Bill was rushed through the Senate without debate was reprehensible and an abuse of Senate process.

COVID-19 Response Commission of Inquiry Bill 2024

2 years ago I promised to hound down those responsible for the damage our COVID measures caused to Australians.

On Tuesday, in company with Senators Antic, Canavan, Rennick and O’Sullivan, a Bill was introduced to immediately commence a Senate Select Commission of Inquiry into our COVID response. The Terms of Reference in this Bill includes the recommendations from my recent committee inquiry.

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