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One Nation Defending Free Speech Since 2019

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It’s often said that success has many parents and failure is an orphan. In that case, I’d like a paternity test on the vote that removed the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill from the Senate Notice Paper. Some Senators now being credited with this move only solidified their opposition last week. Meanwhile, One Nation has stood firmly against this bill since its first iteration was released under the Morrison Liberal Government in 2019.  

One Nation has been the only party consistently campaigning against this bill since 2019. A vote for One Nation is a vote for freedom of speech.   In my remarks, I’ll outline the reasons why One Nation opposed this bill.

Transcript

To the people of Australia, congratulations—you’ve won. You put so much pressure on the ‘uniparty’ that you won; they folded. Four years ago I came out against the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024, and it’s been a slog ever since. That’s when the Morrison-Joyce Liberal-National government introduced it. I’ll just make some comments there. This is a part of five components—the mis- and disinformation bill; the Digital ID Act; identity verification bill; under-16s banned from social media; Reserve Bank of Australia working on a digital currency that’ll be connected to a global digital currency—of a package towards social credit. The second point is that that package is being put by the major parties—Liberals, Nationals and Labor. The third point is that it’s connected to implementation of a similar package around the world in many other nations right now. It’s led to the arrest of 150 people in the United Kingdom, with jail for some, simply for making comments dissenting against the British government. 

This misinformation and disinformation bill had some worthy sections on regulating the tech giants, but it was primarily about censorship and censoring the Australian people. One Nation supports a referendum to enshrine freedom of speech in our Constitution. One Nation supports legislation to mandate and enable free speech and to make free speech sacrosanct so that no state can trump it. One Nation wants to appeal 18C. This has come out of 18C, which is scandalous. They’re some of the basics. I will read part of my dissenting report on the Senate’s inquiry into this bill. It began: 

1.1 I thank the witnesses for their submissions and for attending the hearings. 

There were many, many witnesses. Thank you, Australia. 

1.2 The committee report— 

as it was originally drafted— 

into the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 flies in the face of the expert evidence the committee has received across three days of hearings into the bill. 

That evidence just completely smashed it and reversed it. But, with the tidal wave of views from across Australia, the committee changed its view—wonderful. 

1.3 A committee inquiry should not perform the function of gift wrapping a decision which has already been taken. A committee inquiry should have the role of deciding if the decisions taken in the bill are correct. 

The first report did not do that fundamental thing. 

1.4 For three days, the committee heard from human rights advocates and stakeholders who all criticised this bill on human rights grounds, and added warnings the bill would backfire. 

That’s what the committee heard almost unanimously. 

1.5 It is extraordinary the committee would choose to ignore the recommendations of the very people who they invited to attend to advise them on this matter. 

Only when the public turned savagely against the government was the committee report changed at the last minute to reflect today’s motion. The action of the committee to that point would have made it harder: 

… for any Senate inquiry in the future to attract the quality of witnesses this inquiry attracted. 

Censorship was the purpose of this bill. Censorship was the purpose of the committee report. The criticism of the bill was well placed. My comments continued: 

1.7 The Australian Human Rights Commission questioned a basic foundation of the bill—the definition of ‘information’. In the Explanatory Memorandum the term ‘is intended to include opinions, claims, commentary and invective’. 

1.8 The Australian Human Rights Commission stated ‘considerable caution should be exercised before including opinions and commentary within the scope of “information” as this significantly broadens the potential reach of this legislation and increases the risk of it being used to censor legitimate debate about matters of public importance. 

That is profound. That is the bedrock of a democracy.  

1.9 One Nation agrees with this concern. The bill misconstrues human rights as relative, indeed as subordinate to the need of government to suppress opinions they don’t like. 

That’s what you tried to do. 

1.10 The Human Rights Law Centre recommended Clause 11(e) should be amended to reflect a broader commitment to human rights in the bill’s objectives. It also recommended the Australian Human Rights Commission should be consulted on the development of codes. 

‘Consultation’—that’d be nice. 

1.11 Several submissions related to the specific areas of misinformation. The Australian Medical Professional Society submitted: 

By centralising control over what constitutes medical ‘truth’ in the hands of government regulators, we risk creating an even more Orwellian twist in a system that is already subject to manipulation by powerful interests, to further suppress inconvenient facts and legitimate debate. This would be disastrous not only for free speech and democracy, but for public health as well. 

People’s lives depend on this. And you wanted to stop it. 

1.12 The report failed to address a critical failing in the debate around COVID. Namely that information presented as medical truth at the time has been proven to be wrong— 

not only wrong but completely contradicting the truth— 

and information banned as misinformation has now been proven to be true. 

Repeatedly, repeatedly and repeatedly. 

1.13 On the issue of COVID messaging, One Nation has maintained a contrary position to the Government of the day since 2020. This followed expert testimony from multiple specialists, research doctors and whistle blowers which contradicted the official narrative. 

1.14 The implication is simple—what is misinformation one day is truth the next. This is the danger in the Government deciding what is and is not misinformation. The bias will always be in favour of the government’s ‘truth’. 

I asked every witness a fundamental question on the last day of the hearing: who is the arbiter of truth? No-one could say who is specified as the arbiter of truth in the bill. They all said that it would default to ACMA. Other provisions in my additional comments included: religious freedom, inauthentic behaviour and media literacy. But the fundamental thing is this was an attempt by the Labor Party to build on the Liberal Party’s previous attempts at censorship by corralling misinformation under their definition, and then driving the social media organisations, the big tech companies, to ram it down people’s throats. That was what you were doing. I’m pleased to see that the people of Australia have put the brake on you. Now I appeal to the people of Australia to keep a foot on their throat because we must stop the banning of under-16-year-old people from social media. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator O’Sullivan): Senator McKenzie, you have 10 seconds. 

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Concerns Raised Over eSafety Commissioner’s Powers

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The eSafety Commissioner has the power to issue takedown notices on various types of material, with exploitation material being the most common. One Nation supports these powers being used for this purpose. A small portion of their work involves removing material that is deemed “violent or distressing.” This was the power used in the case of the Bishop Mari Mari Emmanuel video. One Nation is concerned that these powers could be misused, as they are subject to political interpretation regarding what is and is not “violent or distressing.”

I asked the eSafety Commissioner if her department had a transparency portal where Senators and the public could see the material being taken down. The Commissioner responded by including exploitation material in her count, to show why such a portal was not feasible, yet I did not ask about exploitation material; my question specifically concerned material categorised as “violent or distressing.”

It is my belief that social media platforms primarily use AI to remove most of this material and that the department has only had to issue a small number of notices. I want to know what those notices were issued for and I will continue this inquiry during the next estimates session.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for attending. My first question is about your newsroom statement from 4 October about the social media platform X and a transparency notice on the measures it’s taking to combat child sexual exploitation material. Is this the only transparency notice that has not been complied with?

Ms Inman Grant: Thus far, yes. Where we issued an infringement notice, we issued something called a service provider notification to Google for the same set of child sexual abuse material.

Senator ROBERTS: The only other platform is Google, and that hasn’t been issued with a transparency notice. Are there any others like Telegram or Facebook? Telegram does a lot of work in that area.

Ms Inman Grant: We are in the midst of a process around a series of very complex transparency notices in relation to terrorist and violent extremist material. Telegram is amongst them, and we’re engaging with them.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. This thread asks about a subset of your work—material that is violent or distressing. Do you have a transparency portal where your instructions to social media platforms to take down such material are registered in as close to real time as possible so we can see what you’re censoring?

Ms Inman Grant: We weren’t set up as a censor, Senator. We have frameworks provided through complaint schemes. Members of the public report content to us, particularly when the social media platform or messaging platform hasn’t responded. With respect to illegal and harmful online content, we also have very well legally defined requirements. We have both notice powers under the Criminal Code and then removal notices under the Online Safety Act and formal removal notices, which we exercised against both X and Meta during the Wakeley terrorist incident.

Mr Dagg: Can I just explain how we achieve the objective of transparency in terms of our actions. You may know that the Online Safety Act requires us to publish, under section 183, actions that we’ve taken in relation to a variety of harms. Our annual report has been published. You can find all of the information—

Senator ROBERTS: Your report has been published?

Mr Dagg: The annual report has been published, and we are required to report all of that information in the annual report. You can find that from page 223 in the appendices that relate to the eSafety Commissioner. That will show you all of the actions that we took for the financial year 2023-24.

Senator ROBERTS: Can you give us a bit of background on each one?

Mr Dagg: No—these are aggregated figures, so there’s no specific breakdown of each individual matter.

Senator ROBERTS: So there’s no breakdown and no opportunity for people to see how you’re doing it?

Mr Dagg: It would not be operationally feasible for us to report in real time the actions that we’re taking. Parliament expected us to report on an aggregated basis about the actions that we’ve taken, including requests, but we haven’t broken them down—

Senator ROBERTS: It’s just the aggregate numbers—

Mr Dagg: The aggregate numbers for a range of operational purposes, including security and operational feasibility.

Senator ROBERTS: So the platforms have to be transparent, and you don’t?

Mr Dagg: Well, the platforms report on things in an aggregated way, too, Senator. They’re not reporting on each individual specific matter that they deal with. They deal with millions of matters on a yearly basis. So, again, that just wouldn’t be feasible for them to do.

Senator ROBERTS: But the platforms have to be transparent to you.

Mr Dagg: Through the exercise of our compulsory transparency powers under the basic online safety expectations. But it’s important to note, Senator, that those transparency powers are around how the platforms are meeting the expectations. We’re not extracting from them specific information about how they’re dealing with this matter or that matter that might be reported to them. We’re interested in understanding how they take user reports, for example—if they’ve got reporting schemes in place, how their terms, services and policies are developed to meet the objects of the basic online safety expectations. The most recent determination includes some measures in relation to generative AI and how the companies are ensuring that these technologies aren’t being used, for example, to produce child sexual abuse material on a synthetic basis. That’s the kind of information that we’re drawing from the companies. We’re not drawing information about how they’re dealing with individual complaints.

Senator ROBERTS: The police force has long had transparency to the public through the court system. Whether you agree that the court system is perfect or not, that’s not the point. Who do you go through to provide transparency? How can we assess what you’re doing, rather than just in the aggregate?

Mr Dagg: When it comes to the principles of open justice, as a former police officer myself, the matters that make their way to court represent a tiny fraction of all matters that are reported to police. The matters that are reported to police are not reported on an individual basis. There are strict privacy concerns, for example, that ensure the protection of complainants’ identities and the specific matters that are reported to police forces. The Wakeley matter—the section 109 notice that we issued to Twitter X—is a good example of how that principle of transparency plays out in the Federal Court. The online file, for example, includes all of the evidence that the eSafety Commissioner relied on to make the case that the interlocutory measures ought to be accepted by the court.

Senator ROBERTS: The Senate is the house of review. What facility exists for the Senate to review your take-down notices of material? Where’s the supervision of your activity? Who oversees you?

Ms Inman Grant: There are a few different ways. One is through FOI, which you’ve exercised yourself, Senator. We’ve had a 2,288 per cent increase in FOIs over the past year. We are held accountable. We have reporting requirements that include any informal actions we take. Of course, we can be challenged in the Federal Court. We can be challenged at the AAT, or now the ART. We can be challenged by the Ombudsman, and a complainant can ask for an internal review to be done. So there are a number of different ways that we can provide transparency when it is asked for or required.
But, as Mr Dagg said, with 41,000 reports this year—and I think Mr Downey, who is now running the investigations branch, is expecting at least 60,000 reports next year—it would operationally be infeasible, and it would violate the privacy of the complainants. As I said before, that confidentiality is important. Even young people understand that one of the reasons children don’t report cyberbullying is they don’t want to be the dobber or the snitch, and they fear retribution. If we were to not treat some of these complaints as personal information—and the Information Commissioner agrees with us—I think it would undermine trust in us as an organisation.

Senator ROBERTS: I get that. Did you say that there was a 2,000 per cent increase in FOIs?

Ms Inman Grant: Yes, 2,288 per cent.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s a huge increase. It tells me that people are hungry to learn more.

Ms Inman Grant: Yes, and there have been some campaigns that have also encouraged people to put in FOIs, which we respond to.

Senator ROBERTS: You’ve used the defence of having so many infringements to take care of. That’s a big workload. What I’m interested in is not so much that but how you’re being held accountable. How can we see transparently what you’re doing?

Senator McAllister: Here we all are, Senator. What is the question that you seek to ask?

CHAIR: We call it estimates.

Senator McAllister: We are at estimates. The commissioner is here to answer your questions. If there are particular things that you’re interested in, you really should ask her.

Senator ROBERTS: What about the public? They need to know.

Senator McAllister: You are their representative, as you so often remind us.

CHAIR: You can send them the video of this.

Senator McAllister: You are a humble servant of the people of Queensland.

Senator ROBERTS: I want to go to freedom of information 24118, which asked for any guidelines you have with regard to the implied right to political communication to make sure you aren’t infringing on it as you issue take-down notices. I note that your freedom of information decision says: ‘There are no dedicated guides or policies with respect to the interaction of the implied right of political communication in use by the eSafety Commissioner or personnel who implement the various schemes under the OSA.’ There are no dedicated guides or policies?

Mr Dagg: We would need to assess each and every action we take through the lens of whether or not the implied constitutional right to political communication is infringed. That’s just operationally infeasible.

Senator ROBERTS: So are you saying, ‘To hell with the Constitution’?

Mr Dagg: No, not at all. The concern that a particular person’s interests may have been infringed in such a way as to raise a claim that the operation of the Online Safety Act is invalid is absolutely a matter that can be pursued through merits review or judicial review. But, to the commissioner’s point, we are going to be dealing with 60,000 complained URLs this year, which produces a significant percentage of actions we take. I’m sure you can understand that rigorously assessing whether or not they raise any specific issues in relation to the implied constitutional right makes it very difficult for us to make rapid decisions in line with the threshold set by the act. I think it’s important to note that the act contains very clear thresholds and very clear parameters for us to apply in terms of operational decision-making. The act itself, as you would have seen, is supported by a bill which was subject to exhaustive human rights review in its construction. We believe that, by properly administering the act on behalf of the commissioner, we’re taking actions which are in line with parliament’s expectations. If a person believes that their constitutional right—the implied right—has been infringed, there are avenues for review of that decision.

Senator ROBERTS: I can’t see how bypassing the Constitution or not including it as a consideration is in any way okay. The eSafety Commissioner and the delegates ordinarily—this is the quote: ‘The eSafety Commissioner and the delegates ordinarily proceed on the basis that the powers given to them under the OSA by the Australian Parliament are reasonably appropriate and adapted’. So you don’t turn your mind to whether you’re acting constitutionally at all; you just assume you are. How can this Senate be convinced that you are able to act within the Constitution when you don’t even have a document outlining the fundamental right of Australians to communicate in political matters? If you infringe on someone’s constitutional rights, then they complain? That’s it?

Senator McAllister: As you know, the constitutionality of any piece of legislation that comes before the parliament—

Senator ROBERTS: Not the legislation—

Senator McAllister: is quite frequently a matter of some discussion. Unless you seek to challenge it, we can assume that the legislative framework within which the commissioner and her staff operates is constitutional.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s a misrepresentation of what I said, Minister. I’m not saying that the act is unconstitutional; I’m saying that the consideration to take someone down needs to maintain constitutional rights—particularly political.

Senator McAllister: I think the two things are interconnected, Senator, because the powers that are exercised by the commissioner and the staff that work with her are enabled by the parliament and by the legislation.

Senator ROBERTS: I get that.

Senator McAllister: As I have indicated to you already, that is quite often subject to a discussion among senators about constitutional arrangements.

Senator ROBERTS: That still doesn’t answer the question—the right to political communication.

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I am going to move on.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.

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Government Ducks for Cover on Misinformation and Disinformation Bill

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The government is trying to rush through the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill at all costs. It seems they’ve seen this week what happens to their side of politics when voters are presented with the facts and are allowed to make their own decisions.

Despite the government’s claims, it’s not out of the ordinary to talk about Bills at Senate Estimates. I’ll be at the hearing on Monday with my questions.

(And Heston Russell hasn’t received an apology from the ABC for their misinformation).

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: ACMA is appearing in the committee hearing on Monday?

Ms O’Loughlin: With my colleagues on Monday, yes.

Senator ROBERTS: We’ll do it then. That’s fine. I want to look at a particular case study. It is the case of special forces veteran Heston Russell. The ABC said it was inadvertent and that it wasn’t a calculated, deliberate manipulation. They deny manipulating a video to make it look like multiple gunshots were fired at a person. Heston Russell was a victim of disinformation from the ABC. Under the proposed misinformation and disinformation laws, the ABC would be exempt from punishment by spreading disinformation. Correct?

Ms O’Loughlin: I don’t think I can form a view on that, Senator.

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, I think this goes to the point Senator Grogan was making. You are really asking how the bill will operate in practice. This is a question that has been referred to this committee. You have scheduled hearings to deal with it on Monday.

Senator ROBERTS: I think that is drawing a long bow, Minister, but I’m happy to leave it until Monday.

Senator McAllister: It is an unusual Senate rule, but it is a very longstanding one, Senator. It has been like this the whole time we’ve been here together.

Senator ROBERTS: I accept that. As I’ve said, I will comply with it for the other questions. I didn’t think that one was about—

Ms O’Loughlin: The only thing I would add to that is that obviously the ABC needs to comply with its own code of practice around things like factual accuracy.

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. And we’ve seen how that goes. This is my final question. It is about the digital restack. I looked through your annual work program report and found this comment regarding the digital television channel restack. I quote:

Exploring possible parameters and solutions for channel planning relevant to possible new shared multiplex arrangements. This work will provide evidence to inform any future restack—

The restack was to be a closing up of digital TV channels. This sounds like you have something else in mind for the sixth channel, the gap between each station. What is the plan for the restack now?

Ms O’Loughlin: The Minister for Communications gave a speech a couple of weeks ago at our RadComms conference. They were talking about a program of work that needed to be done around the future of television. Her emphasis in that was that free-to-air television is incredibly important in Australia because it reaches 99 per cent of the population. It is free to air. How is that going to evolve over the next 10 years? Will it be terrestrially driven or will some of it go online? The minister was talking about a managed and staged process of thinking about the future of broadcasting, including the broadcasters, ourselves, the department and the audiences for those programs. It is looking at how that future state of broadcasting can be managed. A small part of that is what happens to the spectrum that may be freed up over that process. Part of our job is what that might be and when that might occur. The annual report says that requires channel planning. A whole lot of spectrum planning would have to be done to facilitate any movement of the broadcasters and the freeing up of that spectrum over time.

Senator ROBERTS: What does that mean in English, so that people can understand? What is the reality? You have said managed and staged, which indicates to me that it is more than just a premonition of an idea that something might happen. Something is happening.

Ms O’Loughlin: The minister’s announcement was about some things that have happened recently. For example, in Mildura, the Channel 10 services were turned off because the local providers who provided that service didn’t think it was financially feasible to continue it. It has an impact on consumers. WIN has made some changes to its arrangements in other parts of the country, where it is sharing its own infrastructure. That has an implication. That has actually not affected those audiences very well. I think what the minister is saying is that if there is going to be an end state where broadcasting wants to go, we need to think about all the steps that have to take place for that to get there effectively. That is what is alluded to. There is what is called a future broadcasting working group, which the minister has asked to be reinvigorated, to start thinking about these issues for the next 10 or 15 years, not the next two or three.

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Public Hearing: Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2024

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Free TV Australia

Reset Tech Australia

Institute of Public Affairs

Digital Rights Watch

Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance

Program: 11 October 2024

111024 ProgramDownload

Submissions

.Free TVDownload
Reset Tech AustraliaDownload
44.1. Institute of Public Affairs attachmentDownload
35. Digital Rights WatchDownload
78. Media Entertainment & Arts AllianceDownload
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One Nation Stands Firm Against Censorship

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After saying they’ll oppose the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, Liberals and Nationals say they’ll just introduce their own version!

One Nation will not support any form of a Censorship Bill.  The best defence of truth is open debate.

Transcript

Chris Smith: There are some good signs among cross-benchers, Malcolm, that Labor’s misinformation and disinformation bill will struggle. That’s a sign of good news. 

Senator ROBERTS: It’s a very good sign of good news. We put a motion out, a matter of urgency last Monday of the sitting in the Senate and there were quite a few signals coming across to us that people wouldn’t support it. So that’s why we did that matter of urgency and forced a vote on it. But just remember, it’s not Labor’s misinformation-disinformation bill. The Morrison Liberal National’s with Morrison/Littleproud in charge introduced it into the parliament. Labor brought it back and he’s now putting it into the voting regime process. And now the Liberals are saying they will come up with their own before the next election. The Liberals just don’t get it. No one wants this bloody censorship bill. 

And One Nation makes a promise, it will never introduce such a bill. The best, best defense of truth is to let debate happen. And then we’ve got the largest perpetrators of misinformation and disinformation is the government and this Albanese government takes the cake. It’s all about control and censorship and they haven’t got the guts to do it themselves. They’re trying to intimidate the search engines and platforms into doing it for them and putting them in a position where, as someone said recently, they’ll be fined if they if they don’t exercise enough control, enough censorship, but they will not be fined if they exercise excessive censorship. This is just about getting government control over the over the debate in this country and suppressing free speech. That’s all it is. And One Nation will never, ever introduce such a bill.  

Chris Smith: I couldn’t agree more. As a matter of fact, if an opposition or a government wants to do anything about what we say freely, I think they should wind back the restrictions that exist right now, because the eSafety Czar is out of control.

Senator ROBERTS: I agree with you. And this this compounds the problem. As I said, the best defense of truth is to let open free debate continue. That’s the best way of finding out the truth. And you can never take responsibility for someone’s opinions. That’s their responsibility. They formed it. This will just make more victims in society and suppress free speech. It’s just a road to tyranny. That’s all it is.  

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One Nation Defends Free Speech

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In the past three weeks, the Prime Minister has been subject to five community notes on X (formerly known as Twitter). Five times, Prime Minister Albanese has been called out by the X community for spreading misinformation. This is made possible by Elon Musk’s Community Notes system, which allows the public to moderate each other and agree collectively on what is true and what is not. It’s clear to see why disgruntled former Twitter executive and our eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, detests X and Elon Musk so much. Using “safety” as a pretext to censor the truth is now being threatened.

One Nation stands firm in opposing the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, now known as the MAD Bill, and supports free speech for all Australians, provided it does not call for violence.

Transcript

In the last three weeks the Prime Minister has been subjected to five community notes on X, formerly Twitter. The X community has called out Prime Minister Albanese five times for spreading misinformation. We know this because Elon Musk’s system of community notes allows the public to moderate each other and agree among them what’s true and what’s not. I can see why disgruntled former Twitter executive and e-safety commissar Julie Inman Grant detests X and detests Elon Musk. As the infamous Hillary Clinton admitted last week in a CNN interview, social media platforms like X need to censor content because, if they don’t, ‘we lost total control’—her words. Maintaining total control is the purpose of the United Nations pact for the future, which is really a pact for their future, not ours. Hillary Clinton’s unusual honesty exposed the real motivation for introducing the m-a-d—mad—bill: misinformation and disinformation. 

Control means censoring the truth. There’s no better evidence of this than the treatment dealt to two of the world’s most respected medical professionals. I proudly welcome in the gallery one of the UK’s leading oncologists, Professor Angus Dalgleish, from St. George’s, University of London, and Dr Paul Marik, a leading American physician persecuted for challenging the pharmaceutical corporate narrative. Both these amazing medical professionals are on an Australian speaking tour with the Australian Medical Professionals’ Society, a union One Nation proudly and strongly supports. Its highly qualified and respected health professionals, like our guests in the gallery, have suffered the consequences of the war on truth that drives the Liberal-Labor uniparty’s misinformation and disinformation bill, appropriately abbreviated to m-a-d—mad. I urge everyone to come along and listen to the real COVID story, not the government’s lie, while we still can and to join us in our ongoing, four-year campaign to protect free speech. 

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Break Down of the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill

I break down the contents of the government’s proposed Misinformation and Disinformation (MAD) Bill and see it for exactly what it is – a censorship regime that would make George Orwell blush.

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Senate Urged to Uphold Free Speech and Peaceful Assembly

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

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

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

Transcript

I move: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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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Trump Assassination Attempt Used to Exploit Misinformation and Disinformation Bill

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[17/07/24] I joined Alexandra Marshall on ADH TV to chat about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and how PM Albanese has exploited this situation to promote his Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023, which is completely inappropriate.

A true leader would use this opportunity to bring people together, denounce the violence, and call for calm and unity. I’m relieved though that Donald Trump emerged with only a minor injury.

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