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University Reforms Package

Transcript

[Deputy President]

Thank you, Sen. Rice. Sen. Roberts?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you, Madam Deputy President. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I support the government’s changes to university funding. Firstly, though we agree with the government’s general thrust. Secondly, we want to go further to ensure responsibility among students and to reduce taxpayer load. Thirdly, we want to restore accountability and academic freedom in universities to make our universities better so that our future students will emerge better.

So let’s get to the government’s thrust. It reduces fees for courses that meet needs for future jobs and more practical courses like engineering, nursing, and teaching. We support that. It will make these courses more affordable. It raises fees through humanities courses, and I’ll explain later why that is so effective, because humanities people, well, graduates, are not getting jobs right now.

The government’s thrust focuses taxpayer funds on needed skills, and that is good for our country. So the second point I wanted to discuss was that we need to go further to ensure responsibility among students and to reduce taxpayer load. The current HECS debt is $65 billion and growing rapidly. That’s the outstanding HECS debt. With Australia’s national debt now pushing one trillion dollars, the repaid HECS money could be used productively.

We believe that we need to reinstate the 10% discount for fees paid up front. Now, people who pay their fees up front, people who, sorry, people who can afford university do not need the concessional interest rate. And as things start, do not need to repay debt, do not start repaying debt until earning an annual income of $46,620.

Financially, it is better value for the government and for taxpayers, and we do represent taxpayers, to have a loan paid up front at a discount than paid out over 10-plus years. It takes on average about 10 years for a student to repay a HECS debt. And we need to reduce the threshold for repaying HECS debt based on data and fairness to students and fairness to taxpayers. Remember them?

The people who are paying our salaries? The people who run this country? We need to limit and student entitlement to seven years full time equivalent and stop people on fee free university education with little or no chance of a job. Students cannot continue to live off the taxpayer forever.

We’ve got to get job ready graduates. We have a duty to protect taxpayers and to protect our nation, our community, as well as to protect students. The third area, restoring accountability and academic freedom in universities. Universities monitor student academic progress and students who repeatedly fail, for example, if they do not pass more than half of their subjects, should stop getting FEE-HELP.

This removes a fee free career for university students who keep failing. We also need students to be aware of what they’re getting from taxpayers’ money, and we need job ready graduates. I can give you some examples of universities suppressing free speech. Dr. Peter Ridd was sacked from his position at James Cook University for being critical of poor quality reef science.

He was fulfilling his duties as a scientist to challenge his colleagues and he was sacked. And the recent Senate inquiry, Vit in Queensland, vindicated him when academics admitted facts and data that revealed the Queensland state Labour government does not have the facts to support its recent reef regulations.

Peter Ridd was correct. Professor Bob Carter, the late professor Bob Carter, well known globally as a fine scientist, paleoclimatologist. He was prevented and hindered from speaking by James Cook University. And now just here recently at the ANU, Dr. Howard Brady, a noted geologist and who understands climate extremely well was invited by the staff at the University of Queensland at University ANU to make a presentation on the impacts of the study of climate science and why it’s gone wrong.

ANU prohibited him after the notice was sent out, ANU prohibited him from delivering that seminar. But here’s a welcome sign from ANU, professors and staff at ANU were so disgusted with the ANU’s response that they joined together and Dr. Brady will now be conducting his seminar later this month. And they’ve given him immense publicity internationally.

He’s received support from the University of Sydney’s staff, from the ANU stuff, from other universities within Australia and from overseas universities including Princeton.

The former high court Chief Justice, Robert French, recommended in his government commissioned review of free speech at Australian universities that academic freedoms would be protected so data and research can be put forward. That’s a scientist’s responsibility.

Justice French recommended that as part of academic freedom, academics should be allowed to, quote, to make lawful public comment on any issue in their personal capacities. Universities allow, indeed encourage, far left Marxists, anarchists, socialists, and communists to speak freely on university campuses.

Yet do nothing to stop these same fascists shutting down lecturers with whom these fascists disagree. In not protecting free speech of all voices, universities are complicit in the suppression of speech. Now, I went to the University of Queensland, where I got a master’s in business administration.

And I’m very proud to say that the Dean of that university just recently a few years ago welcomed students with a note saying, there are no free spaces, no free, no safe spaces at the University of Chicago. Basically he was saying, suck it up, discuss and debate freely. That’s what universities were about.

That’s what they need to get back to being about. And recently I was listening with a university vice chancellor, a regional university vice chancellor, who subtly admitted to me that the Capitol City unis have fouled their nests because of their craving for political correctness and their fear of upsetting people.

The media reported Professor Ridd as saying he supported, quote, any moves to improve the disastrous situation at the moment where academic freedom of speech effectively does not exist. At present, universities are applying their vague codes of conduct on top of academic freedom of speech.

And this means academics have to be respectful and collegiate. Any robust debate, as he points out, is likely to seem disrespectful to somebody. So that is a way of shutting down debate. That’s how universities that fear academic freedom or are too gutless to ensure freedom suppress academic freedom and free speech.

And we need practical graduates. And my three years underground as a coalface miner after graduate was priceless for me. So I left university and then I realised I’d better go and learn something. So I worked underground as at the coalface for three to four years. We also only need to remember that In addition to practical experience, universities are not for everyone and should not be for everyone.

We need to rekindle trades, rekindle the TAFE, rekindle apprenticeships, and Sen. Hanson has been leading the way in Australia in rekindling apprenticeships and the government has taken her policy two years ago and implemented it. We need to also stop political correctness at TAFE and get it back on track.

So we’re very pleased then to see that the government is undertaking a major shakeup of university fees in a bid to steer students towards fields where there are skill shortages and jobs for the future. And it’s better for students after graduation. University graduates have been slamming universities for meaningless degrees that have left students with dismal career prospects and crippling debt.

While a university degree leads some students to a bright future, for others, it currently leaves them with nothing but debt and disappointment. Now, I wanna take a break here because I wanna answer some comments from Sen. Murray Watt. His comments disrespect the university students and universities.

And his fabrications require me to respond. He said that since they have entered parliament centre the Hanson and one and Sen. Roberts line up with the LNP to pass legislation. Well, let’s see who lines up with the LNP. Let’s indeed have a good look at this. On climate policies, Liberal and Labour are similar.

They believe the nonsense. On energy policies, Liberal and Labour both believe in our renewable energy target. Both believe in stealing farmers’ property rights, as they have both done. Liberal and Labor both believe in gold plating the networks. Liberal and Labor both believe in a national electricity market that has turned into a national electricity racket.

One Nation opposes all of those. On water, the Turnbull-Howard 2007 Water Act is supported by Labour. Now some Liberals are waking up and some Nats are waking up. One Nation opposes the 2007 water act. And the destruction it’s caused across the Murray-Darling basin.

Electricity price, as I’ve just said, Labour and Liberal support the renewable energy target, they support subsidies to the intermittent unreliable energy sources of wind and solar, they support privatisation, They support the national electricity market which has been, which is a national electricity racket.

Both are anti-coal in their actions. The only difference between the Liberal and Labour is that liberals are positive in their talk, but not their actions. Labour and Liberal have been killing our fishing industry. Foreign ownership, Liberal and Labour have sold out Port of Darwin and other companies and water rights in our country.

Record debt, state and federal, Labour and Liberal join. Infrastructure, a lack of infrastructure and neglect. Taxes, foreign multinationals, tax-free, Labour and Liberal have enabled that over the last six decades. I could go on, but you can get the point that Liberal and Labour are actually closer than One Nation and Labour One Nation and the LNP.

The second point Sen. Watt talked about was One Nation candidates out there, masquerading, these are his words, as the people who are standing up for battlers in our community. Well let’s go through some of our candidates. Michael Blaxland at Gimpy. Sharon Lohse at Maryborough.

Sharon Bell, now here’s a good example, Sharon Bell, a real fighter, she’s out working class girl who’s come up and is now working in the construction industry. She is fighting the member for Bundamba who was parachuted in from a job from a union position in Melbourne, parachuted into Queensland outside the Bundamba electorate.

And then two months before the recent election, served by election, he moved into Bundamba, and he’s doing nothing. And what did the Labour Party do? They got rid of Joanne Miller, a first class true Labour member of parliament, and replaced her with this blow-in parachuted in from Melbourne.

Then I could talk about Deb Lawson, Christine Keys, who wants to restore solid education, Wade Rothery, a coal miner in Keppel, Torin O’Brien, Steve Andrew, an electrician who has got such a good rapport with the people of Mirani in his electorate, because he is a member of parliament.

These are the types of people that One Nation is very, very proud to say stand with us. And they are fed up with the tired old parties, both Liberal and Labour. And so as an increasing number of voters. And that’s why these candidates are standing up, because they’re sick and tired of Liberal Nationals and sick and tired of Labour.

They have been abandoned by both the tired old parties. Labour and the LNP actually make battlers. Sen. White talked about us as standing up for the battlers, that’s correct. And the reason we have to do that is because the Labour Party is creating battlers. It’s taking the middle class and making them poor.

It’s taking the poor and making life tougher for the poor. Look at your energy policies, look at your agriculture policies. They are coming to One Nation because people need someone in this parliament who stands up for them and someone in state parliament who stands up for them.

And Sen. Hanson, and this is something Murray Watt, Sen. Watt has said, ‘Sen. Hanson and her party come down to Canberra. they vote with the Liberal and National parties.’ It’s not us that have the policies that are the same. It’s not us, it’s you guys. Let’s then have a look at, let’s then have a look at what Sen. Watt said.

We’ve seen it, he raised pensions. Sen. Hanson and I have advocated for an increase in pensions. We’re advocated and advocating and got solid policies for decreasing cost of living. That’s more important because to a pensioner, the cost of energy is a highly regressive tax and burden.

Then Sen. Watt raised apprenticeships. Sen. Hanson introduced the apprenticeship scheme into this parliament and the government has taken it.

[Deputy President]

Sen. Roberts?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yes?

[Deputy President]

I have been listening carefully and you certainly started off talking about the higher ed bill. And I think I’ve given you enough time to respond to other senators in this place. But I do remind you the bill before us is the higher education bill.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you, Madam Deputy President, I’m simply responding clearly to everything that Sen. Watt has said-

[Deputy President]

Sen. Roberts?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Because his comments misrepresented the facts.

[Deputy President]

Sen. Roberts, the bill before us is the higher education bill. That’s the bill you need to be responding to. There are other opportunities to respond to other senators. Thank you.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Certainly, well, in response, Madam Deputy President, I wanna comment that this bill, with One Nation’s amendments that the government has agreed to, protects students, protects taxpayers, protects universities, protects Australians, and protects Australia. Because education is vital to the future of our country.

Education is vital as a source of foreign income. And while Labour is off with the rainbow coloured unicorns on this and many other topics, we are very, very proud to speak for the battlers and to support the battlers.

[Deputy President]

Order, order.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Students must be equipped educationally for a career in and beyond the COVID-19 economy with its focus on digital technologies, robotics, automation, science, and health services, real jobs.

[Deputy President]

Thank you, Senator Roberts, your time-

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Interview: 2SM with Marcus Paul

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This morning I was interviewed by Marcus Paul on 2SM and discussed:

  • The US BLM movement and their openly Marxist agenda.
  • The war on free speech.
  • Why isn’t our economy self sufficient?
  • What will it take to restore our sovereignty?

Transcript

[Marcus]

Look, as you know this programme is a PC and snowflake free zone. If you don’t believe in free speech well, feel free to tune out now. Senator Malcolm Roberts joins me on the programme. Good morning, Malcolm how are you?

[Malcolm]

I’m well thanks Marcus, how are you?

[Marcus]

I’m okay. Look I know that you’ve been a little unwell of late and I’m glad that we could finally get you on to have a chat, ’cause there’s a lotta things to mull over. You’re well though?

[Malcolm]

Yes, I’m very well thank you, very, very well.

[Marcus]

Good, okay. There is a reason why the U.S. Black Lives Matter use the clenched fist. Their leaders openly admit they are Marxists, and they promote anti-capitalism, dismantling the nuclear family, defunding police. I mean this is almost like communism, hiding in plain sight, is it not?

[Malcolm]

What do you mean almost like? It is, it is Marcus. And you know they don’t go off data, they go off ideology. Because they run off the same thing that people are doing here in Australia. What they do is they fabricate a problem. It contradicts the data, which I’m happy to go into if we have the time.

They fabricate a problem, then they concoct a victim, and then they conjure an oppressor, and then they pretend a solution. And then what they do is they disarm minds, by invoking PC, so people are afraid to speak up. And they are afraid to think.

And so many, many people disagree with what these Marxist mobs are doing in America. Trump has rightly called them out as Marxist, and wanting to destroy the country. What they then do is they anoint and align other beneficiaries to get them onboard and then they kill debate, stop discussion, it’s intimidation, and then what they do is they use gutless politicians to fabricate systems that put in place their policies.

And their policies are Marxist, they’re communist policies. And all they’re interested in Marcus is control. They’re interested in control and nothing else.

[Marcus]

And they do it as we know, through things like riots, protests, acts of vandalism, not only in the United States, but I mean gosh, this thing has been infected, well it’s infected Australia sadly. And we know that they’ve targeted a number of our cultural assets, including statues of Captain James Cook and the like.

I mean yet many Australians still don’t realise that behind this tricky name BLM it’s ridiculous. It’s almost like they’re tryin’ to pull the wool over our eyes. I’m lucky, and we are lucky in our community that we have people like yourself and Pauline Hanson and others, that notice that this is going on and call it out for what it is.

[Malcolm]

Well you’re absolutely correct. And I wanna compliment you Marcus because I saw a comment on your Facebook page, a quote attributed to you and you said, “I don’t want to tell you what to think, I just want to help you think.” So let’s get to the data. I’ve a strong belief in data, because the facts are the facts.

So, I moved a motion in the Senate, about the Institute of Criminology, the Australian Institute of Criminology, the 2020 report into deaths in custody in Australia. Notice I said deaths in custody. I didn’t say black, white, indigenous, non-indigenous. Deaths in custody. Here are the facts.

The 2017, ’18 rate of death in prison custody for indigenous people was 0.14 per 100 prisoners. And for non-indigenous persons was 0.18 per 100, slightly higher. Now because of the small sample size, you know we don’t have millions of deaths in custody, you can’t say that there’s a difference there.

But you certainly can say that the non-indigenous is not lower than the indigenous. The indigenous are not higher. So that’s very, very clear.

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Malcolm]

There’s no difference. You want me to give you some more figures?

[Marcus]

Well, just before you do, it’s important to outline these figures, because you can’t argue with facts. I mean you could try as hard as you can, but at the end of day, you won’t win an argument unless you produce relevant facts like you’ve just done, like Jacinta Price has done on this programme before, and of course like Pauline Hanson’s done.

Look, I think what happens, and you’re right, you mentioned gutless politicians. Strong words, but it cuts to the core of really what the problem is.

Why is it that here in this country, we only have people like yourself, or Pauline, or Jacinta Price, a few other commentators, who are happy to call it out for what it is and happy to speak their mind, and happy to stand up for free speech, and yet I guess some of the mainstream media, we saw what happened with Pauline last week on Nine Network. Maybe some of what she said was unpalatable Malcolm, but it was the truth.

[Malcolm]

Correct.

[Marcus]

A lotta the people that were holed up in these apartment complexes don’t speak English. Some of them do have drug addictions. And some of them haven’t been practising social distancing and you can’t argue with the facts.

That’s why Daniel Andrews, he said the same thing, the health officer down there in Victoria, said virtually the same thing, But when somebody like a Pauline Hanson, or yourself, or Jacinta Price says it, you’re dragged over the coals for it. What happened to free speech Malcolm?

[Malcolm]

Well it’s really simple, when people try to control, which is what the media does, and the media are doing when they’re telling lies, or when they’re misrepresenting things, always beneath control Marcus, there is fear. They’re afraid of facts.

Now, you know those facts I just quoted to you, I tried to move a motion in the Senate, just simply to announce those facts. And the facts came from a 2020 Australian Institute of Criminology report into deaths in custody. The publisher of that report is the Australian government.

Now this’ll shock you. And probably won’t shock, maybe not shock you because you’re aware of what the real problem is, gutless politicians. But I was stopped from that motion. I was not allowed to put forward the motion that would simply table the data, that’s all it did.

All I wanted to do, I didn’t wanna say who was right or wrong, I just wanted to put the data out. The government and the Labour Party colluded to stop me putting out the data. And that’s the problem, we’ve got gutless politicians who are afraid of data, and what they do is they use their own emotions, their own biases to sway people.

And people are sick of this because, I’ll make it very clear, I represent the people of Queensland and Australia. Every speech in the Senate I start with the words, “I am a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia.” I listen, I speak up, I push, and I pursue to support the people.

I serve the people. That’s what’s wrong in this country. We have politicians thinking the people serves the government, the people serve the politicians. That is complete rubbish. And that is the fundamental error in this country now.

We have got government controlling things instead of government serving things. Governments shouldn’t be fixing the economy. Governments should create an environment in which small businesses, large businesses, employees, individuals, can contribute.

That’s how we were in the 1900s, right through the 1920s when Australia had the number one, highest position for gross domestic product per person. Highest per capita income in the world. And we have slowly decreased that until we’ve become a shell of ourselves early this year.

And then we slammed that in the COVID response. We need to get back, not just to where we were in February, we need to get back to where we were in 1920s, in terms of being the leaders in the world for per capita income. Australians are capable of doing that.

All we need to do is fix the damn systems that the governments have put in place over the last 80 years.

[Marcus]

Why do the governments in this country kow tow to Beijing, China? And why is it that our economy isn’t set up to be more self-sufficient Malcolm?

[Malcolm]

Well it’s really simple, We have number of things, I haven’t got time to go into all one at the moment, but I’m happy to do that one day in the future if you want. But we had a number of changes that have been put in place, under the global approach the elites are pushing, since the formation of the UN.

I can rattle them off, there are many. If you just look at some of them. The Lima Declaration in 1975, that was signed by Garth Whitman’s Labour government. The following year his arch enemy Malcolm Fraser, the Liberal prime minister, ratified the damn thing. That destroyed our manufacturing markets.

In 1992, we had the UN’s Rio Declaration, for 21st global governments. It was masqueraded supposedly under UNIDO, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation. Sorry that was Lima Declaration.

But the Rio Declaration put in place an agenda to push climate change, which will get control, which is getting control of our energy which is fundamental, our water, which is fundamental, our property rights, which is fundamental. And that was signed by Paul Keating’s Labour government.

In 1996, John Howard’s government said, we won’t ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but we will comply with it. And that stole our productive capacity, in that it took our property rights off our farmers. That’s what happened, and now we’ve got basically nationalised farming that is controlled by regulations over their imports, and sometimes the way they do their very farming.

We have nationalised farming now. Then we have the Paris Agreement in 2015. And a lot of international trade agreements and other agreements that have destroyed our productive capacity, destroyed our governments, destroyed our sovereignty.

We don’t control our country any more, foreigners do. They control some aspects of our immigration. This is why Liberal and Labour are pushing policies that are helping foreigners, and foreign entities, unelected bureaucrats, and we are opposing them. We need to get our country’s control back in the hands of Australians.

[Marcus]

What will it take? The passion that you’ve garnered, I can hear it quite clearly, you and Pauline and others, who fight for the sovereignty of Australia. How do we generate more passion within the community? I know that obviously the One Nation Party, yourself and others, do have a strong following.

But how do we make this go? I mean it should be mainstream. This thought pattern that you’ve so eloquently described for us the last couple of minutes, this thought pattern should be prevalent. It should be first of mind, top of mind for all Australians.

How do we overcome the barriers, the obstacles, to get this front of mind for hard-working Australians, who basically just want their country back, wanna be able to go to work, want to see the hard work they’re doing pay dividends, be able to afford to buy their own property, to pay fair prices for things like fuel and energy costs, electricity, and utilities, and also, also more importantly, to be able to look back on the history of our country with pride and feel respect for our flag without being made so bloody guilty, or to feel so bloody guilty, the fact that we may be white and we may be Australian for God’s sake?

[Malcolm]

Well I love your passion too. Have a look at these basic facts. Pauline Hanson came outta the Liberal Party. And Mark Latham came outta the Labour Party. Half of our voters are former disgruntled Labour voters. Half of our voters are former disgruntled LNP voters.

And our votes are going up, every election we have a higher vote for One Nation. And what we need to do is to keep speaking the facts Marcus, keep using the data. Put more pressure on the Liberal, Labour duopoly, because fundamentally the bureaucrats run this country and they’re pushing policies that unelected bureaucrats from the UN pushed.

Now Scott Morrison came out and said something in October last year, October the 3rd in Sydney at the Lowy Institute, he said, he will have a review into the unaccountable, internationalist bureaucrats. And we all knew that he was talking about the UN.

But I also knew that he would not do anything about it. He was saying those words because he knew that we are resonating with the people over the UN destruction of this country. We also know that I came out first and called the Coronavirus what it really is.

The Chinese Communist Party UN virus. The UN’s World Health Organisation colluded with the Chinese Communist Party to suppress the news of this virus, which enabled it to get a gallop around the world.

Now Scott Morrison, after I did that, and after we continued to bash Chinese Communist Party, Scott Morrison came out and talked about the communist party and started to hold them accountable with words.

But, he turned around and said we need to give the World Health Organisation, a UN body, more power, the power of weapons inspectors. They say one thing and they do another. That’s why he’s got the tag now Scotty from Marketing.

We’ve got to get away from people who are marketing people, they build facades and then sell them and get back to the basics of serving the country. And that means we need to speak about the facts and use the data.

[Marcus]

And less spin. Malcolm it’s been great talking to you this morning. Let’s do this more often please.

[Malcolm]

I’d love to mate, love to.

[Marcus]

Okay, we’ll talk soon, thank you.

[Malcolm]

Thanks Marcus.

[Marcus]

There he is, Senator Malcolm Roberts. What do you make of it, give me a call after seven, “Marcus Paul In the Morning.”

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