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$1 Billion Exploitation of Workers Backed by Labor

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The CFMEU has stolen over a billion dollars in Australia’s largest wage theft case, exploiting the very workers it was meant to protect. CFMEU union bosses colluded in this theft, as confirmed by an independent report I commissioned called Coalminers’ Wage Theft. An analysis of five enterprise agreements in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley shows wage theft ranging from $21,000 to $41,000 per person, per year.  

The Independent Workers Union of Australia has lodged multiple complaints with the Fair Work Ombudsman, including one for $211,000 owed to a single worker. Despite the Mining and Energy Union splitting from the CFMEU, it has recently applied to negotiate a new enterprise agreement, but won’t seek back pay for miners, as they know this would expose them.  The Independent Workers Union now represents miners in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley, charging union dues less than half of the Mining and Energy Union because they don’t donate millions to the Labor Party. The same is true for other sectors, like teaching and nursing, where new unions have much lower dues. We must end monopoly unions and introduce competition, which will allow members to hold unions accountable. 

Labor Ministers, departments and agencies are colluding to enable wage theft, especially in the Hunter Valley electorate, where Labor MPs are complicit. Despite a Senate investigation being ordered months ago, nothing has happened — Labor is turning a blind eye, likely because they rely on millions in donations from the CFMEU. Minister Watt’s push for “no disallowance” is about maintaining control, with the party entangled in a power struggle with the CFMEU. 

The CFMEU, tied to criminal bikie gangs, shows no concern for its members’ health, wages, or retirement. Union bosses, sitting on agency boards meant to protect workers, are either stealing from members or allowing it to happen. The conflicts of interest, particularly with CFMEU members holding positions on superannuation boards, are enormous.  Labor won’t fix this, and their collusion with the CFMEU puts them above the law. 

Transcript

The CFMEU stole more than a billion dollars from members it was supposedly protecting in Australia’s largest ever case of wage theft. The key to this theft was CFMEU union bosses appointed as directors to oversight agencies supposedly protecting workers. They colluded and enabled that theft from their own members. This is verified. The figures are verified in an independent report that I commissioned called Coalminers’ Wage Theft, printed earlier in the year. 

We have seen an analysis of five enterprise agreements in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley with the wage theft varying from $41,000 per person, per year to $21,000 per person, per year. The Independent Workers Union of Australia, now getting members in the mining sector in the Hunter Valley and Central Queensland, has just lodged a number of complaints with the Fair Work Ombudsman. One of the complaints is for $211,000 in money owed due to wage theft for one person. 

The CFMEU drove that theft of wages, so what we can see is the former protector of miners has been their exploiter, with collusion of the regulator, the Fair Work Commission. It’s been verified independently because the Mining and Energy Union, which split off from the CFMEU—it couldn’t handle the CFMEU—and which looks after miners recently applied to the Fair Work Commission to negotiate a new enterprise agreement. The uptick in wages has been around $50,000. It’s been verified they’ve been underpaid. What has not happened is that same union, the Mining and Energy Union, which used to be part of the CFMEU, will not go back and seek back pay, because they know that will expose them. There is no back pay. They will let these miners lose $211,000. They will let these miners lose $41,000 per person, per year. 

So now we have the Independent Workers’ Union of Australia making inroads in the mining industry in the coalmines of Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley. Their union dues are less than half of the Mining and Energy Union. Why? That’s because they don’t pay millions of dollars in donations to the Labor Party. It is the same with the Queensland Teachers’ Union. The new Red Union’s dues are less than half of the Queensland Teachers Union. It is the same with the nursing union, where the dues of the new Red Union and the Nurses’ Professional Association of Queensland are less than half of the Queensland Nursing Union. What we need to do in the union side of things is end monopoly unions and make sure unions have competition. That will fix it. Members can scrutinise when there is competition. 

Let’s move to what I said earlier in my opening statement. The directors in the coalmining agencies that oversaw this theft from coalminers, the directors of Coal Mines Insurance, ignored the plight of miners. We even know of miners who failed to get their Coal Mines Insurance that they were entitled to, scrimping and saving and sleeping on their parents’ garage floor in the Hunter Valley. That’s what the CFMEU directors have done. They turned a blind eye to their duty to look after miners. 

Coal Mines Insurance is a statutory agency with the CFMEU providing half the directors. AUSCOAL Superannuation, another one supposed to look after super, has provided admin services to coal long service leave, another government entity. So AUSCOAL Superannuation, which has directors from the CFMEU, provided the administrative services for coal long service leave and that enabled the hiding of the wage theft, because the CFMEU directors were 50 per cent of Coal Mines Insurance, AUSCOAL Superannuation and Coal Services, which looks after basic things like health checks, medical checks. AUSCOAL, by the way, has been renamed Mine Wealth + Wellbeing—that’s a cute little phrase!—and now Mine Super. These directors have prevented many of the benefits that they should have been overseeing going to miners. They stole the rights and entitlements of their own members. 

By the way, the Labor Party under Julia Gillard changed the coal long service leave legislation in 2011 to enable the use of casuals, because casuals are not allowed in the black coalmining industry award. They wouldn’t have been able to get their super. So the Labor Party, to enable this scam, changed the coal long service leave legislation in 2011. The next thing: we can’t rely upon the normal back stop, which is the Labor ministers, departments and agencies. I’ve just explained how the agencies are colluding, the departments are colluding and the Labor ministers are colluding. This wage theft would not have occurred without the deliberate collusion of Labor Party MPs in the Hunter electorate, who just hid this atrocious theft. The Senate ordered an investigation a couple of months ago into this. Two ministers since then, Minister Burke and Minister Watt—they’ve done nothing. They had not even reported back to the Senate—they’ve done nothing. That’s the Labor Party. So much for looking after the workers! 

I wonder if it’s because the Labor Party relies on millions of dollars of donations from the CFMEU? Would that be the answer? Would it? 

Senator Hanson: Yes. 

The Labor Party is wedded to donations from the CFMEU, the crooked CFMEU. Minister Watt, in section 323B(2) of his legislation, to which we have an amendment, wants an absence of a disallowable regulation. He wants no disallowance, so that he can control the whole show. Then we see the Labor Party also being tainted by John Setka. In a report in the Australian Financial Review, on 12 April this year, David Marin-Guzman, a journalist with the Australian Financial Review, said that ‘the core issue here is that John Setka stood up and said he will take over the Labor Party and move members of the CFMEU into branches and then preselect various candidates, and also the Premier’. That’s what we see going on here—the Labor Party in a massive cover-up and massive wrestle with the CFMEU. By the way—I think Senator Hanson mentioned it—the size of the funds in question is just short, $1 billion short, of $100 billion in funds. That is twice the Australian defence budget. That’s more money than Belgium makes in a year. And we want to take it away from parliamentary scrutiny? Like hell. That’s why we need this reference to the committee. 

Then we see more tainting, with the CFMEU being connected with bikie gangs, criminal bikie gangs. Then we see Senator Hanson’s terms of reference. I must commend Senator Hanson for introducing this motion. The first term of reference that I want to highlight—I’ll read it for the reference committee: 

  • … the broader impact of public allegations of misconduct within the CFMEU on the governance and trust management practices of industry superannuation funds … 

That’s basic. These people have shown that they don’t care about their members—their members’ lives, their members’ health, their members’ workers compensation, their workers’ livelihoods, their workers’ wages or their workers’ retirement. They don’t care. They bypassed the retirement provisions. The next one I want to read out is term of reference (a): 

  • … the implications of CFMEU members holding board positions on these superannuation funds, and the potential conflicts of interest that may arise … 

The potential conflicts of interest are enormous. We can’t rely on the Labor Party to clean it up, nor on departments and agencies from the Labor government. We see them tightly knit together. The second of Senator Hanson’s six terms of reference is: 

the adequacy of the independent expert review mandated by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) in relation to trustees’ compliance with their duty to act in the best financial interests of beneficiaries of the funds; 

This is absolutely essential. The CFMEU union bosses who are directors of agencies—statutory bodies charged with the responsibility to protect members—are stealing from the members or enabling their agencies to steal from members. This lot are above the law. Senator Hanson read out the note from the person from Cross River Rail who is not a member of the CFMEU. They are ‘intimidated’, ‘frightened’ and ‘scared to work’—in our country, they are scared to work. We have now a proven record of the CFMEU stealing from members and workers. Wouldn’t it be going on in the $100 billion of super funds they manage? I support the referral of this matter to committee, to protect members so that they can retire with security and dignity. 

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Labor Government’s Vape Ban

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This is my response to the Government’s Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024, which aims to ban vaping in Australia.

As a result of the measures already taken by the Government to ban vaping, organised crime is now moving into illegal tobacco and vape markets with horrific consequences.

This is not about selling our children a bergamot herbal vape; rather, it’s so they can sell vapes laced with hard drugs to get our youth addicted and reclaim the market share that vaping has cost them.

I’ve always maintained that the safety of vapes depends on the quality of the device and the liquid it contains. A more effective regulatory approach would have been to support a future Made in Australia by allowing Australian companies to produce legal, quality-tested and regulated vapes. This should include measures to keep these products out of the hands of children and to impose the same usage restrictions as those applied to smoking.

Instead, the Government is doing the bidding of the pharmaceutical industry, which views vaping—and medical cannabis which vapes often hold—as a threat to their profits and power.

This Bill will backfire badly.

Transcript

I’m speaking to the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024. I note the government circulated 11 pages of amendments just an hour or so ago. The large number of amendments indicate the process of consultation was flawed, and concerns from senators have caused fundamental changes to this bill. Is it in, out, in or out? I hope the government learns a lesson from this and in future honours the spirit of genuine consultation. I hope it honours the committee process to produce a bill that doesn’t need last-minute, wholesale changes. 

I note the bill amends the poison schedule, to downgrade vapes from schedule 4 to schedule 3, and adds conditions to their use in that listing. When I tried to do exactly the same thing—to downgrade medical cannabis and add conditions to that listing—I was told, ‘That’s a very strange thing to do,’ and my bill was not supported, in part because of that. Now they’re doing the very same thing that they said was very strange. 

In Queensland, vaping products with or without nicotine are illegal unless on prescription. Vapes are subject to the same laws as cigarettes or tobacco products as to where they can be used and the circumstances in which they can be purchased. Queensland law right now prevents children under 16 accessing or using a vape. Personal health and child welfare are rightly the responsibility of the states. Yet, once again, this government seeks to increase its powers in areas where it has no Constitutional authority. 

This bill amends the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 and the Customs Act 1901 to limit the importation, domestic manufacture, supply, commercial and private possession, and advertising of non-therapeutic and disposable vaping goods. Over-the-counter sales at chemists will be permitted, and access to children under 18 will be via the Special Access Scheme. There are substantial differences in how possession for personal use and commercial use are handled, yet the bill does not specify this threshold, which will come later in regulation that we haven’t seen. Too much of this bill will come later in regulations. The government is asking us to trust their judgement on a bill that is a litany of bad judgement. The bill defines a vape as ‘anything that’s held out to be a vape’. It explicitly excludes the need for a lab analysis to prove that the item is in fact a vape. Much of the bill goes into the licensing arrangements for importation, manufacture, distribution and possession. 

The bill was developed after supposed consultation, yet the government’s reaching out to selected friends in the health industry who share the same commercial interests as informed this bill is not consultation. It’s an echo chamber of self-interest, as the substantial last-minute amendments now prove. Everyday Australians were not permitted to make a confidential submission. Their submissions had to be public and accompanied by a declaration of interests—something very few witnesses felt comfortable doing. In particular, this prevented personal stories of how vaping helped defeat a smoking or other addiction and weighted submissions towards self-interested corporate health providers and charities. 

The evidentiary burden of proof in the offences under the bill are reversed. This removes the common law protection that fault must be found before an offence has been committed. While the government may find contesting charges in a court of law tiresome, 800 years of common law rights should not be so lightly dismissed and disposed of. There’s no justification for reversing the burden of proof. For this reason I have submitted an amendment to this bill in the committee stage to restore the presumption of innocence enjoyed by all Australians since our country’s settlement. At section 41P(1), ‘vaping substance’ is defined as ‘any liquid or other substance for use in, or with, a vaping device’. There’s no nuance in the penalties. Possessing a vaping substance carries the same penalty as possessing a vape itself. 

People who make cakes, fudges, chocolates, lollies and similar products use the same flavourings as can be used in vape manufacture. Those flavourings shouldn’t be used in vapes. They may be considered safe for stomachs, but not for lungs. Yet they are used in illegal vaping solutions, and I’ve received complaints from bakers that, for this reason, Border Force are seizing shipments of flavourings. Under this legislation, a baker or confectionary manufacturer importing a food flavouring that can be used in vaping must first have it approved for use, despite its being in use for generations, and then obtain a licence to import or possess commercial quantities—of cake flavouring! The importer and probably their largest customers will need to keep records of their use of these potentially illicit food flavourings to ensure that organised crime is not supplied out the back door, with penalties of up to $3.8 million and/or imprisonment for seven years. This is serious business. 

I appreciate that this is not the intention of the bill. Yet it is the wording of the bill. I point out that the bill and the explanatory memorandum provide no guidance as to which goods should be permitted and which should not. The minister has complete power to make this decision. So far job losses from vaping prohibition are around 2,000, with 500 vaping stores already closed. The trade in vaping has now moved into the hands of organised crime, with a gang war breaking out in our capital cities to control the illicit vaping trade, as well as the illicit tobacco trade now that tobacco has been taxed to the point of idiocy. The bombings, ramraids, murders and violence so far in this underworld war are on the government, for breaking the government’s social licence to act fairly, honestly and reasonably towards the public. The best interest of the public has been replaced with the best interest of crony capitalist stakeholders. 

The last-minute deal with the Greens to add over-the-counter sales at chemists may serve to head off that outcome. Time will tell. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme 2022 post-market review of medicines for smoking cessation found that 550,000 prescriptions were written for smoking cessation products in 2022. And get a load of this: these included varenicline, from Pfizer, costing $194 a prescription, which in the various formulations was responsible for 2,042 Australian adverse event notifications, including 55 deaths. And there is bupropion, from Aspen pharmaceuticals, which has had 2,100 adverse event notifications, including 22 deaths. The incompetence—does it stop? The post-market review says, ‘The mechanism by which bupropion enhances the ability of patients to abstain from smoking is unknown.’ So, we don’t know why it works. It’s killed 22 people—yet, prescribe it anyway! Just don’t let people buy their own vapes. We can’t have smokers quitting on their own, can we? 

The explanatory memorandum for this bill cites data from the Australian secondary school students’ use of tobacco and e-cigarettes report, which states that the proliferation of vaping across the community represents a severe public health concern. Vaping has been associated with severe public health effects relating to adolescent brain development, worsened pregnancy outcomes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and cancer. Vaping also carries other health effects such as burns, seizures and poisoning. 

Let me deal with the last one first. Yes, illicit vapes do cause internal burns and cause external burns if they explode. They cause poisoning and seizures as a reaction to that poisoning. A poorly made vape will burn and put toxic chemicals into the user’s lungs. Unregulated vaping in the USA caused 28 deaths coming from the use of ethylene glycol, a popular substance in commercial baking. It’s considered safe to be eaten but not safe to be vaporised into the lungs. This illegal use of a legal substance is what caused the popcorn lung syndrome. Illegal vapes can contain thousands of substances we call ‘compounds’ when in legal products and ‘chemicals’ when not in legal products. There are, however, 7,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke—more than are found in a quality vape, not an illicit vape. Telling one side of the story never communicates an honest picture of the truth. It condemns you. It used to be possible to import quality vapes from New Zealand. The Labor government stopped this. Now we have unsafe, illegal vapes. Who knows what’s in them? The TGA’s tweets against vaping were community noted with a comprehensive bibliography of good science that counters their scare stories. I will reproduce those community notes with citations on my website for anyone who wants to educate themselves on legal, safe vaping. 

Is vaping a gateway behaviour to smoking or drug-taking? Actually, no; it’s not. On page 8 of the secondary school report, smoking rates amongst schoolchildren have fallen over the last five years. ‘Ever smoked’ is down from 17.5 per cent to 13.5 per cent. ‘Smoked in the past week’ is down from 4.9 per cent to 2.1 per cent—more than halved. This was in a period when vapes were readily available. Vaping is clearly working to reduce smoking rates. This is what has the quit smoking industry worried. 

The UK government’s periodic data review titled Nicotine vaping in England: 2022 evidence update found that 98.3 per cent of children who had not tried smoking did not try vaping. This means any increase in vaping rates is either in replacement of smoking or in conjunction with smoking. This data is in contrast to the secondary schools report which found that past month vaping alone was at 15 per cent. Let’s have a look at that. The study covered vaping as a generic class, including e-cigarettes and herbal vapes, which are a large part of the vaping market. Despite the effort put into this study, no attempt was made to analyse the vapes consumers were actually using, and no firm conclusion can be drawn as to the presence of nicotine or any other regulated substance. 

The other study the government cited, Australian secondary school students’ use of alcohol and other substances, is alarming. It showed that 22 per cent of secondary school students had used alcohol in the past month, 10 per cent had used alcohol in the past week, and four per cent were engaging in risky drinking. Why aren’t we worried about that? What hypocrisy to introduce the world’s harshest legislation on vaping and ignore the elephant in the room: teenage drinking. Other drug use is down. Figures for ‘used in the last month’ show black market cannabis use down from 8.1 per cent to 6.6 per cent, hallucinogen use down from 1.1 per cent to 0.8 per cent, MDMA use down from 2.1 per cent to 1.1 per cent, pharmaceutical opioid use down from 1.9 per cent to 1.4 per cent, and cocaine use down from 0.8 per cent to 0.6 per cent. These small reductions are more significant than they appear. With 1.5 million Australians in the secondary school age group, every 0.1 per cent of reduction in hard drug consumption means 1,500 young Australians are not getting addicted to hard drugs. Across all types of hard drugs, the figure is over 50,000 lives saved from the misery of hard drug addiction. 

The scare campaign that vaping is a gateway to smoking and to hard drugs is fraudulent and designed to cover up the reverse, because the reverse is true. The committee did look at the use of vaping as a smoking cessation tool and concluded the evidence was inconclusive. So there is no reason to save vaping on that account. Poor judgement indeed. 

In their deliberations, the committee gave a thought of time to the quit smoking industry, which is funded at $500 million across forward estimates—half a billion dollars! This does not include the financial benefit of fundraising. That half a billion dollars is just the government’s contribution, yet quit smoking rates have been stagnating across the Western world. Firstly, that’s because the few people who still smoke have the money to afford smoking, want to smoke and will continue to smoke. Secondly, there are people for whom the current industry of gums, patches and financial blackmail is just not working. Some people have found that, where these other measures did not work, vaping did work. These are the people who will, no doubt, be forced back to smoking as a result of this bill. Imagine all those extra smokers to keep government revenue rolling in—all those extra smokers to keep the ‘quit smoking’ industry and taxpayer money for years to come. The financial impact statement for this bill doesn’t mention the increase in revenue from smokers being forced back to smoking. I imagine it will be substantial. 

Another failure in this bill is forfeiture. The easiest way to control vaping in schools is to allow teachers to seize vapes when they see them. That provision is not in this bill. Seizure is limited to commercial quantities seized with a court order or any good ‘seized by the control of customers at the border’. The one thing this bill could do to help control adolescent vaping is to allow teachers to seize vapes, and it doesn’t do that. I foreshadow my second reading amendment calling on the federal and state governments to sort out jurisdictional issues and give teachers the power to confiscate and destroy vapes brought into schools without a prescription. 

As a result of measures to ban vaping, organised crime is moving into the illegal tobacco and vape market with horrific consequences. This is not so they can sell our children a nice bergamot herbal vape; it’s so they can sell vapes laced with hard drugs to get our children hooked and to take back the market share vaping has cost them. I have said all along that vapes are as safe as the vape and the liquid inside. A better idea is to provide for a future made in Australia and allow Australian companies to produce legal, quality tested, regulated vapes and then ensure these are, firstly, kept out of the hands of children and, secondly, subject to the same restrictions on use as smoking. 

I look forward to the government monitoring the outcome of this hasty, incomplete bill closely and acting quickly if the outcome is not as expected. I think the outcome will bring horrific consequences, so please monitor this for the sake of our children. 

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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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The NDIS System is Broken

During recent Estimates, NDIS Integrity Chief, Mr. John Dardo, stated that 90% of plan managers showed significant signs of fraud, and 87% of service providers were unregistered and unmonitored, lacking adequate training for their responsibilities. Mr Dardo said, “we have no idea what they do when putting in their invoices.” This underscores the broken state of the NDIS, stemming from an ill-considered election promise devoid of data, reminiscent of the Gillard government’s hasty policy announcements without sufficient planning.

I proposed that an inquiry should evaluate the merits of returning responsibility for these services back to the states from which they originated. I pointed out that an unintended consequence has been a shortage of workers in the health and aged care sectors due to the excessively high pay NDIS service providers receive—often triple what they would earn in equivalent roles within these sectors.

Labor’s penchant for wasteful spending was exemplified by the squandering of $430 million on “the Voice,” funds that could have been more effectively allocated to NDIS services. 

Ultimately, taxpayers foot the bill for this waste. I advocate for a shift away from the costly and ineffective centralised service model towards competitive federalism.

Transcript

At the recent Senate estimates hearings, the NDIS integrity chief, Mr John Dardo, admirably confirmed that 90 per cent of plan managers displayed significant indicators of fraud. The level of fraud it is now so high that there are dozens of examples of organised crime groups abusing the systems, with millions of dollars being rorted. The system is so out of control that 87 per cent of service providers are unregistered and unmonitored. I quote words that appeared in an article about Mr Dardo: 

We have no idea of knowing what they do when they put in their invoices. 

It’s taxpayers’ money, spent on something they have no idea of. He had the courage to admit that. He said that existing cases exceeded Australia’s judicial capacity, without finding more. 

NDIS funds must not be used to pay for sex workers, expensive holidays or new cars that other taxpayers cannot afford. Projections are for a blowout of NDIS spending to $90 billion within a decade; it must be prevented. Using the system to peddle drugs is happening extensively. The name of this bill says what we already know about the NDIS. It’s broken and getting worse. It’s a licence for criminals and fraudsters to print money. It’s so far off track that the hope that this bill will get things back on track is a pigs-can-fly pipedream. 

Since the Gillard Labor government’s NDIS inception, there has never been a track. It was hatched with no meaningful metrics or plan. It was simply an election slogan to desperately buy votes in an election that Prime Minister Gillard lost. It was hatched as a headline grabber and a vote harvester. Typical of ‘uniparty’ initiatives—and of policies and legislation in our parliament over recent decades—it lacks the discipline of a system based on hard data and a focus on customer needs. It was done to look good, not to do good. A hastily cobbled together election policy, it had holes in it a mile wide that clearly enabled fraudulent claims to be made with little chance of being picked up and stopped. 

As servants to the people of Queensland and Australia, Senator Pauline Hanson and I have been calling out the NDIS fraud model since 2016. A significant effort is now needed to remove dodgy plan managers and service providers and to protect capable and honest plan managers and providers, using stricter laws to prevent participants from being defrauded, to prevent unscrupulous service providers from abusing vulnerable people and to save NDIS for genuinely disabled people with real needs. If we really care, we’ll clean up this mess. If we really care for disabled people, then we’ll have to get tough and sort out the criminals and the rorters. Providers, managers and recipients who commit fraud under this NDIS scheme must be heavily penalised and banned from any involvement in the scheme again. Wasted money through overspending has cost taxpayers well in excess of $8 billion already, and it’s essential to ensure that the current 150,000 unregistered care or service providers become registered and then are monitored for effective compliance. 

The Gillard Labor government introduced the NDIS. In their election loss, they handed the incoming coalition government an illegitimate, loose and sloppy mishmash of slogans and empty titles, lacking discipline, coherence, focus and care, and lacking solid systems. If they’d cared, Labor would have put together a proper system, but they didn’t. They should have put together a system to provide effective care and to protect taxpayers’ hard-earned money. The Liberal and National parties tried to refine the monster, and now the NDIS is back in Labor hands for more mismanagement. The NDIS must be reconsidered and protections against mismanagement and abuse strengthened.  

But who should be responsible for management? References to the non-constitutional National Cabinet are just a poor joke. National Cabinet is a mere grouping of state ministers responsible for similar portfolios, with no statutory authority or constitutional recognition of its existence or authority. It’s toothless—all mouth and no accountability. There’s no accountability in the current system. Right at the very top there’s the bogus unconstitutional National Cabinet. In such cabinets the state and federal government ministers just go, ‘They’re responsible.’ That means no-one is responsible. There is no accountability. It’s fundamentally structurally flawed. 

I suggest an inquiry to consider the alternative model: putting the responsibility for providing for the needs of people living with a disability back to the states and territories, where it was stolen from. Clearly, each state is responsible. The states would work to ensure that services were monitored, reasonable and meeting client needs under a model reflecting the proven benefits of competitive federalism, the foundation under which our Constitution and government is made. This will provide the level of accountability that has been missing to date. Centralising doesn’t work; decentralising closer to the surface does. One of the unintended consequences of Labor’s mismanagement of NDIS funds is the shortage of aged-care and healthcare workers who migrated to work in the lucrative NDIS model. This is because NDIS wages are so overinflated that a worker can receive three times the rate of pay for the same work done in other sectors. This is not just hurting the NDIS. This rorting, mismanagement and waste of taxpayer funds is hurting aged-care and healthcare workers. 

Labor wastes money in other areas, too. Look at the wasted $430 million plus that the doomed referendum cost Australians—just like the Gillard government’s NDIS facade, which was based on slogans and empty promises lacking substance. Just think how that $430 million could have been spent directly to improve the lives of remote Australians living in need or spent on improving NDIS services and security for people who are disabled in some way. Then there are the follies of government cutbacks, such as when psychological services were cut from 20 appointments to a relatively useless 10 appointments for needy participants. Just think about what could have been supported with the wasted money—health, education and child protection are a few. Frontline staff are in short supply now, partly because of poor pay, inadequate training and lack of support and partly because of NDIS rorts and sloppiness. Many NDIS carers and support staff have little or no training in basic personal caring skills. Many recipients have physical health needs and their carers should have sound skills in lifting, mobility, feeding, toileting and showering. Expecting NDIS carers to do these things with no, or inadequate, training is unfair and dangerous for the recipient and the carer. 

I have described a support system in crisis. This bill tinkers around the edges. As it is, this bill will not make significant positive differences, and who pays for all of this waste? Always, it’s we the people. Instead of tinkering around the edges of a broken system, do the work! I call on the government to do the work to define disabled people’s needs for service and taxpayers’ needs for protection. Instead of the ubiquitous fraud under low levels of accountability, consider returning to the original system of state governance. One Nation knows what history repeatedly proves: administration and services are of higher quality when services are closer to recipients. That enables understanding of needs, which is core to effective service. Replacing centralisation with competitive federalism provides a marketplace in governance. That’s what we all want. That’s what we need because improved governance provides accountability, effective service and better care. 

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Labor’s Policies Are Crushing Everyday Australians

The class struggle in Australia pits the political elites against everyday Australians. I highlighted that Labor’s approach to promoting wealth equality seems to ensure that most of us remain or become poor. The beneficiaries, however, are Labor leaders, union bosses, those profiting from the Aboriginal industry and COVID millionaires.

Labor’s policies are driving up inflation, increased cost of living, higher electricity prices, and destroying the economy, all at the expense of incomes, health and overall economic stability. While political elites enjoy substantial pay increases, everyday Australians are finding themselves falling behind.

The Labor government is failing comprehensively and the losers are young and old Australians and future generations.

Transcript

I wish to thank Senator Lambie for raising this important issue, yet I submit that Senator Lambie may have become a little confused as to what’s really going on in Australia. There are two classes in a class war now: the political class, from the ‘Uniparty’, versus the rest of us—everyday Australians. There are plenty of things going wrong in this Labor government’s attempts at governing this country. 

Labor believes in promoting wealth equality. So did Karl Marx, but the way the government go about it is as if they have been watching some old videos of the Marx brothers. It’s ludicrous. They’re destroying wealth. Labor’s version of promoting wealth equality is to ensure that, in the end, most Australians will be poor. The exceptions will be Labor Party bosses, union bosses and the political elite, including those making a living from the black and white Aboriginal industry and those who profited from the COVID-19 industry fraud. 

Labor are the big achievers in driving up inflation. It’s back to four per cent now; it’s got a four in front of it. As of today they are pushing policies that make even the cost of living out of reach for many Australians and ensuring that energy costs keep rising by trying to force us to rely on unreliable renewables, like wind and solar, that are sending the cost of electricity sky-rocketing. Several years ago, when we were all locked up by governments, pandering to drug companies during the COVID response, the Labor state governments combined with the federal government to print huge amounts of money, with no basis, in a feeble attempt to buy us out of strife that was completely government created. Now we’ve got the inflation. Look at the thousands who lost their jobs and became vaccine injured, and the billions of dollars that were lost to the Australian economy.  

In the meantime, the political elites have given themselves pay rises ahead of inflation rises, and now want to pay a new governor-general a pay rise of 43 per cent. How much of a pay rise do everyday Australians get? Stuff all, as our disposable incomes go backwards by five per cent under this government. Every major problem that Australians face today has stemmed from the decisions made in this building. Labor and the coalition—the ‘Uniparty’—still refuse to make decisions that are evidenced based. Instead, they govern by knee-jerk reaction or brain-snap, instant decision-making to look good, not to do good.  

How nice it would be if the government decided to actually govern for Australians based on data and facts, not spin and looking after mates. As I said, instead of trying to look good, let’s do good. As for affordable housing, how many houses have been built using the much-touted Housing Australia Future Fund? Wait for it: zero, zilch, nada, zip—much the same as the value of Labor promises. We are yet to see workable policy from either side of the ‘Uniparty’ to solve the housing crisis that plagues Australians, including those Australians earning what, historically, would have been considered reasonable incomes. They are housing problems caused by excess immigration, foreign ownership, inflation, COVID restrictions, government restrictions eroding the supply of houses and energy prices.  

The problems in education in Australia stem from the warped curriculums of schools, starting from teaching primary school students about the ins and outs of transexual practices, to slanted views of Australian history that try to rewrite the facts as recorded at the time of writing by explorers and truth-telling observers of the time. Many in our society now want to castrate children and warp children’s minds. Our high schools and universities perpetuate the mistruths and promote political views that our European immigrants immediately recognise as communist, totalitarian extremist views reminiscent of the histories of Nazi Germany and the dark days of Stalin.  

The class struggle that I see in Australia relates to the thuggish actions of some extremist union bosses such as the CFMEU and MEU in the Hunter Valley in Central Queensland, who refuse to actually represent their worker members and steal their wages in secret, dirty deals.  

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I agree this government is failing on multiple levels of policy creation and implementation because it does not make decisions based on data and facts. The losers are Australians, young and old, and our future generations. Today’s class struggle, as I started this speech saying, is between the political class—the ‘Uniparty’, pushing globalist agendas—and everyday Australians, who are the real Australians. 

/5 Comments/by

Labor’s Failure to Deport Dangerous Non-Citizens

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At the recent Senate Estimates, I asked Senator Watt why Labor is not deporting unsuitable and dangerous non-citizens from Australia. He explained that those who had been in detention could not be deported, citing two distinct groups affected. The first group consisted of approximately 150 detainees released into the community following a recent High Court decision, 29 of which have re-offended since release and include individuals convicted of serious crimes like murder, rape, and child sexual offences.

The second group comprises individuals whose visa cancellations were overturned by the AAT due to issues surrounding the Giles Directive 99 scandal. Despite subsequent visa cancellations for some in this group, there have been no deportations from either cohort since the mishandling by Labor.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again today. My questions are concise and straightforward, and I hope the answers will be similar. In the context of the mass release from immigration detention of
approximately 150 noncitizens awaiting deportation, how many of these detainees were in fact released as a result of the decision in NZYQ?

Mr M Thomas: All of the releases from detention that we’re talking about with NZYQ were as a result of the new High Court test set in that case around the real prospect of removal from Australia in the reasonably
foreseeable future.

Senator ROBERTS: Is it true that 37 of these men released into the community have a history of sexually offending, including against children?

Mr M Thomas: As of 30 April 2024, 39 of those individuals did have a previous conviction for sexually based offending.

Senator ROBERTS: Is it true that seven of these men were convicted of either murder or attempted murder?

Mr M Thomas: That’s correct.

Senator ROBERTS: Is it true that 72 of these men had convictions for assault or violent offending, armed robbery or kidnapping?

Mr M Thomas: As of 30 April that number is 73.

Senator ROBERTS: How many of these released detainees have now illegally reoffended?

Mr M Thomas: I believe the deputy commissioner answered that question earlier today.

Senator ROBERTS: What’s the number?

Ms Holben: 29.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. What offences have been included in the range of charges, including the senior citizen brutally bashed and allegations of a sexual predator being active here?

Mr Outram: We did provide that evidence before the lunch break.

Senator Watt: We went through that in some detail before the lunch break.

Senator ROBERTS: You are aware of Mr Emmanuel Saki, a Sudanese man who was recently released from immigration detention. He has just been charged with the murder of another man here on 12 May this year. That was two weeks ago. Are you aware of that?

Ms Foster: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: What’s now being done to deport these men?

Senator Watt: You’re mixing together a couple of different categories of people here.

Senator ROBERTS: We don’t want them here.

Senator Watt: I’d point out to start with that, for all 153, I think it is, people who were released from detention as a result of the High Court decision, the government actually had those people in detention for a
reason. We don’t want them roaming the streets either, but the High Court has made a decision and we are bound by the law.

Senator ROBERTS: Can you deport these men?

Senator Watt: For starters, as we have gone through before, there are a range of protections in place for the Australian community surrounding these people, such as electronic bracelets, curfews and a range of other
requirements that no government has ever imposed on a cohort released from detention. Obviously, in relation to the NZYQ cohort, the government is in the process of applying for preventative detention orders, which would effectively see those people returned to detention. Before the lunch break, there were some questions about where that was up to. That’s the NZYQ cohort.

Senator ROBERTS: But there has been nothing done to deport them?

Senator Watt: No. I would say that one of the reasons is that the reason for the High Court decision is that the High Court found that there was no reasonable prospect of those people being deported, because, for example, they were stateless. They don’t have citizenship in any country. It is not legally possible to deport them. Again, I’m paraphrasing. Officials can jump in if I explain some of this incorrectly. That’s the reason why those people haven’t been deported. That’s the reason why they are now not in detention but subject to all those other protections.

Senator ROBERTS: All of the 150-odd are stateless?

Senator Watt: I don’t think all of them are, but there were other reasons that it’s not possible to deport them. The officials might be able to explain it to you.

Mr M Thomas: It might be because we have protection obligations for them. It could be because they’re stateless. It might be because there are issues with identifying their identity or their country of origin. All of that
culminates in there being no real prospect of their removal from Australia in the foreseeable future.

Senator Watt: Senator Roberts, you asked about the Saki case. That is a separate situation. As far as I’m aware, Mr Saki is not one of the NZYQ cohort. He was someone who had come to Australia and was given a visa
at some point along the line. The government cancelled his visa because of character issues or criminal offences—whatever the reasons were. He appealed that decision to the AAT. The AAT overturned the decision to
cancel his visa. He was therefore—

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, is that because of any influence of Minister Giles’s directive 99?

Senator Watt: We’ve spent the best part of two days discussing this. What I have been saying is that the direction that Minister Giles gave did ask government decision-makers and the AAT to take into account the
length of time someone had been here in Australia—

Senator ROBERTS: And their ties.

Senator Watt: but not at the expense of the seriousness of their offending. But the AAT has done what it has done, and for that case and other cases they have overturned the government’s decision to cancel those visas,
despite the fact the government, in the AAT, argued for the cancellation of those visas. Now Mr Saki’s visa has been cancelled by the minister, and he is seeking urgent advice from the department about the range of other cases that have come to light in the last couple of days.

Chair: I don’t want to be too hardline about this, because I know that there are different sections of the department that deal with both of these issues, but, Senator Roberts, just for your information, we have moved on
to outcome 3. I know that there might be some crossover and that the department will seek to answer your questions when they can. We did have extensive questioning about outcome 2 from yesterday onwards. We’re now in outcome 3. If that needs to be clarified at the table for senators, then, if you can, assist Ms Foster when questions arise. I know dealing with the different cohorts is difficult, but we’ll do our best to try to keep on track in that way. Senator Roberts, have you got a question?

Senator ROBERTS: Was the Migration Amendment (Removal and Other Measures) Bill 2024 simply to ensure incarceration as an alternative to being detained for these men?

Senator Watt: Again, I might begin the answer and let officials explain further. The removals legislation, which the government has introduced and which has not yet been passed by the Senate and which the opposition has not agreed to pass yet, is for a different purpose. It was to deal with a different gap in our legal system. So maybe officials could pick up at that point with some more detail.

Ms Foster: There were two primary purposes to the removals bill. The first was to give us the power to compel people who had exhausted all legal avenues of remaining in Australia to cooperate with their removal so
that people couldn’t frustrate our efforts to remove them—by, for example, refusing to fill out applications or come to interviews—and to make it an offence should they not do that. The second element of the bill was to allow us to declare countries who frustrated our attempts to return their nationals to them countries of removal concern and to enable us to take actions about how we manage applications to come to Australia from those countries.

Senator ROBERTS: Surely, Minister, there was a way that the government could’ve addressed this issue before the decision in NZYQ was handed down. Why didn’t you?

Senator Watt: The High Court’s decision in NZYQ essentially went in a different direction to what the law in Australia had always been.

Senator ROBERTS: So you didn’t pre-empt that at all.

Senator Watt: Look, we’ve gone over this at length in previous estimates hearings.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Let’s move on to border security then. Why is our border security policy being made on the run? For example, why has the number of surveillance flights by Border Force of our northern
borders by aircraft been reduced over the last year?

Senator Watt: Can I just say one thing. Of course, I don’t accept the proposition that our border security policy is being made on the run. We have increased funding for Border Force and border security to a level that
no government has ever provided, and Admiral Sonter, in his role heading up Operation Sovereign Borders, has pointed out that—I can’t remember the exact words—essentially, there has been no change to the policy settings for Operation Sovereign Borders. But the officials can talk to you about surveillance flights.

Mr Outram: Specific to surveillance flights, I have Deputy Commissioner Dale with me. There has been a reduction in hours flown. That has been for two reasons. The first is persistent mechanical issues with the fleet of Dash 8s that the Border Force has. The second, with the contractor that we employ, is their ability to bring on pilots. There’s a global shortage of pilots, and they’re affected by that. I might hand over to Deputy Commissioner Dale to give you more details.

Ms Dale: The commissioner has flagged that there has been a reduction in flying hours this year and the commissioner has already outlined the causes. I think the rear admiral will go to the point that, notwithstanding
the reduction in hours that we have had in the Australian Border Force, aerial surveillance has been maintained to the standard he requires—fortunately, through the augmentation of flights through the Australian Defence Force.

Senator ROBERTS: Is that signalling a decrease in hours flown in the future, then, if it meets the standard? Or is it going to be that, in the future, standards are changed?

Ms Dale: No. We’re working very closely with the provider to better understand the barriers. The commissioner has spoken to the issue around crew. There is a global shortage of crew for the fixed-wing aircraft
that we’re operating. It’s also true that from time to time we have mechanical issues that are reasonably frequent with any sort of piece of machinery, so they can sometimes be a factor.

Senator ROBERTS: Is the reduction in hours flown a reason for the recent increase in the number of successful arrivals into Australian waters of foreign people smugglers and their human cargo?

Rear Adm. Sonter: There’s no direct correlation there. On a regular basis, I look at what is the threat and risk, and I adjust the posture accordingly. As Kaylene Dale indicated, one of the beauties about this role and the
coordination role is that I have both ABF and Australian Defence Force assets to pull on for this mission. While she’s articulated the decrease from the ABF funded actual air surveillance, we’ve increased the ADF air
surveillance to ensure that we have an enhanced posture in the north-west.

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, is it the soft policy of Labor Party governments in the past, enticing people smugglers to be prepared to risk the boat and cargo for such rich profits as a full boat of paying passengers for the Aussie Express?

Senator Watt: No. Never has been and never will be.

Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware, Minister, that Australians now feel unsafe personally in their own country due to this failed migration policy? We’ve got boats arriving, we’ve got people who are murdering people.

Senator Watt: I’m sure there are some people in Australia who feel unsafe. What I can say is that this government is spending more money on border security than we’ve ever done before. Unlike certain others, including people in the room, we are not running down and disparaging our border security policies—which is an incentive to people smugglers—and we are taking action to deal with court decisions that are not of the
government’s making and that the government opposed.

Senator ROBERTS: Isn’t quoting of spending more money just a lazy way of saying you’re trying to do something? I look at your energy policy and never before have we spent so much money and we see the highest
price of electricity.

Chair: Senator Roberts, that is not relevant to this instance.

Senator ROBERTS: My point is that money does not equate to success.

Senator Watt: You might say that spending $569.4 million more in this year’s budget on things like more boats, planes and unmanned vehicles for Operation Sovereign Borders is lazy. I wouldn’t put it that way.

/1 Comment/by

Government Miscalculates Governor General’s Salary

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This Government is spending money recklessly, treating it as if it were mere monopoly money. This is partly because of their reliance on career bureaucrats for advice, individuals who have enjoyed very high incomes within the Canberra bubble for so long that money has lost its value to them.

They are probably surprised by the public’s outraged reaction to their decision to raise the Governor General’s salary from $495,000 to $719,000.

Such a large salary increase in the middle of a cost of living crisis showed a severe lack of awareness. Canberra bureaucrats aren’t experiencing the cost of living pain felt by the broader population, as they are insulated by their excessively hire salaries.

Rather than meeting the public outcry with a mea culpa and reducing the salary, Minister Gallagher huffed and puffed. She failed to grasp simple maths (an increase from $495,000 to $719,000 is a 43.2% rise), conflagrated the situation by raising the previous Governor General’s military pension and then accused me of misleading Parliament.

In truth, the Government and their bureaucrats were just looking after a mate and got called out for it.

Transcript

The Governor-General Amendment (Salary) Bill 2024 is yet another display of poor judgement from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. To increase the salary of the Governor-General by 43 per cent in a cost-of-living crisis is an insult to everyday Australians who are struggling with the Albanese government’s cost-of-living crisis. 

The salary of the Governor-General is fixed for the period of her term, so the rise by $214,000 dollars to a new salary of $709,000 is the only increase in the next five years. A 43 per cent pay rise suggests that the government knows inflation is going to get much worse. Not only will Ms Mostyn be earning $709,000 but the role also includes two homes: Government House in Yarralumla and Admiralty House in Kirribilli, right on Sydney Harbour. The role includes free travel, free food, servants and a pool. The Governor-General receives a pension which is legislated at 60 per cent of salary or $425,000 for life—not a bad pension. 

The appointment of Ms Mostyn is a controversial choice. The tradition for 124 years has been to select our Governor-General from the ranks of the judiciary, the military, state governors and senior politicians. This reflects the skill set a governor-general needs to lead the Australian people in a time of civil crisis or war. The Governor-General is, of course, commander of Australia’s armed forces; the Prime Minister is not the commander of Australia’s armed forces. Ms Mostyn comes to the role with a background in activism. It’s an appointment which may serve to politicise the role of the Governor-General, and that’s sad to see. 

The Commonwealth of Australia deserves more respect than the Prime Minister has shown with this appointment and with this obscene pay rise. One Nation opposes this bill. 

Transcript

My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher. Minister, if a salary rises from $495,000 to $719,000, what percentage increase is that? 

Senator Gallagher: I’m not sure under which part of the portfolio this comes, but I think it relates to the Governor-General’s salary and the bill that this Senate passed this morning. The point I was making there was that it is misleading to suggest that a salary is increasing from the figure that you have used, Senator Roberts, to that high figure, because what it does not take into account is the other income streams that were available to former Governors-General. So this is an adjustment, yes, but it’s an adjustment being made because the incoming Governor-General does not have a military pension that will supplement the income stream and because the Governor-General’s salary has been traditionally linked to the salary of the Chief Justice of the High Court. That salary is determined by the Remuneration Tribunal. 

I think the point you were making this morning in debate and the point that Senator Waters, surprisingly, was making in debate was this was some significant pay increase in the order of 43 per cent, when that is not correct. Former Governors-Generals have had two income streams, particularly if they’ve been in receipt of a pension. This legislation we passed today was to ensure that a commensurate salary be provided for an incoming Governor-General who only has one income stream. So it is not accurate to say that a position has had an increase of that order. It is simply not correct. It is misleading, it is disingenuous and it’s seeking a popular headline, which I agree is easy to get if people don’t understand the detail that underpins that decision. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: The answer is 43.2 per cent. Governor-General Jeffery’s salary was $365,000. Quentin Bryce, Labor’s last appointment, was paid $394,000, $20,000 less than the then salary of the High Court Chief Justice. General Cosgrove was paid $425,000, and then General Hurley was paid $495,000. Minister, how much was outgoing Governor-General Hurley’s salary reduced for his military pension? 

Senator Gallagher: I don’t have those figures at hand, but I do understand that the salary that has been agreed to and passed by this chamber this morning and by the House earlier in the week is in line with the salary that the current Governor-General has been earning with the income streams available to him. It might be slightly adjusted for the fact that it lasts over five years, because, once the Governor-General commences in the role, no further adjustments can be made to salary. But it is in line with what His Excellency Governor-General Hurley is earning at this point in time. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: The incoming Governor-General’s salary is now $70,000 above the High Court Chief Justice’s salary. The Chief Justice gets, as you said, periodic increases to adjust for inflation. The Governor-General does not. Noting that today’s inflation announcement shows inflation increasing again, this huge pay rise seems designed to compensate Sam Mostyn for inflation and has nothing to do with military pensions. Minister, earlier today, did you mislead the Senate to cover up the real reason for this huge pay increase, surging inflation? 

Senator Gallagher: I can assure Senator Roberts that, no, I did not mislead the parliament and I have been clear—indeed, I was clear in the last answer that I gave—that there is some adjustment for future increases based on the fact that the Chief Justice has a salary determined annually by the Remuneration Tribunal. The Governor-General’s salary cannot be increased by that, so there is work done, based on some analysis about what that should appropriately be. But, no, it’s not based on today’s inflation forecast, and it’s incorrect to continue to say that it has nothing to do with the fact that His Excellency currently is in receipt of a military pension in addition to the salary that he draws as Governor-General. The simple reality is that the legislation that passed this chamber addresses the fact that there is one income stream, and this allows them to be paid in accordance with what’s currently being paid. 

Transcript

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 regarding the incoming Governor-General’s salary. 

Since 1974 the parliament has approved the salary for each incoming Governor-General. The salary level has conventionally been commensurate with that of the Chief Justice of the High Court. The last time a Governor-General was paid less than the Chief Justice was in 2008, when Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appointed Quentin Bryce with a salary $20,000 less than that of the Chief Justice. Precedent does call for consideration to be ‘given to any pension received by the incumbent for previous employment’—for the incumbent, not for the person coming after the incumbent. 

The annual salary during Michael Jeffery’s term was $365,000. Quentin Bryce’s salary was $394,000. General Peter Cosgrove was paid $425,000, which included a small reduction because of his military pension. General Hurley was paid $495,000. General Hurley is in receipt of a military pension as a result of his lifetime of military service. Sam Mostyn is not entitled to a military pension for her lifetime of service to the culture wars. The huge increase offered to Sam Mostyn takes her salary to $70,000 above that of the High Court Chief Justice, despite Labor themselves setting a precedent that less can be paid in hard times, such as in 2008, during the global financial crisis. 

In 2024 we have the crisis of the Albanese government’s runaway inflation. The inflation rate has increased again to four per cent, announced a few moments ago. This persistent high inflation gives a hint as to why the incoming Governor-General got such a large wage rise. The government knows what bad economic news is coming for everyday Australians in the next five years and sought to insulate its appointment from that ruinous inflation. This Labor government simply doesn’t know the value of money and is clearly confused when the public call the government out for it. Sam Mostyn has got a huge increase in salary. Her pension is now hugely increased, and she will have that pension for every day of every year of her life. 

Question agreed to. 

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Coalition Firmly Backs eSafety Commissioner

Liberal Shadow Minister for Communications, David Coleman, on Insiders on Sunday 9 June 2024.

The eSafety Commissioner still has the full support of Dutton’s Coalition. In fact, they’re proud of establishing Julie Inman Grant’s position.

Don’t expect any respect for freedom of speech from Labor, or Liberals if they’re returned to Government.

You can only trust One Nation to stand against the tyrants who want to tell Australians what they can and can’t see, or say.

/1 Comment/by

Labor’s Destruction of Democracy

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The disrespect by Labor towards the Senate Estimates process is reprehensible, especially for a government elected on promises to be ‘transparent and accountable’.

As a representative of the people of Queensland and Australia, it’s my duty to uphold the sanctity of this Senate as the House of Review. The government’s audacity in cherry-picking what information it deems fit for our consumption reeks of contempt. This blatant obstructionism frustrates the very essence of our democratic institutions.

The culture of secrecy by Labor extends far beyond the Senate Chamber. Orders for document production are routinely disobeyed, undermining the integrity of our oversight mechanisms. It’s time we punish these acts with the sanctions they deserve.

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Is the AEC Lying About the Threat of Misinformation and Disinformation?

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I asked the Australian Electoral Commission about their claims of misinformation and disinformation being a threat to elections. I was surprised to find that a taskforce that specifically reports on threats to the integrity of the election reported there was no interference that would undermine confidence in any results.

Why the discrepancy between a taskforce that says there are no issues and a Commissioner that says this is a big problem? Either the task force isn’t being upfront or the Commissioner is overblowing the threat of disinformation.

I also pointed at some complex shady transactions showing over $40 million in one year flowing from coal company Glencore through a subsidiary company, to the union, to the Labor Party.

Transcript

CHAIR: Senator ROBERTS.

Senator ROBERTS: As you may be aware, Mr Rogers, I’ve got the minutes of the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce, the EIAT—sounds like something to eat—and the freedom of information request LEX 5612. I want to ask you if this response meets your expectations of transparency and accountability. Here are the first six pages. It’s almost entirely black—redacted. There are 100 more pages and most of them are a repeat of this. We’ve probably ran out of black ink trying to print the whole thing. Is this a transparent and open response for what is meant to be an ‘assurance task force’?

Mr Rogers: For a start, I don’t own the task force. I’ll put that on the table. The task force provides me advice about a range of issues. But I just want to point out—

Senator ROBERTS: It’s multi-agency, right?

Mr Rogers: That’s correct, yes. We’ve had discussions about this previously; there are security agencies involved in that process.

Senator ROBERTS: Yes.

Mr Rogers: We are actually talking about security issues. So I’m presuming that the agencies that make up the task force have gone through that document and are worried about releasing sensitive information and that is why it has been released in a redacted format. I’m happy to talk outside the public setting about the sorts of work they do. But, as we’ve said previously, they look at a whole range of different issues that impact on the AEC. They look at physical security, cybersecurity, and misinformation and disinformation with a particular vector about foreign interference. They are issues that they provide advice to me on. They examine a whole range of things, and I’m presuming that the agencies that make up that task force have examined that information and there are security implications or privacy implications, which is why they’ve redacted that information.

Senator ROBERTS: When every page is redacted, surely the EIAT is not dealing with 100 per cent secure information.

Mr Rogers: This is dealing with a sensitive area, which is the reason we’ve set that task force up to start with. But, again, I’m happy to talk to you outside a public setting about some of that information. But there will be privacy information there, there will be privileged information there, and there will also be security classified information there as well.

Senator ROBERTS: You have plenty of experience at Senate estimates, Mr Rogers, and you answer questions well, so I’m sure you’d be aware that freedom of information law used to redact freedom of information requests doesn’t apply to this committee. I want you to take on notice, please, to produce to this committee an unredacted version of the LEX 5612 documents, please.

Mr Rogers: The AEC doesn’t own the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce. Let me take that on notice. I’ll work with the agencies that comprise the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce. But it’s not an AEC entity as such. It is designed to be a cooperative body of the agencies represented on the task force to provide advice to me, particularly about foreign interference. So I can’t direct them to do that. Those agencies will have their own security issues that they have applied in the general clearance of that. But I’ll certainly raise it with the task force on your behalf.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Failing an adequate response from them, let’s take up your offer to discuss it, please. I understand the integrity task force—which includes AFP, ASD and so on—delivered a statement to you to the effect that there was no interference that would undermine the confidence of the Australian people in the election result. That statement has effectively been a copy-paste from the 2019 election, to 2022, to the referendum in 2023. Mr Pope, for 2022 at least—it was actually him as Deputy Commissioner of the AEC that proposed that wording to the EIAT, wasn’t it?

Mr Rogers: I don’t have the minutes in front of me. I’d have to take that on notice.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. If you could tell us.

Mr Rogers: To be abundantly helpful—it probably is the same words. I don’t have them in front of me, because that’s the same situation. If the situation hasn’t changed, they’re actually the words. If there had been interference, it would be an entirely different set of words that would come.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s where I want to go to next. If the integrity task force says in its statement that there is absolutely nothing to worry about, why is it necessary to hide the minutes of the meetings—completely hide them. I can understand some sensitive matters, some potential threats. Why is it necessary to hide the minutes?

Mr Rogers: Every member of that task force carries a current Commonwealth security classification. They’re dealing with information that in itself is classified. Again, I don’t own the task force. I’m not speaking on behalf of the task force. But each of the agencies has its own statutory responsibility to protect information as well. As a collective, that redaction would be the result of a security assessment done by the agencies on the task force. Whatever was discussed had some sort of security either classification or implication.

Senator ROBERTS: I accept that’s your answer. But I wonder if 100 per cent of it—okay. You’ve been very keen to become the truth cop and decide what is and isn’t misinformation at elections. You’ve told us that misinformation—

Mr Rogers: No. In fact, let me be very clear. I am the reverse of the truth cop. I do not want to be the truth cop at all. We had a discussion earlier this evening. ‘Truth’ at election time is quite often in the eye of the beholder. And the determination of what truth is is not something that I wish to be involved with. However, where disinformation about the electoral process is being spread—and you and I have discussed this previously—

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. I remember you discussing it with us.

Mr Rogers: Things that are legislatively and factually wrong, designed to confuse electors about the act of voting—for example, ‘You don’t have to vote’ or ‘Voting is not compulsory’ or ‘The AEC is using Dominion voting machines’ or ‘is erasing your ballot’—all of those sorts of issues. If someone says things like that that are designed to confuse voters, we correct the record. We don’t stop anybody from saying anything. But we certainly correct the record and we use the various tools at our disposal to do that, including social media and media, including at appearances like this. But I just want to be abundantly clear that the characterisation that you made at the start is the reverse of what we do.

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. I’ll take that back, because I didn’t mean it the way you understood it. But I can see quite clearly that that is a way of taking it. What I meant to say is that you have told us about the misinformation and disinformation repeatedly. From the amount of media and commentary you’ve done on this, it appears to be a very significant focus of yours, and that’s probably entirely correct. So where did this come from if your integrity task force is telling you in the statement that there isn’t a single issue to worry about? You’re telling us it’s a risk, a big risk.

Mr Rogers: One of the reasons we can have confidence about the Australian election is the existence of the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce. Their work, the work of the AEC—the work within the AEC of our Defending Democracy Unit, our social media team and a range of other entities, the way we engage with social media organisations, the way we focus on getting correct information into the hands of voters—has actually assisted that process. We’re certainly not going to wait for a disaster to have those measures in place [inaudible] get to where we are. We are internationally renowned—not just the AEC, but Australia and Australia’s electoral system is internationally renowned—as being fair, transparent and of high integrity. That is because of the work the AEC has done and the work that our partner agencies have done in groups like the EIAT—and indeed parliament, including committees that have established legislation and inquiries into each election. So I’m abundantly proud of the work that the AEC has done to ensure that citizens have confidence in electoral outcomes. You might have seen at the end of last year there was an APS survey that was published where the AEC was ranked No. 1 for trust and satisfaction out of, I think, 20 agencies that were listed amongst citizens. That is as a result of the work of a whole range of organisations, including our partner agencies. If you don’t mind, because the EIAT is an important moment of what we do, the members of the EIAT, just because they are on the EIAT, that does not abrogate their legislative responsibilities that they have as individual agencies in any case. The EIAT exists as a taskforce but each of the agencies represented also has legislative responsibilities, not just at election time but outside of election time, and we also have a bilateral relationship with each of these agencies as well. As you know and as I said previously, we talk to the AFP on a regular basis. We talk to those other agencies. They provide us advice and we use that input to guide how we’re going. I think Australians should be very proud of their electoral system and also the work of all those bodies that I mentioned before that have assisted in creating such a high-integrity and transparent system.

Senator ROBERTS: I must say that we had a number of concerns about the electoral process and the electoral system. Many of those, with the exception of two, have been erased because of our discussions and because we now have audits as a result of me introducing legislation that the previous government then took up. I will endorse your comments with the proviso that we still have a couple of things we are not happy with, but you do have audits now. Some of the issues you are responsible for are not easy; I get that. One in particular I would like to raise with you now is maybe you could elaborate on some of the issues faced with getting a clear picture when it comes to donation law, a really complex situation. The returns for the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union for 2022 and 2023 show they donated huge sums to the Labor Party. The CFMMEU has received more than $39 million from a company called Abelshore, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of coal company Glencore. In 2021-22 they donated $9 million, so over two years they donated $48 million donated by Glencoreowned companies to the CFMMEU, to the Labor Party. So you have tens of millions, $48 million as I said, flying from a coal company through a subsidiary, through a union to the Labor Party but the coal company does not show up in the returns to the Labor Party. Can you explain the difficulties in finding out where the money was originally coming from on the returns that are lodged?

Mr Rogers: First of all, I have not seen that particular return, so I would have to take it on notice and have a look but I am not aware that any of that breaches the existing legislation. Our role is to adhere to the legislation, promote the legislation, ensure that agencies are adhering to that. As you know, the whole funding and disclosure issue is the most complex part of the Electoral Act. It is highly technical. As long as those entities are meeting their obligations for transparency under the act, and I have no information that they are not—I would have to look at that specific issue in detail—as long as they are within the legislation, changing that legislation is a matter for parliament rather than the AEC, which I know you are aware of, and it is something we were discussing earlier this evening. I would have to have a look at in detail.

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, we will send you a copy. It is on a register from the CFMMEU, I think I said. That is an awful lot of money to be hidden and it is not deliberately hidden. Perhaps it is inadvertently hidden. I think the intent is deliberate because it seems a bit strange that money is going from a coal company to a mining union to the Labor Party. Let’s move on. Can I confirm that you did not refer a single case of double voting at the referendum or the last election to the Federal Police for investigation?

Mr Rogers: I don’t have the statistics in front of me. Someone does. The chief legal officer does. I will drag him forward for a moment. Mr A Johnson: I will have to look up the statistics, but we have referred several multivoting cases from the federal election, around 37, and that 76 from the referendum were referred to the AFP, but that then is a matter for the AFP because it is a criminal offence and whether they proceed with prosecutions.

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, it is a criminal offence.

Mr Rogers: We work with the AFP on those matters and, as the chief legal officer said, we refer those matters to them. But we go through each of those cases with them in any case, and what they do with those from there is a matter for the AFP.

Senator ROBERTS: One of the concerns we have amongst the two or three concerns overall, which has dropped dramatically in number after working with you, is the physical audit of the voter rolls, doorknocking houses and confirming that voters listed at that address live there. How are you progressing on that?

Mr Rogers: I think you are referring to something that used to be referred to as a habitation review, which we used to do many years ago. We don’t do habitation reviews for a range of reasons. Frankly, we found them to be inaccurate when we did those reviews. The processes that we have in place now are far more accurate and bring a greater level of assurance to the integrity of the roll than the habitation review ever did. As you would imagine, with people walking around districts, knocking on doors, people give all sorts of answers, if they open the door at all. We had people not home. In fact, I will not go through some of the detail of some of the ways in which our staff used to be received. There were personal safety issues involved as well. But the process we have in place now, we have a roll integrity assurance system, which I think we might have discussed with you when we visited to talk about the various issues that are in place. It is a better system with higher integrity than ever was the case during the habitation review process. Also, what we are currently doing is a better use of Commonwealth funds. The habitation reviews were hugely expensive for a very poor outcome, so what we have managed to produce is a much better system, using the coordination of several datasets to ensure that people are where they say they are.

Senator ROBERTS: You have said that before.

Mr Rogers: We also manage a thing called the address register, which is complex, but that is the way that we give everyone a spot on the earth, effectively. We know where people are, not when they are moving around for the sake of it, but where their houses are to make sure that when people say they are enrolled in a spot that that spot is actually an agreed address and that they are enrolled in.

Senator ROBERTS: We get frequent reports about people voting more than once and voting instead of dead people and so on. If you will indulge me, Mr Rogers, and the CHAIR, before I get onto my last question, I am not sure if you have heard an old joke about a politician who has lost his seat in parliament. Talking to a party powerbroker, he says, ‘Comrade, to lose such a safe seat is a tragedy but losing an electorate with three cemeteries, that is unforgivable.’ You have probably heard that one.

Mr Rogers: There has been a number of variations to that. Just to give some idea of the scope of the movement on the electoral roll, from memory, every day there are about 7,000 people who move or sadly die or turn 18 that we need to somehow interact with the electoral roll on a daily basis.

Senator ROBERTS: Or get married.

Mr Rogers: There is huge movement in that roll. We are constantly managing it—people are on, people are off. We do a range of things to make sure that it is accurate. We hear stories from time to time with people on social media or they might phone up talkback radio and say, ‘I multiple voted.’ We do not have any evidence of that. It is a minuscule problem. I have said before that the problem is vanishingly small. There is a gulf between what people do and say in this regard. We are alert to it. There have been a number of studies done. There was a large study done by an academic from the new University of New South Wales almost a decade ago looking at a range of issues to do with this. It is a vanishingly small issue. I mentioned previously, to the extent that it does occur, there are some factors normally are associated with it. One is age. People who multiple vote are more likely to be over the age of 80. I am thinking back to some research here. English as a second language can be an issue, because new voters might be confused. They may have heard that if you do not vote in Australia you get a fine and they are desperate not to get a fine, so they double vote. Sometimes there is also mental confusion as one of the other factors. It is a small number. Just to also give you some comfort, we are very clear that if ever the level of multiple voting came close to the margin for those seats, we would refer that ourselves to the Court of Disputed Returns and it has never even been close to that. We watch for that, we look at it and we are very conscious of it.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you. Last question—have you ever been involved in any correspondence or collaboration with the eSafety Commissioner?

Mr Rogers: Yes, we have. Well, actually, let me just craft my answer here. When I say ‘we’, we, as part of the Electoral Council of Australia and New Zealand, which is the electoral commissioners of Australia and New Zealand, have been collectively looking at an issue to do with the safety of our staff. As you know, the eSafety Commissioner has some powers about adult harm online—I’ll get that bit wrong, forgive me, but whatever those powers are—and we’ve been working with the eSafety Commissioner as a group of commissioners to make sure we have adequate protocols in place for how we engage the eSafety Commissioner in using those protocols for the safety of our permanent and temporary staff.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you very much. Thank you, CHAIR.

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