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I’ve just co-sponsored a Bill to repeal the Digital ID Bill passed by the government.
This is why it is so essential to get rid of this dictatorship tool.
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.
A Triad of Tyranny
Three Bills are being rammed through the Senate to create legislation that will transform the UN-WEF plans for surveillance and control into a dystopian reality in Australia.
The first is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023, which is designed to permit the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens and normalise it. The second, the Digital Identity Bill 2023, will ensure Australians have no choice but to succumb to setting up a digital ID. The third is the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023. This is the censorship tool to make sure both the media and social media carries government sanctioned opinions only. The government in power is exempted and free to be the Ministry of Truth, spreading misinformation or disinformation. Remember how well that went during the COVID response?
The Driver’s Licence database is being upgraded to become the repository of your master identification record, which is already being used to establish your identity with a paper check and now with a facial scan.
I implored the Senate to vote against and to reject this Bill. This is the first of three Bills necessary to turn Australia into the world’s first World Economic Forum digital prison.
Transcript
One Nation strongly opposes the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023. Here’s why. The Albanese government’s great mate, Blackrock boss Larry Fink, and predatory billionaires at the World Economic Forum are fond of the phrase ‘you will own nothing and be happy’. What they really mean is that they will own everything and you will comply. Why would people voluntarily enslave themselves, give up their homes, cars and household goods and lose the right to travel freely, I hear you ask. The answer is that people will not be given a choice. They will be coerced—forced into it. That’s the purpose of this government’s triad of tyranny.
First is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023, which will normalise and allow the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens. Second is the Digital ID Bill 2023, which will force every Australian into having a digital ID. Third is the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023, which will ensure media and social media only carry government sanctioned opinions; the government will be exempted and can be free to spread misinformation and disinformation.
Biometric data is your face turned into a data file based on your physical characteristics. It allows for faster and more accurate identification. They will capture your face. The national drivers licence database is being upgraded to become the repository of your master identification record, which is already used to establish your identity with a paper check. Now it will have a facial scan.
Australians do not need to consent in a meaningful manner. The bill currently uses the word ‘consent’ without definition. Consent can be implied. Here’s an example. If a person sees a video of themselves on a self-service check-out at the supermarket and uses the check-out anyway, it’s considered implied consent. The government has accepted that implied consent is no consent at all and has upgraded the reference to ‘consent’ in their amendment on sheet UD100 to ‘explicit consent’. That isn’t good enough either. Explicit consent can be provided as blanket consent. An example would be MasterCard changing their terms and conditions to allow for facial recognition whenever their card is used. Once the card owner gets the email saying, ‘We have updated our terms and conditions. Click here to approve,’ and people click without reading it, one of those new terms could be permission for facial recognition. Did you give consent? No.
Banks currently record the image of anyone using their ATMs and then use that in the case of a fraudulent transaction. Banks will update their terms and conditions to give themselves the right to run your biometric
verification on each occasion before allowing access to your account. Refusing the new permission gives your bank or card company the right to refuse service. It’s that simple. It’s blackmail. This is why the government suggesting a digital ID or biometric data check will be voluntary is a complete lie. It’s compulsory, because not agreeing means you lose your bank account or payment card or service—just as those voluntary COVID injections were compulsory if you wanted to keep your job and your house and feed your family.
I foreshadow an amendment in the committee stage on sheet 2327 to change the definition of ‘explicit’ to ‘active’, meaning on each occasion your face is to be scanned they must ask permission before they scan it and make sure they get your permission each time. That’s active consent. This should be supported, because the government already says Australians will have to consent to their biometric data being used—unless, of course, that was misinformation.
This bill does not offer a direct link between the authentication action at a check-out, office, airport et cetera and the master file. A government hub receives a request and pulls the master file, meaning only the government has access to the master file. This seems to look acceptable, yet it means there’s a master file with 17 million records containing name, address, telephone, date of birth, drivers licence number, passport number and a biometric identification file all sitting in the same database. That’s all the information necessary to steal someone’s ID and impersonate them online—a hacker’s paradise.
Robodebt proved that our bureaucrats are incapable of even a simple one-to-one database match, and now they’re being trusted to pull this off. It’s impossible without a high level of compulsion and without completely ignoring victims of software or data-matching errors. If the look-up fails, then your purchase, travel, document, signing or whatever other use fails. If the purchase was for petrol, your family could be stranded late at night. We might as well start the royal commission now.
Downstream from the big government database are what I call intermediaries or entities with participating agreements. There are 20 of these so far. Their role is to take a request for authentication from a bank or card
processor, solicitor, real estate agent, airline—anyone needing you to prove you are who you say you are—and submit that to the national drivers licence database hub to run past the master database. In the original bill there were no effective checks and balances on those businesses. The government’s amendment of its own bill has added a few checks and balances to ensure that intermediaries must delete data received as part of the verification process.
Thank you, Minister Gallagher. That, taken together with my amendment to make the level of consent clear, takes some of the potential abuse out of the bill. A clear privacy statement would have helped. The government have promised they will do that later. There are trust issues around that promise.
Questions remain around the New South Wales government’s comment that this bill will allow them to verify that every person detected driving a car past a surveillance camera has a drivers licence.
The only way this can be achieved is if every driver is scanned every time they pass a detection camera and their image is compared to the national database. Does this mean those cameras going up around Australia are just the right height to scan the driver’s face and that the cameras will be used to scan and verify your identity each time you pass one? Yes, it does. Before they work out who you are and whether you have a licence, they have to scan and verify your biometrics. It’s the only explanation for the New South Wales government’s comment.
For those listening to this with incredulity, I remind you that this is exactly the system now in place in London, with Lord Mayor Khan’s ULEZ, Ultra Low Emission Zone, and in Birmingham, Manchester and other cities in Britain. It’s really the World Economic Forum’s 15-minute cities happening right now. Residents are locked into their zone and can only leave a certain number of times a year. This is happening in Britain. That depends on the make and model of the car you drive. If you drive a car they don’t like, you can’t move. Rich people who can afford electric cars can, of course, come and go as they please. Everyday citizens are locked in or, when they leave, the cameras detect them leaving and fine them on the spot. It’s a fine of 180 pounds a week for leaving over seven days.
That’s in Britain now. Already it has raised hundreds of millions of pounds because people will pay for freedom.
Look it up. Don’t just trust me: look it up. There are fines for not registering with the system and fines for breaching the 15-minute limits. It’s a virtual fence. It’s like an electric dog collar. It’s the foundation for a social credit system to completely control people’s lives. So don’t tell me this is a conspiracy theory. It’s real and it’s happening now in our mother country.
Cash is necessary to ensure these measures are ameliorated as much as possible, which is why the globalist wing of the Liberal Party tried to ban cash in the last parliament, which One Nation defeated. It should be obvious that predatory, parasitic billionaires and some of their lackeys in the Labor and Liberal Party are getting their ducks in a row because they want to be ready for the full implementation of their globalist masters’ control agenda, exactly as they promised. It’s not like they’re hiding any of this. When they tell us what they’re going to do, listen.
Remember this government’s triad of tyranny. Already entered into parliament is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023 to normalise and allow the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens. Here it is. There’s the Digital ID Bill 2023 to force every Australian into having a digital ID. There’s the misinformation and disinformation bill 2023, which will ensure media and social media only carry government sanctioned opinions, and the government is exempted. I implore the Senate to vote against this bill and to reject this bill. This is the first of three bills necessary to turn Australia into the world’s first World Economic Forum digital prison.
At this year’s Davos, less government officials were present than usual, yet Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, was not only present, but she was also an agenda contributor, pushing for greater online safety.
I asked in what capacity Ms Julie Inman Grant was present at Davos for the World Economic Forum 2024 annual meeting, what was the cost to Australian taxpayers and whether staff travelled with her on this trip at public expense. As an independent statutory authority, Commissioner Inman Grant is planning to embrace global opportunities to help achieve the outcomes she perceives necessary for online safety. The Commissioner is seeking broader powers to achieve her agenda, for our own good of course, and once again this begs the question exactly who is deciding what is ‘good’?
Listening to her speak about online safety regulations, the one word conspicuous by its absence is censorship. The other missing words were freedom of expression.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for being here today. Did you attend the World Economic Forum planning session in Davos last month? If so, was that in your personal capacity or as the eSafety Commissioner?
Ms Inman Grant: I attended the world economic global summit as the eSafety Commissioner. I achieved more in four days than I could in four years because I was meeting with senior technology executives. I was talking directly to the people who are building AI and immersive technologies and asked directly the decision makers what they are doing to make their platforms safer. I was sharing really our leadership and our model in terms of how we’re tackling online safety.
Senator ROBERTS: Well, I think we’re the ones who should be assessing whether or not you’re justified. How many staff accompanied you? What was the cost to taxpayers?
Ms Inman Grant: I will take that on notice. I had one staff member accompany me. I supplemented that with trips to Brussels, where I met with European Commission officials, and to Dublin to meet with my fellow regulators in Ireland and the UK. So it was a very productive trip.
Senator ROBERTS: Now can I have the justification, please? What did taxpayers get for their money? How did attending help in the discharge of your duties?
Ms Inman Grant: Well, I had access to the presidents of most of the major technology companies, including the CEO of OpenAI. I was able to ask him what they were planning to do to build safety into this. Any time that we can influence the decision-makers at this level to make technology safer is better.
Senator ROBERTS: You run an online agency, right?
Ms Inman Grant: I run—
Senator ROBERTS: Couldn’t you have done this online?
Ms Inman Grant: I run a real agency that has real people and capital equipment. I couldn’t engage in this forum online and not have those kinds of meetings to make a real difference for Australians in terms of getting real change happening.
Senator ROBERTS: You are referencing your panel session at Davos. Your office has just sent Twitter a notice regarding them allowing hate on the Twitter platform, including allowing previously suspended users back on the platform.
Ms Inman Grant: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Can you give me examples of Australian accounts that X has allowed back on that your office objects to?
Ms Inman Grant: Well, the online hate notice looked at the range of trust and safety governance steps that they had taken, including firing 80 per cent of their safety engineers, more than half of their content moderators and 80 per cent of their public policy personnel—so the people who actually look after the safety. We did ask them. It was reported that there were 62,000 previously banned users. To be permanently banned on Twitter, you have to have violated the policies pretty egregiously a number of times. We asked them the question. They responded. We asked about the 62,000. They responded with 6,100. We assumed that meant they reinstated 6,100 previously banned Australian accounts, which wasn’t in the manner and form of the notice and the question that we asked them. They didn’t name what those specific ones were, but they did tell us that there are no additional safety provisions even though they have been permanently banned for online hate in some cases.
Senator ROBERTS: It seems to me, Ms Grant, that you’re assuming the previous bans were in order. Had you explored those previous bans before coming to that judgement?
Ms Inman Grant: Twitter, as the company, had a whole range of policies, including a hateful conduct policy. They remove or—
Senator ROBERTS: So you haven’t? What you’ve done is you’ve gone off their interpretation of their policy, even though we know they were biased.
Ms Inman Grant: That’s the only thing we can do, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: Could you come back to my question—
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, please allow Ms Inman Grant to answer.
Senator ROBERTS: and give me examples of Australian accounts?
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I appreciate that you are somewhat agitated. Could you please respect the witnesses and allow them to answer the questions.
Senator ROBERTS: I would like the witness to give me examples of Australian accounts that X has allowed back that her office objects to. That’s my question and you haven’t answered it.
Ms Inman Grant: I didn’t ask them specific questions about which accounts they were. I asked for the quant the numbers.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Are you setting yourself up as an arbiter of what should and should not be seen online?
Ms Inman Grant: No. I am not. I have been designated by the government to serve as the eSafety Commissioner and to remediate harms of online individuals who have experienced online abuse and, in most cases, have reported that abuse to the platform. The platform hasn’t enforced their terms of policy, so we are there as a safety net or a backstop to help remediate that harm.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Your remarks included this comment, and I quote: There are lots of different tools in the toolbox we’ll be using. What are those tools? Under what explicit power do you possess them? Who supervises how you use them?
Ms Inman Grant: All our powers are designated under the Online Safety Act. We have a range of complaints schemes that deal with youth based cyber bullying, image-based abuse, adult cyber abuse and the online content scheme. We have systems and process powers under the basic online safety expectations. We have now six codes registered and two standards that we’re working on. They are the primary tools.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Who supervises how you use them? Who assesses whether or not you’re being effective or overextending?
Ms Inman Grant: Well, we are held to account. We have lots of reporting and transparency and accountability measures ourselves. If there’s ever a question about any decision that is made, it can be challenged through internal review, the ombudsman, the AAT or the Federal Court. So we are accountable to the people and the government.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. At the World Economic Forum planning session in Davos, you said, and I quote: We have started something called the Global Online Safety Regulator. Who is ‘we’? Did you receive ministerial permission to involve Australia in another globalist power sink hole? You may laugh, but we are facing a big threat.
Ms Inman Grant: I am an independent statutory authority. The Internet is global. Most of our regulatory targets are based overseas. For more than seven years, we were the only online safety regulator in the world. Now, we use the tools we have and we can be effective, but we know we’re going to go much further when we work together with other like-minded independent statutory authorities around the globe. So with the UK, with Ireland and with Fiji in November 2022, we launched the global online safety regulators network. That has now grown to seven independent regulators, including France, South Korea and South Africa. A number of countries are serving as observers. That is so we can achieve a degree of regulatory coherence for the technology industry and make sure that we’re working together to achieve better safety outcomes for all of our citizens.
Senator ROBERTS: Did you get ministerial approval for that?
Ms Inman Grant: I don’t think it was required. Certainly the minister was aware.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. This is a further remark you made—this is how it was reported:
We have reached a tipping point where technology is neither good nor bad. We need to be pushing towards the forces of good. That comment seems steeped in hubris. Who decides what the forces of good are? You?
Ms Inman Grant: Well, the Online Safety Act does define thresholds for harm. Certainly our research looks at the benefits and the drawbacks in terms of how people experience technology and whether it helps them to create, to connect, to work and to communicate versus the harms that they experience, whether it’s—
Senator ROBERTS: How do you listen to people?
Ms Inman Grant: How do I listen to people?
Senator ROBERTS: You just said it’s the people who decide.
Ms Inman Grant: I listen to people in many different ways. We have citizen facing complaints schemes. We’re out in forums all the time. We correspond. We also have about two million people who visit our website every year so they can access resources or report forms of online abuse.
Senator ROBERTS: This is my last question, Chair. Thank you for that. You state: Deepfakes are covered under our world leading image-based abuse scheme, which has close to a 90 per cent success rate. How do you measure 90 per cent objectively? This is your statement.
Ms Inman Grant: We look at the number of complaints that we receive. The 90 per cent success rate is because in the vast majority of cases people just want the intimate imagery and videos taken down, mostly through informal means. We measure the 90 per cent based on how many complaints we receive and how many we get down.
Senator ROBERTS: So the images reported and the images removed? Ninety per cent of them would be removed?
Mr Dagg: When we investigate a complaint about image-based abuse, for example, or any of the other harms set out in our complaint schemes, we measure the response to our requests for removal or our formal interventions. We find, as the commissioner said, requests to be far more efficient and produce a faster turnaround, so they constitute the bulk of our interventions. Ninety per cent of those in the case of image-based abuse succeed. That measure of success is whether or not the images are taken down.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.
Three Bills are being rammed through the Senate to create legislation that will transform the UN-WEF plans for surveillance and control into a dystopian reality in Australia.
The first is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023, which is designed to permit the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens and normalise it. The second, the Digital Identity Bill 2023, will ensure Australians have no choice but to succumb to setting up a digital ID. The third is the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023. This is the censorship tool to make sure both the media and social media carries government sanctioned opinions only. The government in power is exempted and free to be the Ministry of Truth, spreading misinformation or disinformation. Remember how well that went during the COVID response?
The Driver’s Licence database is being upgraded to become the repository of your master identification record, which is already being used to establish your identity with a paper check and now with a facial scan.
I implored the Senate to vote against and to reject this Bill. This is the first of three Bills necessary to turn Australia into the world’s first World Economic Forum digital prison.
Transcript
One Nation strongly opposes the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023. Here’s why. The Albanese government’s great mate, Blackrock boss Larry Fink, and predatory billionaires at the World Economic Forum are fond of the phrase ‘you will own nothing and be happy’. What they really mean is that they will own everything and you will comply. Why would people voluntarily enslave themselves, give up their homes, cars and household goods and lose the right to travel freely, I hear you ask. The answer is that people will not be given a choice. They will be coerced—forced into it. That’s the purpose of this government’s triad of tyranny.
First is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023, which will normalise and allow the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens. Second is the Digital ID Bill 2023, which will force every Australian into having a digital ID. Third is the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023, which will ensure media and social media only carry government sanctioned opinions; the government will be exempted and can be free to spread misinformation and disinformation.
Biometric data is your face turned into a data file based on your physical characteristics. It allows for faster and more accurate identification. They will capture your face. The national drivers licence database is being upgraded to become the repository of your master identification record, which is already used to establish your identity with a paper check. Now it will have a facial scan.
Australians do not need to consent in a meaningful manner. The bill currently uses the word ‘consent’ without definition. Consent can be implied. Here’s an example. If a person sees a video of themselves on a self-service check-out at the supermarket and uses the check-out anyway, it’s considered implied consent. The government has accepted that implied consent is no consent at all and has upgraded the reference to ‘consent’ in their amendment on sheet UD100 to ‘explicit consent’. That isn’t good enough either. Explicit consent can be provided as blanket consent. An example would be MasterCard changing their terms and conditions to allow for facial recognition whenever their card is used. Once the card owner gets the email saying, ‘We have updated our terms and conditions. Click here to approve,’ and people click without reading it, one of those new terms could be permission for facial recognition. Did you give consent? No.
Banks currently record the image of anyone using their ATMs and then use that in the case of a fraudulent transaction. Banks will update their terms and conditions to give themselves the right to run your biometric
verification on each occasion before allowing access to your account. Refusing the new permission gives your bank or card company the right to refuse service. It’s that simple. It’s blackmail. This is why the government suggesting a digital ID or biometric data check will be voluntary is a complete lie. It’s compulsory, because not agreeing means you lose your bank account or payment card or service—just as those voluntary COVID injections were compulsory if you wanted to keep your job and your house and feed your family.
I foreshadow an amendment in the committee stage on sheet 2327 to change the definition of ‘explicit’ to ‘active’, meaning on each occasion your face is to be scanned they must ask permission before they scan it and make sure they get your permission each time. That’s active consent. This should be supported, because the government already says Australians will have to consent to their biometric data being used—unless, of course, that was misinformation.
This bill does not offer a direct link between the authentication action at a check-out, office, airport et cetera and the master file. A government hub receives a request and pulls the master file, meaning only the government has access to the master file. This seems to look acceptable, yet it means there’s a master file with 17 million records containing name, address, telephone, date of birth, drivers licence number, passport number and a biometric identification file all sitting in the same database. That’s all the information necessary to steal someone’s ID and impersonate them online—a hacker’s paradise.
Robodebt proved that our bureaucrats are incapable of even a simple one-to-one database match, and now they’re being trusted to pull this off. It’s impossible without a high level of compulsion and without completely ignoring victims of software or data-matching errors. If the look-up fails, then your purchase, travel, document, signing or whatever other use fails. If the purchase was for petrol, your family could be stranded late at night. We might as well start the royal commission now.
Downstream from the big government database are what I call intermediaries or entities with participating agreements. There are 20 of these so far. Their role is to take a request for authentication from a bank or card
processor, solicitor, real estate agent, airline—anyone needing you to prove you are who you say you are—and submit that to the national drivers licence database hub to run past the master database. In the original bill there were no effective checks and balances on those businesses. The government’s amendment of its own bill has added a few checks and balances to ensure that intermediaries must delete data received as part of the verification process.
Thank you, Minister Gallagher. That, taken together with my amendment to make the level of consent clear, takes some of the potential abuse out of the bill. A clear privacy statement would have helped. The government have promised they will do that later. There are trust issues around that promise.
Questions remain around the New South Wales government’s comment that this bill will allow them to verify that every person detected driving a car past a surveillance camera has a drivers licence.
The only way this can be achieved is if every driver is scanned every time they pass a detection camera and their image is compared to the national database. Does this mean those cameras going up around Australia are just the right height to scan the driver’s face and that the cameras will be used to scan and verify your identity each time you pass one? Yes, it does. Before they work out who you are and whether you have a licence, they have to scan and verify your biometrics. It’s the only explanation for the New South Wales government’s comment.
For those listening to this with incredulity, I remind you that this is exactly the system now in place in London, with Lord Mayor Khan’s ULEZ, Ultra Low Emission Zone, and in Birmingham, Manchester and other cities in Britain. It’s really the World Economic Forum’s 15-minute cities happening right now. Residents are locked into their zone and can only leave a certain number of times a year. This is happening in Britain. That depends on the make and model of the car you drive. If you drive a car they don’t like, you can’t move. Rich people who can afford electric cars can, of course, come and go as they please. Everyday citizens are locked in or, when they leave, the cameras detect them leaving and fine them on the spot. It’s a fine of 180 pounds a week for leaving over seven days.
That’s in Britain now. Already it has raised hundreds of millions of pounds because people will pay for freedom.
Look it up. Don’t just trust me: look it up. There are fines for not registering with the system and fines for breaching the 15-minute limits. It’s a virtual fence. It’s like an electric dog collar. It’s the foundation for a social credit system to completely control people’s lives. So don’t tell me this is a conspiracy theory. It’s real and it’s happening now in our mother country.
Cash is necessary to ensure these measures are ameliorated as much as possible, which is why the globalist wing of the Liberal Party tried to ban cash in the last parliament, which One Nation defeated. It should be obvious that predatory, parasitic billionaires and some of their lackeys in the Labor and Liberal Party are getting their ducks in a row because they want to be ready for the full implementation of their globalist masters’ control agenda, exactly as they promised. It’s not like they’re hiding any of this. When they tell us what they’re going to do, listen.
Remember this government’s triad of tyranny. Already entered into parliament is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023 to normalise and allow the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens. Here it is. There’s the Digital ID Bill 2023 to force every Australian into having a digital ID. There’s the misinformation and disinformation bill 2023, which will ensure media and social media only carry government sanctioned opinions, and the government is exempted. I implore the Senate to vote against this bill and to reject this bill. This is the first of three bills necessary to turn Australia into the world’s first World Economic Forum digital prison.
At Senate Estimates, I asked the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) about their input into Labor’s Combating Misinformation and Disinformation Bill.
Both ACMA and the Minister claim the bill will retain the democratic right to freedom of speech and freedom of political expression. I don’t believe them! The coercive threat of future government action on tech companies will definitely restrict Australians’ political expression.
How can this basic human right be retained when the government and its mouthpiece media will be the only ones with carte blanche to say whatever they want while everyone else’s views will be open to censorship?
Once a government gives itself an advantage like that over its opponents, both in the political arena and among the public, history informs us of the outcome. Democracy enters decline, every single time.
Former Special Forces Commando Heston Russell repeatedly asked for a correction and an apology for stories the ABC published that defamed him and November platoon. The ABC accused them of committing war crimes in Afghanistan at a time when they weren’t even in that country.
Heston had to sue the ABC for defamation instead. The judge noted the ABC became defensive and considered any criticism as merely part of a culture-war attack. If they had responded properly, the taxpayers could have saved millions of dollars.
The response from the Minister shows a similar level of denial and lack of accountability, answering serious questions with cheap political taunts. What the government needs to remember here is that special forces commando, Heston Russell, was a victim of disinformation published by the ABC. It was an ordeal that he calls the ‘hardest battle he has ever fought’.
As the Government failed to answer, their Misinformation and Disinformation Bill WOULDN’T protect people like Heston Russell from fake news by the ABC as they’ll be excluded from the Bill.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Communications, Senator Watt. Former special forces commando Heston Russell repeatedly asked for a correction and an apology for stories the ABC published that defamed him and November Platoon, accusing them of committing war crimes in Afghanistan at a time when they weren’t even in that country. He offered to settle the case for $99,000, which the ABC refused, and proceeded to trial. The defamatory articles were brought to the attention of Minister Rowland, the Minister for Communications, by a 26,000-signature petition, which she acknowledged on 20 March and on which she failed to act. Minister, what is the cost to the taxpayer for the ABC’s legal fees in this matter so far?
Senator WATT (Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management) : Thank you, Senator Roberts, for that question. I will have to take on notice the exact details of that question that you’ve asked. Presumably, these are matters that you’d also have the opportunity to ask the ABC at estimates next week. So I am happy to come back to you with any details that I can provide on that. The broader issue around any defamation action taken against the ABC is really a matter for ABC management. Of course, this government believes in the independence of the ABC and, in particular, its editorial independence.
Senator Rennick: You mean the bias.
Senator WATT: Senator Rennick, on the other hand, thinks that it’s a biased organisation. That’s a very disappointing remark to make about the national broadcaster but perhaps one that we’re used to after years of ABC cuts under the former government. It would appear that Senator Rennick isn’t the only member of the opposition who regards the ABC as biased. Again, it’s a very disappointing view to express about the national broadcaster—the only publicly funded broadcaster. Again, it probably indicates why the ABC suffered such severe funding cuts under the former government.
So, Senator Roberts, you’ll obviously have the opportunity to ask those questions of ABC management at estimates next week. I know Senator Henderson always has questions for the ABC as well, so she will no doubt do that again next week.
Senator Ruston interjecting—
Senator WATT: Sorry, Senator Ruston, we get to answer the questions, and I’ve already—
Honourable senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order, across the chamber! Minister Watt, please refer to me when you’re answering the question. Senator Henderson?
Senator Henderson: On indulgence—
The PRESIDENT: No, Senator Henderson. Resume your seat. Minister, please continue, or have you finished your answer?
Senator WATT: I actually answered the question in the first five seconds by saying that I’d take those details on notice. But I’m obviously able to then comment on the question more broadly, and that’s what I’ve spent one minute and 55 seconds doing.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a first supplementary question?
Senator ROBERTS: The judge in this trial was scathing of the ABC journalists involved in the case, saying they became defensive and considered any criticism as merely part of a culture-war attack and this inhibited ‘a proper remedial response to criticism’. The ABC journalists thought they were part of a culture war, and that prevented them from acting impartially and reasonably, leading to a potential multimillion dollar bill to taxpayers. Minister, what consequences will the journalists involved face for eroding people’s trust in the ABC, and why hasn’t their employment already been terminated?
Senator WATT: Senator Roberts, I’m pleased to inform you that Australia now has a government that doesn’t have political interference in the ABC and so we have no intention of repeating the sort of intervention that we’ve seen—
Opposition senators interjecting—
Senator Canavan: Where’s the accountability?
The PRESIDENT: Order!
Senator WATT: from some of the people who are yelling across the chamber now in matters involving the ABC. These are matters that are the responsibility of ABC management, and we respect their independence. I understand, Senator Roberts, that the Federal Court has obviously handed down its decision in these defamation proceedings. There do remain several settlement matters before the court, so I probably shouldn’t be commenting any further on what might happen there. And, as I’ve said, the ABC is responsible for managing its legal matters, including defamation claims and litigation, just as any media proprietor, whether it be publicly funded or privately owned, is responsible for managing its legal matters, including when it’s sued for defamation. We believe that the ABC is a trusted source of news, information and entertainment for all Australians and we support it.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a second supplementary question?
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, Heston Russell was a victim of disinformation published by the ABC in an ordeal that he has called the ‘hardest battle he has ever fought’. Can you please confirm that Minister Rowland’s misinformation and disinformation bill would not cover the ABC and won’t protect people like Heston Russell from government disinformation?
Senator WATT: Senator Roberts, I’m very pleased that you’ve taken an interest in matters involving misinformation and disinformation. I welcome your sudden interest in misinformation and disinformation, and I hope that that’s something that you will retain an interest in when it comes to election campaigns that you’re involved in, Senator Roberts. I really do hope that you do that. We’d like to hear more about that.
Senator Canavan: Mediscare was a great example!
Senator WATT: And, Senator Canavan—he’s a big fan of misinformation and disinformation as well, so I look forward to Senator Canavan supporting us in tackling misinformation and disinformation.
Senator Rennick: Where’s this greenhouse that you keep talking about? Talk about disinformation—
Senator WATT: Oh, and Senator Rennick. We’ve got everyone! We’ve got all of the kings of misinformation and disinformation up commenting today!
Senator Rennick interjecting—
Senator WATT: Hello, Gerard; how are you? Of course, the government does have legislation before the parliament to deal with misinformation and disinformation. We think that it is an important issue in today’s media environment, particularly in the social media environment that we’re operating under, and we think that it’s an important piece of legislation to deal with.
The return of Cheng Lei is good news and I can only imagine how relieved her family must be. My intention here was not to discuss Cheng Lei’s release but to highlight the misinformation from Labor around this story, and how this relates to the ACMA Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill the government is aiming to implement.
Penny Wong, as Foreign Affairs Minister, last week took credit for the release of Australian journalist, Cheng Lei. That may be misinformation. According to a Chinese government post, Cheng Lei was released after serving her sentence in China for publishing information under an embargo. In other words, she completed her sentence and was sent home.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it himself: Cheng’s return was not part of a deal struck with Beijing and her release followed the completion of China’s judicial process. It couldn’t be more clear.
Yet the Labor government is passing off Cheng Lei’s release as a Labor government achievement with Penny Wong taking credit herself. The PM even advised his caucus in the aftermath of his failed $450 million Voice referendum to “focus on achievements” and placed the release of Cheng Lei at the top of the list.
Why did I feel this was important to point out in the senate and on the record? It’s an example of misinformation from a government that is about to censor everyone except itself and the accredited media. To a bureaucracy with a censorship hammer, every bit of unapproved information looks like a nail.
I think most of us agree after the past few years that if we are to combat misinformation and disinformation then the government and its media mouthpiece would be the best place to start.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Wong. It’s based on a constituent’s inquiry. Australian journalist Cheng Lei was convicted in China of illegally providing state secrets to overseas parties and imprisoned. Cheng Lei was recently released and arrived back in Australia last week. Minister, can you inform the Senate what role you had personally, your department had and the Prime Minister had in the release of Cheng Lei?
Senator WONG (Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Government in the Senate): I thank the senator for his question. Obviously, as you would expect, this is an issue on which there has been a lot of discussion at various levels with the Chinese authorities, urging the return of Ms Cheng and urging her to be able to return to Australia. I can indicate to you—and obviously some of this is at officer level—that, as I said publicly at the time, this was my first engagement with the then foreign minister Wang Yi, when I first met him at the first bilateral discussion in Bali. It is the practice of Australian governments to ensure that we raise consular cases with other countries, China included, at all appropriate meetings.
I can indicate to the senator that Ms Cheng Lei was the subject of representations from me, the Prime Minister and officers, just as with other consular cases such as Dr Yang’s and with those obviously facing criminal charges. We made those representations at the Prime Minister level, at the foreign minister level and at officer level, and we will continue to do so. I would acknowledge also that this has been the practice under successive governments. I spoke to former senator Payne after I had met Ms Cheng Lei at the airport to let her know before the news became public. I acknowledge that she also raised this with the Chinese authorities— (Time expired)
The President: Senator Roberts, first supplementary?
Senator ROBERTS: The Chinese ministry of state has posted on Weibo that Cheng Lei had been sentenced to two years and 11 months in prison and had been deported after completing her sentence. Minister, your words on Cheng Lei’s arrival at the airport, as quoted in the Guardian, made it clear that the government was taking credit for her release. They quoted you as saying: I made them a promise some time ago we would do everything, I would do everything I could, to bring her home …Minister, who is telling the truth—you or the Chinese government?
Senator WONG: Senator, you and I have differences of opinion, but I regret that you would use something I said about what I said to her children in that way.
An opposition senator: Seriously?
Senator WONG: No—not ‘seriously’. It was an expression of hope, emotion and a degree of humanity, because, like all Australians, I wanted to see a mother return to her children. That was also what I said publicly. The Chinese legal system has been completed. We have seen what they have said—that is, the articulation of the Chinese legal position. What I can say is that we made a priority to make representations— (Time expired)
The President: Senator Roberts, second supplementary?
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, is this a case that proves the Albanese government’s misinformation and disinformation bill should not exclude ‘government misinformation and disinformation’ and
instead should include ‘government misinformation and disinformation’?
The President: Senator Roberts, I’m not sure how it relates, but I’m sure the minister will respond as she sees fit.
Senator WONG: Senator Roberts, there is no misinformation on our side. There is no disinformation on our side. What we have said—and if you had actually tracked every engagement I have had with the Chinese authorities, what I have said afterwards when I have articulated, at least in summary version, what I said to the Chinese authorities and what the Prime Minister said to his counterparts—you would know that we have made these representations. All I can say is this: this is not a partisan issue, and this is not a political issue. This is an issue about an Australian who is now home with her children. Behind her were many Australians across this country and across the political divide who made the same representations to Chinese authorities at all levels that Australians wanted to see a mother united with her children. I think that is a good thing. It was a great privilege to have the opportunity— (Time expired)
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice asked by Senator Roberts today relating to the reporting of the release of Chinese Australian citizen Cheng Lei.
The Chinese government announced that Cheng Lei’s release was simply a matter of her completing a sentence of two years and 11 months. In her explanation though the minister claimed an emotional high ground that is not supported by events at the airport. Minister Wong was most welcome to make remarks to Cheng Lei’s children in private, and she did so. The minister then restated and expanded her remarks to the press, which were widely reported. Further, at that press conference the minister stated that the release of Cheng Lei was a result of Senator Wong’s perseverance, which the minister did not restate in her answer to me. Did her representations have any effect on the Chinese government? Not according to the Chinese government. Who is right? We may never know.
One Nation is concerned about the Albanese government’s misinformation and disinformation bill as applied to this situation. As drafted, the government and mainstream media are exempt from the bill. The Guardian‘s slobbering all over Minister Wong and the Albanese government over Cheng Lei would be exempt from this bill. The government can say whatever it likes and the mouthpiece media can repeat and even embellish those claims and that would be legal. Bloggers and social media companies who question the narrative though would be guilty of misinformation and fined or shut down. Weibo, which announced the Chinese government’s side of the story, has an office in Sydney and would be regulated under that bill. There’s no provision in the bill for truth as a defence. There’s no definition of what is misinformation. If this bill is passed, democracy itself will be at risk from an unending one-sided glorification of the ruling party. Last weekend, Australians rejected this sort of propaganda in the referendum campaign. The government proceeds with a misinformation and disinformation bill at its peril, because the people will see through it, just like they saw through the lies in the ‘yes’ case. This is about censorship.
112 page document obtained under FOI is available for download below.
The Prime Minister has deliberately hidden his true agenda and contradicted his own statements regarding the Voice with lies about the Uluru Statement and a Treaty. He failed to tell Australians that without the constitutional change called the ‘Voice’ there is no national body of Australians with which to sign a Treaty.
On a radio talk show, he was asked if he would move on to a Treaty and he answered ‘no’!
Prime Minister Albanese has called for a Treaty on the record in parliament, and the Uluru statement calls for a treaty. His denials of his intention to proceed to Treaty is a lie too far.
The fact is, PM Albanese is committed to implementing the Uluru statement in full. That is, the entire 26 pages of the Uluru Statement from the Heart that every Australian should read. Not the single solitary page passed off by the PM as the entire statement. Another lie.
The Uluru Statement outlines a plan to divide Australia into two separate nations that closely resemble the apartheid regime. Denying that he intends to proceed to treaty is a lie too far from PM Albanese.
The statement calls for annual reparations calculated as a percentage of our GDP, which even at 1% could amount to $20 billion a year, which as we all know would not reach those who truly need it.
The real aboriginal community look to a shared future of mutual respect and equality of opportunity.
The PM has lost the opportunity for that shared community because of his lies.
Sentiments of respect and equality are missing from this elitist and divisive leader whose real intention has been exposed.
Transcript
Senator Roberts: As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, polling has turned against the Voice because the Prime Minister has told a lie too far.
Prime Minister Albanese said repeatedly that the Uluru statement fits on one A4 page and that he was committed to implementing the statement in full. The Uluru statement is 26 pages; the remaining pages have been released under freedom of information.
These contain a clear path for the partition of Australia into two separate nations that closely resemble South Africa’s apartheid regime. On committing to implementing the Uluru statement in full while lying about the contents of the statement, the Prime Minister has told a lie too far. As opposition leader—
The Acting Deputy President (Senator Sterle): Sorry, Senator Roberts, there is a point of order.
Senator Carol Brown: I ask Senator Roberts to withdraw those assertions about the Prime Minister.
Senator Roberts: I withdraw that statement and say he has told what seems to me to be a lie too far. As opposition leader, Prime Minister Albanese—
Senator Roberts: A mistruth too far. As opposition leader, Prime Minister Albanese said the Voice must be followed by a makarrata commission to inform a national treaty, yet he failed to tell Australians that without the Voice passing there is no national body of Australians with which to sign a treaty. The Prime Minister’s decision to not admit that without a voice there can be no meaningful treaty is a mistruth too far. When asked on ABC radio if he will move on to treaty if the Voice is passed, the Prime Minister said no; his exact word was ‘no’. Yet the Uluru statement includes a high-level treaty and the Prime Minister has called in parliament for a treaty. It’s on record, and he has the T-shirt to prove it!
The Prime Minister’s denial of his intention to proceed to treaty is a mistruth too far. The Uluru statement calls for reparations in the form of an annual cash payment calculated as a percentage of GDP. Even one per cent would be $20 billion a year in cash to 800,000 Aboriginals, or $100,000 for a family of four, which, as compensation, is tax free. The Prime Minister deliberately hid his true agenda. He’s been found out and he’s now lost any chance of a settlement with the real Aboriginal community that looks to a shared future of mutual respect and equality of opportunity. Loss of shared community is a heavy penalty for one man’s mistruth too far. (Time expired)
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