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COVID Report a Whitewash: Royal Commission Now

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I joined Ben Dobbins on Rural Queensland today to talk about the Government releasing their COVID cover-up report. There were more holes in this inquiry than a block of swiss cheese, we need a Royal Commission to get the evidence so charges can be laid.

Transcript

Ben Dobbins:

Welcome back to Rural Queensland Today. I normally don’t get two politicians in one day, but this is very important. Malcolm Roberts joins us this morning, the One Nation Queensland senator, and rightly so, is pissed off. Now, the federal government have released a report after holding an inquiry into the COVID-19 response. Well, it was meant to come out in September, but their delay is typical. But gee whiz Malcolm, a lot has come out now to show that, jeez, we handled this poorly. We handled it so poorly and a lot of what everybody was saying was wrong from the government. Good morning.

Senator Malcolm Roberts:

Good morning Ben, and thank you for having me on. You’re absolutely correct.

Look, let’s face it, mate. This is a whitewash inquiry. And despite the fact that it was a whitewash and a cover-up, they couldn’t suppress some key points that you just very clearly articulated. The inquiry members were three supporters of lockdowns. They’re insider appointments from the government. They choked the terms of reference, they had left out the states, and yet the states were so egregious in the handling of this virus that they couldn’t help but condemn the states. There was no power in this whitewash inquiry to compel witnesses and to compel the giving of evidence.

And Ben, it’s so ironic. I moved a motion that was successful in the Senate last year, about this time last year, to have an inquiry into developing … Drafting the possible terms of reference for a possible future Royal Commission. That was an outstanding inquiry. We have got terms of reference, and I must commend Senator Paul Scarfe and the Liberal Party, who was chairman. Gave us free rein. And mate, we developed a phenomenal, and he in particular developed a phenomenal set of terms of reference, and that work has been used by the Kiwis in now extending their royal commission and making it a fair dinkum Royal Commission, and yet here we are in Australia with no Royal Commission.

Ben Dobbins:

Okay. What do you want to see now happen? Because it caused a lot of heartache for a lot of people, financially, emotionally. The whole thing has been a disaster. What would you have liked to have seen and what were the recommendations that come out of this report?

Senator Malcolm Roberts:

Well, first thing I’d like to see is a proper fair dinkum Royal Commission. A judicial inquiry that can compel witnesses, compel, evidence. The bureau of-

Ben Dobbins:

What are we going to get from that, Malcolm it’s a dog’s breakfast.

Senator Malcolm Roberts:

What we going to get is details around what was a dog’s breakfast. For example, I’m just going off some of the words from Minister Butler, the Labour Party minister and the Senate Health Minister in Canberra, who introduced the report from these commissioners yesterday. There was no shift. Listen to this. There was no shift from precautionary principle, which was used at the start, and we accept that, to a more evidence-based approach, including non-health aspects in a proportionate response. He is basically saying, in nice words, that was not evidence-based, it was not data-driven. It was disproportionate and completely over the top. That’s what we need to understand why and how that happened.

Then he said there’s a lack of transparency about the profound effect, exactly as you just said, on the lives of Australians and the loss of freedoms, their words from the report and from the minister. And then he said that there’s been a massive decrease in trust because a lack of real-time evidence-based policy. In other words, the policy was not based on real-time evidence. It was not based on data. And he said, “There’s been a huge decline in trust,” and that’s what the committee has said. We need to go into the details of all this and hold people accountable.

Ben, you will not get people to trust again until we know what went wrong in detail. You’ve got to have accountability. The government did not … And he also pointed out the government did not trust the people. So what we’ve got to do is restore basic freedoms, restore basic trust from the government and the people and get the details about this.

Ben Dobbins:

Yeah. I absolutely, absolutely agree with you 100%. I think it’s imperative that this happens, and something that I think needs to happen more and more. I absolutely fundamentally think that this should be something long-term that we look at even more and more. It’s important that we do this. It’s important that we have a long-term plan to make sure that this never happens again. We absolutely never go down this same road. So is that the reason why you want to get this … So if it does happen again, we never get locked up, vaccinated, our liberties absolutely taken away from us, families seeing loved ones die in the hospitals and not having any say of seeing them goodbye. Is that what you’re trying to get to so we never see this happen again?

Senator Malcolm Roberts:

Correct. But bit more than that. The minister himself and this Whitewash committee has confirmed that it was a disproportionate response along the lines you just said. For example, the panel has said, apparently, many of the measures taken in COVID are unlikely to be accepted by the population again. That means until the trust is restored, there will be no compliance, and there’ll be no voluntary adherence to it.

But Ben, we need to go further. I’m not going to talk about what you just said because you said it very, very well. We need to go further. Remember, in the early days of COVID we couldn’t get masks, we couldn’t get a lot of other things? We need to develop … One of the recommendations from this whitewash inquiry is to develop a whole of government plan to improve domestic and international supply chain resilience. Mate, we know that the food production is being interfered with in this country. The regions are doing their best to provide food, and the government is undermining their policy. We also know that you cannot manufacture and process without cheap energy, and our energy policies have been destroying our country’s productive capacity. We need a royal commission to get into the details of what is needed for complete recovery of our country. It’s on a highway to hell.

Ben Dobbins:

Yeah, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Malcolm, thanks so much for being with us. We might actually get this report up. One Nation Senator, thanks so much for being with us.

Senator Malcolm Roberts:

You’re welcome, Ben. Thanks for telling the truth.

Ben Dobbins:

Good on you. We’ll take a break. Come back. This is Rural Queensland Today.

Thanks mate.

Senator Malcolm Roberts:

You’re welcome, Ben. Keep doing what you’re doing, mate.

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Labor Rejects Royal Commission into COVID

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Labor refuses to call a Royal Commission into COVID, because they’ve already been given $1 million in donations from Big Pharma.

One Nation is calling for a COVID Royal Commission now, to ensure we never repeat the same mistakes.

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Middle East in Turmoil, Misinformation Bill doomed to fail? ADH TV with Chris Smith

I talked the Middle East, Misinformation, COVID Royal Commission, the Immigration Housing Crisis and Net Zero Madness on ADH TV.

As the middle east descends into war again my concern is making sure we don’t send Australian sons and daughters to another conflict in far away lands again.

Thanks for having me on Chris.

www.adh.tv

Transcript

Chris Smith: Well, the federal government’s latest stance on Israel’s war with Hamas, Hezbollah. And now Iran has put Australia at odds with its number one ally, the United States, as well as with Israel, the United Kingdom and Canada. It seems as if labor is redrawing Australia’s military and diplomatic position in the world. And, as I mentioned earlier, does taking such a solo stance no longer guarantee reciprocal support from those countries? 

If or when Australia is faced with aggression from, say, China or whoever in the Indo-Pacific? Let’s bring in Queensland One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts on that and more. Senator, welcome back to TV. Thank you Chris. Good to be back. Thanks for the invitation. Israel’s most recent attacks on Hezbollah were aimed at preventing a repeat of the October 7th massacre. 

Is Peter Dutton right to say the Prime Minister should be condemned for falling out with our allies? 

SENATOR ROBERTS: This is a big escalation on Israel’s part. It’s almost all at war, but it’s something that I think that Israel has a right to defend and defend itself. The history of this, this area, this region of the world is rife with lies, complexities, contradictions. And, you know, the first casualty in war is the truth. So we’ll never know. 

But Israel has a right to defend itself, but we must keep Australia out of it. We must keep Australia out of it. We followed the Americans into just about everything, without question. They’re an important ally of ours. But we must hold them accountable as well.  

Chris Smith: Do you sense that Anthony Albanese is trying to appease voters in those Muslim concentrated seats in south western Sydney? 

SENATOR ROBERTS: Yes, without a doubt. Anthony Albanese has shown a distinct, lack of respect for Australia’s position in in his deliberations. What he wants to do is promote the Labor Party that the the national interest is not in Anthony Albanese’s calculations.  

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

SENATOR ROBERTS: It’s a very good sign of good news. We put, a motion out, matter of urgency thus Monday of the sitting in the Senate. And there were quite a few signals coming across to us that people wouldn’t support it. So that’s why we did that. That matter of urgency had forced a vote on it. But just remember, it’s not labor’s, misinformation. 

Disinformation bill. The Morrison Liberal National’s with Morrison Littleproud in charge introduced it into the into the parliament. Labor brought it back and and he’s now putting it into the voting regime process. And now the liberals are saying they will come up with their own before the next election. The liberals just don’t get it. No one wants this bloody censorship bill. 

And One Nation makes a promise they will never introduce such a bill. The best, best defense of truth is to let debate happen. And then we’ve got the largest perpetrators of misinformation and disinformation is the government. This Albanese government takes the cake. It’s all about control and censorship and they haven’t got the guts to do it themselves. 

They’re trying to intimidate the, search engines and platforms into doing it for them and putting them in a position where, as someone said recently, they’ll be fined if they if they don’t exercise enough control, enough censorship, but they will not be fined if they if they exercise excessive censorship. This is just about getting government control over the over the debate in this country and suppressing free speech. 

That’s all it is. One nation will never, ever introduce such a bill.  

Chris Smith: I couldn’t agree more. As a matter of fact, if an opposition or a government wants to do anything about what we say freely, I think they should win back the restriction that exist right now, because the Esafety czar is out of control. I agree with you. And this this compounds the the problem.  

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

Chris Smith: Okay. Another subject. Labor has delayed the public release of its Covid 19 review. What is the government afraid of to show, do you think? 

SENATOR ROBERTS: Review? You’d hardly call it a review. Chris, I think you’re being very, very kind. Look, the panelists were biased. They were lockdown supporters. They’re not allowed to look at the state responses. They’ve got no investigating powers. Investigative powers. They’ve got no compare to compel. Compel evidence, compel documents, compel witnesses. This is just a sham. It is to get at Morrison and Morrison should be got out. 

He deserves to be really hammered on this. But he’s no more guilty then than, he’s just as guilty rather as the state premiers who will mostly labor. This is a protection racket for the labor premiers and the labor bureaucrats. We need a royal commission now 

Chris Smith: Now you say, I would have thought the Royal Commission needs to look at two things that that so-called review is not even touching the states, as you mentioned, and their role when it came to lockdowns and all kinds of freebies that were handed out to the public. But also on top of that, the deals that were done with big Pharma over those, those damn vaccines that have proved to be a con themselves. 

SENATOR ROBERTS: I agree with you entirely. There are, in fact, there are many, many areas that need to be looked at. Chris, we, I moved a motion to get one of the committees, two in the Senate, to investigate and develop, a draft terms of reference for a possible royal commission. And that that was passed through the Senate, that the committee did it. 

And I want to commend former barrister Julian Gillespie for he pulled an enormous team together and developed a phenomenal submission, 180 pages. I think it was 46,000 signatures. It was the people’s submission. And they covered it. Was it it turned it into a de facto inquiry into Covid. And it covers everything. And the royal and the, the chair, Paul Scott, I must say, the committee did a phenomenal job, along with the Secretariat, of pulling that into something that’s very, very workable. 

A draft terms of reference ready to go. And they’re completely comprehensive, cover every topic imaginable.  

Chris Smith: Let’s get on to energy. Now, a report from the US Energy Department is saying that with nuclear electricity, prices will drop 37%. Chris Bowen says renewables will always be cheaper. This is basically a blatant lie, isn’t it, Malcolm?  

SENATOR ROBERTS: Well, you stole the word right out of my mouth. It is a lie. It is fraud. Fraud is the presentation of something as it is not for personal gain. Chris Bowen has been pushing this bandwagon the lies fraudulently to get political capital. He is telling lie after lie. Solar and wind are the most expensive forms of energy that’s repeated everywhere. You know, AEMO doesn’t even cost the lowest price system. 

What they did with the relying on GenCost in the first place was false assumptions underpinning their calculations for solar and wind to make them look favorable and negative assumptions, and under coal to make it look unaffordable. That is completely false. And now we’ve got a circular argument that’s baked in, that’s beaten back to us all the time. 

Now, it doesn’t cost the lowest price systems. It’s forced to exclude the cost of calculating coal or nuclear disaster. Rubbish stuff that comes out of the south end of North Band bull.  

Chris Smith:Yeah, well, the CSIRO should be condemned completely for their reliance on that gen cost report. Malcolm.  

SENATOR ROBERTS: That is fraud as well Chris. That was a deliberate misrepresentation of the energy structure. It was politically driven to achieve a political objective the same as their climate. The CSIRO has admitted to me the politician’s quoting them as saying that there’s a danger in carbon dioxide from human activity. The CSIRO has denied ever saying that and they said they would never say it. They admitted to me that the temperatures today and not a not unusual, not, unprecedented. 

So the whole thing is based on the stuff that comes out of the south end of North Bound book. The CSIRO is guilty of misrepresenting climate science, misrepresenting nature and misrepresenting climate presenting energy. It’s just a fraud to extract money, to make billionaires richer, and to make, foreign multinationals richer.  

Chris Smith: Spot on.  

SENATOR ROBERTS: We pay for it  

Chris Smith: You’re not wrong. I think it’s fair to say to Malcolm that Australia’s immigration program is now officially out of control, and the worst it has ever been. 

SENATOR ROBERTS: Without a doubt. Completely agree with you. We have more than 2.4 million residents, excluding tourist million residents who are not citizens. Excluding tourists. Rent is up 52% in five years. Now, just remember that, the Albanese promised a after the last financial year where we got 518,000 net immigrants, by far the largest ever, almost double the previous record. 

Albanese comments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll cut it. Immigration is coming in this year is higher than the record from last year. Higher. These people are just telling lies after lies. Lies. And the thing is they’re hiding over a per person per capita recession. That’s what they don’t want to be. 

The government that was in place when the recession occurred. They would rather see people sleeping under bridges, in tents, in cars. I mean, working families. Kids are going home at night to their kids and sleeping in cars. Where do they shower? Where do they toilet? I mean, we got the richest state in the world, potentially in Queensland, and we got people living under bridges, families, working families. 

And because the government, it just wants to look good by by lifting up GDP to make sure we don’t have a recession, we would be in a recession now without large scale immigration fudging the numbers. 

Chris Smith Fudging the numbers. That’s exactly what large scale immigration does. It’s terrific to have you on the program. Senator Malcolm Roberts, thank you for your time. 

SENATOR ROBERTS: You’re welcome Chris, any time. All right. Queensland Senator Malcolm Roberts, 

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PRESS RELEASE: UNIVERSAL SUPPORT FOR COVID ROYAL COMMISSION AT FIRST INQUIRY HEARING

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Key stakeholders have universally supported establishing a COVID Royal Commission while many slam the Prime Minister’s COVID review panel as a toothless tiger. 

Doctors, unions, human rights lawyers, vaccine injured and Royal Commission experts were among the witnesses to give evidence at a Senate inquiry tasked with proposing terms of reference for a future COVID Royal Commission as pressure mounts on the Albanese Government. 

In a rarity for parliamentary inquiries, every single witness was united in their support for an expansive, fully empowered Royal Commission into the Federal and State Governments’ response to COVID. 

Senator Malcolm Roberts who established the Senate inquiry said the evidence heard on Thursday meant it was only a matter of time before the Prime Minister’s hand was forced. 

“The largest government economic and health response in the wake of COVID deserves a fully empowered Royal Commission. 

“Nearly four years on from the start of COVID-19 Australians still don’t have answers about why Government took some of the most draconian measures in Australian history. 

“Anthony Albanese’s COVID review panel is made up of insiders who vocally supported the harshest lockdowns in the world. It’s a toothless tiger made to whitewash everything the Federal government did while turning a blind eye to anything State governments did. 

“The Albanese Government took less than three months to call its first Royal Commission. With the Government’s second anniversary approaching without a COVID Royal Commission Australians are asking the Prime Minister, what have you got to hide? 

“Only a Royal Commission can answer why government had vaccine mandates for a vaccine that didn’t stop transmission, secret health advice that was never published, established plans for pandemic response that were ignored and the longest lockdowns in the world called over a virus as severe as some flus. 

“We cannot afford to make the same mistakes again. Anthony Albanese must call this Royal Commission so we can get to the bottom of it all. 

ENDS 

A recording of the public hearing is available below:

Senate Inquiry to Draft Terms of Reference for a Future COVID Royal Commission
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COVID Royal Commission Draft Terms of Reference Release

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is giving the Australian people a say about a Royal Commission into the management of the COVID-19 pandemic by Australian governments.

While the Prime Minister may be prepared to wait and kick this can down the road, One Nation is not.

I’ve been working with Pauline Hanson on developing draft terms of reference for the Royal Commission. We want to make sure these terms of reference capture all of the information which Australians need to see – the deliberations of National Cabinet, the advice from health bureaucrats which state and territory governments used to justify lockdowns and vaccine mandates, and the real data on COVID-19 deaths.

We’ve posted these draft terms of reference on the One Nation website and we’re now asking for input from the Australian people. It’s absolutely essential this Royal Commission enables individual Australians to tell their stories of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thousands of Australians lost their jobs due to lockdowns and mandates. Our children’s education was severely interrupted. Businesses across Australia suffered significant losses or closed altogether. Australian governments spent hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in pandemic relief. Experimental vaccines were rushed through approvals and imposed on millions of Australians. This has been one of the most disruptive events in our history.

Australians who’d like to provide feedback are invited to visit the One Nation website: https://www.onenation.org.au/covid-19-royal-commission-draft-tor

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Greens expert runs from giving evidence

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This afternoon I had the opportunity to ask questions in the Senate Committee on “Lessons to be learned in relation to the Australian bushfire.”

I chose to ask my questions to Greg Mullins who is a Climate Councillor with the (Tim Flannery’s) Climate Council. Mr Mullins wasn’t too keen on answering my questions and took the name calling route rather than providing the evidence I asked for.

“I’m a retired person, I don’t have time to deal with denialists who can’t accept settled science.” Mr Mullins is the person who the Greens rely on as their climate expert during the recent bushfires.

Transcript

[Senator Roberts]

Thank you chair, and thank you Mr. Mullins for attending today, and also thank you very much for your service over many years, in fact nearly half a century.

I’m very pleased that the opening sentence, in fact the opening line of your presentation, you used the word empirical, and when I first used that in the senate in 2016 and in the media a lot of journalists were running off getting their dictionaries and senators were giggling and carrying on. I am pleased to see that you have used that word empirical.

There is another part to that though that needs to be proven when it comes to cause and effect. It’s not just the word empirical, not just the empirical data, but also presenting that in a causal framework that establishes cause and effect, and you’re with me on that?

[Greg Mullins]

Uh, yes.

[Senator Roberts]

I’ve had to use data because I’ve had to manage people’s lives and make sure people stayed alive, so I always relied on empirical data and understood cause and effect especially investigating safety incidents to establish cause.

Now in your opening paragraph and in your recommendation one you state irrefutable empirical scientific data concerning warming climate proven to be caused by burning of coal, oil, and gas is resulting in worsening and more frequent extreme weather events that spawned the 2019 bush fires. Could you please tell me the specific source of your empirical scientific evidence within a logical structure proving cause and effect that carbon dioxide from human activity affects climate?

I’d like to know the specific title of the publication, I’d like to know the specific page numbers in which the data is presented, and in which the causal relationship is established.

Now I know you’ve used a lot of references from SBS, The Guardian, the Greens Party, The Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, the ABC, but I would like to know the specific location of the specific empirical data that scientifically proves cause and effect that carbon dioxide from human activity affects climate. Could you do that for me please either on notice or now?

[Greg Mullins]

Uh, senator or chair, do I have to answer this question? Senator, I’ve read your website, I’ve read, or tried to read, a lot of your stuff that you’ve published, and so I’ve read very widely for and against. I don’t think there would be any purpose served me trying to convince you of what thousands of scientists agreed on and the settled science, and it is settled science, and I’m at a loss to know how to deal with your assertion, I won’t call it a question.

[Chair]

Thanks Mr. Mullins, Senator Roberts.

[Senator Roberts]

Can you provide me with one title of empirical scientific evidence in a causal framework establishing cause and affect?. Not one?

[Greg Mullins]

Look I could provide many for you, but I’m a retired person.

[Senator Roberts]

One would do, just one.

[Greg Mullins]

I frankly don’t have the time to deal with denialists who can’t accept settled science.

[Chair]

I think what I propose, thanks Senator Roberts.

[Greg Mullins]

That was not an admission, it was exasperation senator.

[Senator Roberts]

Now we have talked also about-

[Chair]

You’ve got one last question Senator Roberts if that’s okay, we are out of time.

[Senator Roberts]

Yeah one more question, that’d be fine. Are you aware, Mr. Mullins, that in my cross-examination of the CSIRO that the CSIRO’s acting head of climate change admitted to me that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented and that the CSIRO admitted to me in an earlier presentation in Sydney that they have never said that carbon dioxide from human activity poses a danger and they never will say it.

Are you aware that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented?

[Greg Mullins]

Senator, now that’s a very broad question. Are you talking about hundreds of millions of years when the dinosaurs were roaming the earth or when humans, and look I say again, I have read your material and the assertions made therein under the guise of being in scientific language, and I find it very concerning and quite muddled, and I’d be very surprised if the CSIRO said what you’ve just stated just as you said that I didn’t have any reference, it wasn’t true.

[Senator Roberts]

Thank you very much chair.

[Chair]

Thanks senator Roberts,

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Murray Darling Basin investigation a whitewash

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One Nation Senator Roberts expressed sheer disbelief and disappointment with the Keelty report into the Murray Darling Basin’s water allocations to farmers who need water to grow food.

Senator Roberts said, “As the nation reels from COVID-19 and faces food shortages this report is woefully inadequate and a tragic waste of taxpayers’ money. “

“An investigation should demonstrate rigour and analysis and instead Mr Keelty’s report is full of inadequacies.”

The report fails to include in its datasets this year’s substantial rainfall event and does not acknowledge rainfall within the MDB has increased over the past 100 years. Instead the Keelty analysis deceitfully uses ‘declining inflows’ as a way of arguing why farmers should be denied a fair allocation of water.

When 4000 disenchanted farmers descended on Canberra to protest the unfair allocation of water between the environment and farmers, they were promised that their zero allocations would be the subject of this review.

“It is deeply disappointing, particularly now when our agricultural productive capacity is under-utilised, that this issue was not rigorously examined by Mr Keelty.  Astonishingly the report fails to even mention those zero allocations,” added Senator Roberts.

As predicted by many farmers, the former Water Minister David Littleproud used the promise of an investigation into the MDB to quieten the crowd of protestors and conveniently shift blame to the States and irrigators.

Irrigators are suspicious of MDBA figures that show declining inflows when the Murray River has been running so high that environmental damage has resulted along the upper Murray and Barmah/Millewa forest from excessive water.

Disturbingly the report claims that environmental water is not being wasted, ignoring the unnecessary flooding of forests, excess water flushed out to sea in South Australia and keeping the lower lakes filled above their natural levels with Murray River water.

“The report may as well have been written by the MDBA itself, as it addresses none of the concerns from farmers, some of which have gone without a water allocation for 3 years.”

COVID-19 has highlighted the critical importance of Australia restoring our productive capacity across many strategic industries, including our agricultural sector.

“The Keelty report’s lack of due diligence in this investigation is akin to the last nail in the coffin of one of Australia’s most substantial food bowls. No water, no food,” Senator Roberts added.

Unsurprisingly, the report found that a lack of trust and leadership worsened the problems. One Nation calls for a Royal Commission into misconduct in the implementation of the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

“Trust cannot be restored until rorting has been exposed and fixed.  Australia needs management of the MDB Plan that reflects a genuine triple benefit – for irrigators, communities and the environment,” Senator Roberts stated.

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