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Last week (May 27 to June 1, 2024), the World Health Assembly (WHA77) of the World Health Organisation (WHO) debated two matters. The first was a new Pandemic Treaty designed to expand the powers of the WHO beyond pandemics, to include any health issue related to human, plant, or animal health, granting them the power to compel nations to comply with its directives. After two and a half years of negotiation, the Treaty was not brought to a vote and has been delayed for another year. This is a black eye to the nations, including Australia, that tried to subjugate Australian sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats in Geneva and who are owned by pharmaceutical companies.

The second matter that passed involved changes to WHO’s operating manual, known as the International Health Regulations. The proposed changes would have granted the WHO similar powers to the Pandemic Treaty. These changes were also opposed by member states. The outcome were minor changes that take on board lessons learned from COVID and contains no loss of sovereignty. These changes will reduce the chance of a nation infecting the world with a virus while pretending nothing was wrong, as happened with COVID.

There are legal objections to the amendments passing. For instance, the notice given of the changes breached the WHO constitution, which poses a significant problem.

Yesterday at Estimates, I asked the officials who attended WHA77 about the comments made by Health Minister Mark Butler, where he called for stronger binding powers. Instead of addressing Minister Butler’s comment, their response focused on the measures that were passed, thereby avoiding the topic of “binding”. Let me help the bureaucrats out: binding (adjective) that which must be obeyed.

This is what they were avoiding saying: Minister Butler is calling for Australian sovereignty to be ceded to unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats on the other side of the world, as if they know better than our own health workers, here on the ground, what is best for Australia.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My questions are in regard to Minister Butler’s comments at the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly in Geneva last week and, following on from that, the World Health Organization’s attempts at pandemic treaties and international health regulation amendments. Minister Butler, at the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly in Geneva last week, made the following comments: We are fully committed to concluding the World Health Organization pandemic agreement. Together, we have made considerable progress in our shared ambition towards a set of binding international commitments for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Could you please explain to me what he means by the word ‘binding’?  

Prof. Kelly: I was present in the room in Geneva when the minister made that statement that you’ve quoted. I must say it was one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had as an Australian to hear our own minister for health at such an assembly defending and encouraging the world to think about multilateralism to protect us from the next pandemic. That’s what the changes to the International Health Regulations that went through the assembly by the end of last week and the continued work on the pandemic agreement represent. If we think about a global pandemic, the only way to protect Australians in the best way is to be part of a global approach to preparing for the next pandemic, for putting in place things that can respond quickly and appropriately and for the whole world to have the same direction. I’ll pass on to my colleague Mr Ross Hawkins, who will be able to give more detail on the specifics of your question.  

Senator ROBERTS: Can someone answer that specific point about ‘binding’?  

Mr Hawkins: Within the formation of the IHR, there are elements that are binding on nation states, and we can go to the process that this would need to go through in terms of its adoption within Australia and what that looks like in terms of JSCOT processes. It’s important to note there are certain elements in there that we would look to commit to. These are things that Australia is already doing. But largely, this is around the kind of multinational approach that Professor Kelly took us through there and getting a sense of commitment across the globe on how we deal with global health issues. With the notion of the binding elements within the IHR, there’s elements regarding the establishment of an IHR authority, which Australia has in its interim CDC. It talks about the strengthening of frameworks—  

Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me? Could you explain that, please—’which Australia has’?  

Mr Hawkins: Yes. Professor Kelly will take us through the interim CDC that we have, and that will be— 

Senator ROBERTS: CDC being the Australian CDC?  

Mr Hawkins: Centre for Disease Control, correct.  

Senator ROBERTS: But Australia’s?  

Mr Hawkins: Correct. I think it’s really important for us to establish that there is no change in the IHRs to the way that member states adopt within national legislation what this would look like. There is no power grab by the WHO. This is actually around how we will adopt this within Australia, or what we’re already doing in Australia to strengthen our surveillance and prevention and preparedness for a global pandemic.  

Senator ROBERTS: I understand there’s no power grab. It started off as an enormous power grab, but it got watered down because the African nations told them to go to hell, basically.  

Mr Hawkins: I would—  

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, that’s not parliamentary and not appropriate for this committee.  

Senator ROBERTS: The African nations said they wouldn’t be supporting it.  

Mr Hawkins: I would not agree. We’ve seen the various iterations of this. Let’s be honest, the IHRs have existed since 1969. They had an iteration in 2005, and this is the latest iteration in 2024. They are there in place to protect us with respect to trade and travel across the globe. These are things that protect Australians. It’s not a power grab by the WHO. There is a genuine sense that from a multilateral perspective all nations take a similar approach to how we deal with surveillance and preparedness. 

Senator ROBERTS: So, what does ‘binding’ mean?  

Mr Hawkins: As I’ve described to you, there are various elements within the current form of the IHRs that Australia would look to comply with.  

Senator ROBERTS: So we would cede our sovereignty on those issues?  

Mr Hawkins: As I’ve reiterated, let me please read to you what sits in article 3, which is really clear, within the IHRs that ‘states have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law the sovereign right to legislate and to implement legislation in pursuance of their health policies’. It is enshrined in here that we are not ceding sovereignty.  

Senator ROBERTS: So ‘binding’ denotes penalties for noncompliance, I assume. What penalties should be applied to countries that refuse to do as the WHO tells us in the event we don’t agree the instruction is in our best interests? Where are you drawing the line on penalties?  

Mr Hawkins: There’s no penalty.  

Senator ROBERTS: So what makes them binding?  

Mr Hawkins: This is under international law and this is part of that broader international framework. But sitting within the current formation of the IHR there is no penalty.  

Senator ROBERTS: Within the current formation of the IHR?  

Mr Hawkins: Within the formation that’s just been agreed within the World Health Assembly.  

Senator ROBERTS: So we have an initial IHR that goes back to 2007. I note the earlier ones—  

Mr Hawkins: 2005  

Senator ROBERTS: but it goes back to 2007. Then they tried to bring in very strong amendments, and the Africans and other nations said no, and they’ve watered it back almost to the same as in 2007 is my understanding.  

Mr Hawkins: No, that’s not my understanding. We would go by what is an official document. The 2005 IHRs were accepted and agreed. There have been amendments historically to the IHR that have taken place over time. It’s just that with the nature of COVID and with the work that Helen Clark did in terms of broader preparedness—  

Senator ROBERTS: Helen Clark, the former New Zealand Prime Minister?  

Mr Hawkins: Correct, working for the WHO. This is all work that’s taken place in terms of the broader approach to the IHRs and to the pandemic agreement around what’s needed to strengthen the global response to COVID. This is the work that’s clearly taken place over that time, and the formation through this process two years ago. This is the kind of process that people have gone through over a significant amount of time in order to ensure that we’ve got robust global controls in place.  

Senator ROBERTS: If I have time at the end, perhaps we can come back to the World Health Organization’s process, because it’s not as you said it is; it’s not innocent. Health is constantly—  

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I do need to allow the official a chance to respond to that, please. Mr Hawkins. 

Mr Hawkins: I’m sorry. I’m giving you the information that’s available to me. The majority of this is available on the World Health Organization website. I’m trying to respond to you. I’m not trying to hide from you anything that doesn’t or—  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m not accusing you of doing that.  

Mr Hawkins: Thank you.  

Senator ROBERTS: Not at all. I’m just saying we differ in our opinions. I’ve had other advice that’s very solid on the process. We’ve been monitoring the process for the last two-and-a-bit years.  

Prof. Kelly: Senator, if I could also correct the statement you made about the African nations? As my colleague has said, this process has been going for the last two years specifically around the IHRs. It is a negotiation. Many views have been placed on the table. On Saturday, 194 member states of the WHO—and it’s a member organisation—voted unanimously to adopt those changes by consensus, plus the Holy See and Liechtenstein. So there were 196, actually. There was a block of African nations who were concerned about some of the issues related to the proposed changes, but in the end it was adopted by consensus.  

Senator ROBERTS: We’ll come to that later, but my understanding is that some months ago, even a year ago, the Africans said, ‘No way.’ The UN World Health Organization requires consensus. As a result of the African bloc and some European countries and a lot of people around the world being upset, the World Health Organization trimmed its demands and now we’ve gone back to something that’s fairly simple. As I said, let’s get into that at the end.  

Senator Gallagher: It’s an agreement, and it’s not unusual in multilateral forums for negotiations to land in a particular way. In my experience, that is prevalent in every single international negotiation.  

Senator ROBERTS: Agreed, but what happened here was the Africans told them they would not agree to the previously very strong changes, and they’ve watered them back as a result of that. Health is constitutionally a state matter. External affairs powers allow the Commonwealth government to make certain treaties. Was there any attempt in the minister’s rush to sign away our sovereignty to get agreement from the rights holders from the states?  

Mr Comley: Can I just intervene for a moment here. Responsibility for dealing with the technicalities of international law and all constitutional advice is actually a matter for the Attorney-General’s Department.  

Senator ROBERTS: That’s what I just said.  

Mr Comley: I’m respectfully suggesting that if you have a detailed question around that it should be put at the estimates for Attorney-General’s Department. We can help you with what we understand by the current state as we’ve advised. If I just go back a step, as to the point that I think Mr Hawkins was trying to make at the start—and it goes to language—’binding’ is often used in international conferences, but no international instrument or treaty can change Australia’s Constitution nor prevail over Australian laws without it being adopted into Australian law. When it gets adopted into—  

Senator ROBERTS: That’s the key point.  

Mr Comley: That is the key point, which I don’t think we are disputing. This comes to the point of sovereignty and comes to the point that, if we were going through a process of adopting an international law, the standard process goes through a consultation process, including through JSCOT and engaging with relevant stakeholders. On your observation about constitutional responsibility for health—there is a mixed responsibility in the Constitution because there are powers that allow Commonwealth health benefits for individuals. I don’t want to go much further into that because I think I’m straying into what is a constitutional interpretation of the roles. The fundamental point here is that international agreements have to be adopted into Australian law. They go through a process, including JSCOT. If they’re adopted through that JSCOT process they become binding in that country. When the minister says we want a binding agreement, he is urging the international community to follow through with the commitment they’ve made in the conference to adopt those into their domestic law. Some countries may ultimately choose not to, and then that will come back to that body. This is not unusual in international law. In my previous lives doing climate change, there were times when there’s been a change of administration in countries that have led them to decide whether they would stay as a ratified member of a treaty. The process is quite clear. At the point in time they were in the agreement that was the intention of all the parties, to make the binding commitment. My experience in international negotiations is that countries do not make a commitment lightly, even though there may be domestic processes to give effect to it.  

Senator ROBERTS: What you’ve done just then, Mr Comley, is actually reinforce my comment that it is an external affairs power, but the states are involved in health. My question was very simple: have the states been consulted on these changes? Are the states involved in the process? That was my only question. Is there an answer?  

Mr Hawkins: There is. We’ve consulted the states and territories. I’ve personally been on two teleconferences with them to talk them through the broad approach, noting that obviously, as already outlined by Senator Gallagher and Mr Comley, these things often form part of a negotiation that took place at the WHA. But we’ve been talking with states and territory officials around this process.  

Senator ROBERTS: The minister also said: We have a strong basis on which to finalise important amendments to the international health regulations this week. I urge all member states to redouble their efforts to agree on critical reforms to our global health architecture, because we simply cannot afford to fail. Why can’t we afford to fail? Is he saying that our Australian health department is incapable of running a pandemic response in Australia all by itself without the big daddy World Health Organization telling us what to do?  

Senator Gallagher: Senator ROBERTS, I wasn’t there; perhaps Professor Kelly is better placed to answer. The way I understand those comments is to say that protection of the Australian people relies on a global response to pandemic management. We’re not immune from what happens in other parts of the world, as we have experienced in the last pandemic.  

Senator ROBERTS: And the World Health Organization—  

Senator Gallagher: So it’s around national security and national safety and protection of the Australian population.  

Senator ROBERTS: The World Health Organization, in the last outbreak with COVID, was telling us there was no human-to-human transmission and that there was nothing to see at first. That delayed the response in other countries. The World Health Organization is guilty of that. They’re a corrupt criminal organisation.  

CHAIR: You have your views on that, Senator ROBERTS, and I don’t seek to convince you otherwise, but we—  

Senator ROBERTS: You’d be going against the facts.  

Senator Gallagher: No, I don’t agree with you on that.  

Senator ROBERTS: They’re two factually correct statements.  

Senator Gallagher: No, I don’t agree with the comments you’ve made about the World Health Organization. I think the minister for health has represented Australia’s national interest at that international forum, and for good reasons. It’s about the protection of the Australian people.  

Prof. Kelly: What was agreed on Saturday morning—and Australia was one of 194 countries member states of the WHO, being a member state institution; it’s not a big daddy, as you suggested, it is guided by the member states—under the WHO and other UN arrangements we have a year to go through all of those processes we’ve talked about in terms of Australian legal requirements. We are not safe unless everyone is safe. An infectious disease has no borders. As we know from our experience in the COVID pandemic, we closed our border and it caused a lot of disruption in other ways. We had to reopen our border and, as soon as we did, the virus appeared. It can only be by working internationally with all other countries that we can deal with a pandemic like that, and we will have other ones in the future. These amendments that were made through long negotiations right up to and including last Friday night were successful in getting those things over the line. I’m very happy that’s the case. I’ll reiterate my statement that it was one of my proudest moments as an Australian witnessing that Australian leadership at ministerial level, at officials’ level, to get those negotiations completed.  

CHAIR: Senator ROBERTS, at this point I am due to rotate the call. If you wish to seek another call in this section, I will come back to you.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.

There are currently two separate proposals being promoted by the WHO to increase their power. Firstly, the new Pandemic Agreement and secondly, changes to the WHO’s ‘operating manual’, the International Health Regulations. As the latest version of these documents is not online, I asked the Health Department to provide them.

Given that New Zealand has already published the changes they will be supporting in the IHR Amendments, I asked why is the Australian government’s position so secretive. Does this government take the position that these potentially sweeping changes to our health system are none of the public’s business?

Of these two proposals being put to the WHO’s member states, it’s the IHR amendments that still contain clauses giving the WHO powers of compulsion — medical tyranny. Officials and the Minister failed to actually provide the position of the Government on these changes – where is the transparency and accountability promised by the Albanese government?

Here is the Minister’s response – “The World Health Authority is exactly that. The World Health Organisation can give advice, but it has no legal mechanism to be able to enforce it upon us. As I’ve said, Australia has its own sovereignty in regards to making policy decisions around health for Australians and our border. I don’t think I can be any clearer.”

This ignores that the WHO does have a power to compel by using the UN’s powers over the SWIFT international payment system, and has used those powers against Russia and Belarus recently. The answer is specious.

Let’s hope the promise not to sign away Australian sovereignty is one promise this government keeps.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll move on to the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations and the so-called pandemic treaty or accord or protocol or whatever it’s called these days. The World Health Organization is currently reviewing two separate proposals to increase its powers—firstly, the pandemic agreement. A recent version of that document is on the World Health Organization website, dated 30 October 2023. Is this the latest version? If not, can I have the latest version?

Mr Exell:I do think there may have been an additional draft, but I’ll check and come back to you. I’m happy to provide the latest publicly released documents that are being considered.

Senator ROBERTS: The second proposal is for amendments to the World Health Organization’s operating manual, the International Health Regulations. These were proposed by the United States in 2022. They have apparently been modified in a negotiation process over time—several times! Do you have the latest version of this document, please?

Mr Exell:Again, the latest version of the document will be on the WHO website, but I’m happy to provide that to you, Senator.

Senator ROBERTS: The New Zealand government has published sections of the International Health Regulations changes it will be supporting. Clearly, their openness is more than yours on exactly the same matter. Minister, why is the government’s position to be considered none the public’s business on this very significant international health regulations draft?

Senator McCarthy:Senator Roberts, I’d totally disagree with your question in terms of the government not wanting to advise Australians on issues. I’d totally reject outright the premise of your question.

Senator ROBERTS: While the latest public version of the pandemic agreement does not sign away Australian sovereignty, the latest public version of the International Health Regulations amendments do sign away Australian’s sovereignty. Minister, will the Albanese government support the International Health Regulations amendments if they continue, as written, to include compulsion on Australia to follow World Health Organization directives?

Senator McCarthy:Our government always looks to the international sector in terms of what’s going on, whether it’s in health or any other areas, so we will always continue to do that. But of course our priority is Australians and the sovereignty of our decisions with regard to health for Australians.

Senator ROBERTS: So you’re guaranteeing sovereignty?

Mr Comley:I’d don’t think we would agree with your characterisation that it cedes sovereignty. Mr Exell might want to comment on how that will operate in practice.

Mr Exell: I am happy to add that I think both draft documents that are available refer to protecting the sovereignty of nations. The process is actually a member state process. In that sense there is no WHO. The working groups are led by member states. The participation is by member states. Then, when there is consideration of the Australian government, there is a formal process through the JSCOT mechanism that individually considers each and every resolution or change or consideration that comes before it. There is no notion of Australia giving up sovereignty. There’s an active process of consideration at both levels—the World Health Organization by Australia and other counties, and then, when it reaches the domestic ledge, it is also considered very carefully.

Senator ROBERTS: I understand that in earlier versions of the International Health Regulations that were strongly worded compulsions on the African nations. Several members of parliaments and congresses around the world have kicked up such a stink that the International Health Regulations have been watered back down again. But I’m very concerned about sovereignty.

Mr Exell:There are always a range of proposals and resolutions and adapted text. That is happening right now; there are consultations that are underway. The due date for a draft to go to the World Health Assembly is by May this year. They’re trying to do that, but there are lots of changes and discussions going on, so I wouldn’t want to comment on one particular draft or one particular set of ideas put forward by various countries.

Senator McCarthy:I have to reiterate that in terms of public health policies, Australia will always retain its own sovereignty in making decisions around our borders. I need that to be really clear with you, Senator.

Senator ROBERTS: I need to be very clear: I’m concerned about how much the international influence, particularly through the World Health Organization, drove our response to COVID. Minister, will you give a clear statement now that the directions of the World Health Organization are not binding on Australia and that the decision to follow WHO guidance, if it’s made, is entirely a matter for the Australian government, who can then be held to account for these decisions?

Senator McCarthy: The world health authority is exactly that: the World Health Organization can give advice, but it has no legal mechanism to be able to enforce it upon us. As I’ve said, Australia has its own sovereignty with regard to making policy decisions around health for Australians and our borders. I don’t think I can be any clearer.

CHAIR:I do need to rotate the call.

Senator ROBERTS: I hope the term ‘world health authority’ is not a Freudian slip.

Despite their name, free trade agreements are never free. These agreements always come at a cost to someone, and that’s usually everyday Australians, workers and business owners. Once signed into existence, these agreements are not subject to sufficient scrutiny.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I say that One Nation supports fair trade agreements. Is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement the spawn of the Trans-Pacific Partnership? Is it free trade or fair trade? It’s certainly not free trade. Each of the signatories have carved out substantial areas of their economies from the agreement. This information is tucked away, hidden away in annexes where it would seem not enough have looked. Tariffs are being defended. Schemes that protect the power base of local politicians are being defended, at Australia’s cost. There are hundreds of pages of carve-outs in this agreement. Many of them are ours. That’s probably a good thing. But the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement is not a free trade agreement. It is at best slightly freer trade.

In the Productivity Commission submission dated July 2022 to the inquiry of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties into certain aspects of the treaty-making process in Australia, the Productivity Commission comes out and basically supports what I’m about to say. The government prepared a national interest analysis on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement and found it did provide a net benefit to Australia. This was relied upon by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties and subsequently endorsed by the Morrison-Joyce government and the alternative Albanese-Bandt government. This consensus of the establishment parties is disconcerting. Despite their name, free trade agreements are never free. These agreements always come at a cost to someone, and that’s usually everyday Australians, workers and business owners. Underdeveloped countries do not sign free trade agreements with industrialised nations in order to give away what they have. It’s the industrialised nations that give away their wealth, our wealth, through lower tariffs, greater market access of cheaper goods and greater incursion of foreign workers into our Australian economy. They’re facts.

Free trade in this situation is a race to the bottom. The nation with the worst environmental protections, the lowest wages, the worst working conditions, the crudest and most unsafe working conditions will win every time, in effect dragging our conditions down at the same time as dragging theirs up. Our environment loses. Our wages lose. Everyday Australians lose.

I saw nothing in the National Interest Analysis that constituted a genuine attempt to identify who the winners and losers will really be. That’s probably a design feature to allow the establishment parties to take all the electoral gain and protect themselves later from any electoral loss in this election cycle, because all too often in this country, in this parliament, it seems to be about looking good, not doing good.

Once signed into existence, these agreements are not subject to sufficient scrutiny. The last Productivity Commission inquiry into a free trade agreement was in 2010. The last review into Australia’s most important free trade agreement, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, was in 2018. Before Australia enters into future trade agreements, this parliament must address the lack of transparency in the trade negotiation process and the signing of an agreement before this parliament ratifies it.

My next concern is to the new regulatory environment that this agreement will create. In his submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, Bryan Clark from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry highlighted: ‘There are five separate trade agreements with Malaysia. Businesses are getting very confused trying to work out how to use these agreements, and the best outcome for Australian business would actually come from sorting out all this red tape and creating clear rules for Australian businesses.’ I agree completely.

Here’s a specific example of this, thanks to the Australian Fair trade and Investment Network. The United Nations Central Product Classification system used by the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement— with the UN it’s always a mouthful, isn’t it; they twist and turn and hide and bury and camouflage in acronyms and long titles that confuse people, so I’ll start again. The United Nations Central Product Classification system used by the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement has a separate classification for aged care, which implies that without a specific reservation by Australia any increase in the regulation of aged care would be a breach of this agreement. So if we find something we need to improve and regulate it, it could be a breach of this agreement. The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association agreed that: ‘At worst, aged care is exposed to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement. At best, there is sufficient ambiguity to allow overseas companies to exploit the framework for their own benefit.’ The globalists, the elites, moving our industries—whole industries, whole sectors, workers, farmers—as pawns in their game of ‘central’, of control and money, and parliaments in this country, without accountability, are their tool. They work through us—this parliament.

The government has responded that there is provision for a review of unexpected consequences so we should not worry aged-care standards will drop under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement. There is, though, no framework in place to ensure this action actually occurs. In the years ahead, we will read stories that the parliaments’ mates, be they union bosses or crony capitalists and globalists, are exploiting loopholes in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement for their own benefit. That’s how they get through unaccountable parliaments. Resolving that will be at the discretion of the minister. This is a terrible system. The benefit of a free-trade agreement must be tested annually. I call on the government to introduce a system of annual review of the economic gains and losses for each of the agreements. Australia will not restore its position as a leading world economy by exposing Australian businesses to unfair competition and multiple layers of red, green and blue tape. Red tape is the bureaucracy. Green tape is pseudo-environmental regulations, impositions, under the guise of environment but really with the intent to control. And blue tape is UN policy on behalf of the UN’s masters, the globalists, who move industries and people around the globe at will.

Australia will not emerge from our self-inflicted COVID-19 recession by destroying business and increasing reliance on government welfare. To restore the wealth of everyday Australians, we must get the government out of the way and let personal free enterprise create wealth again. Ideas, effort, energy, heart—that’s what brings life to an economy when it is a free economy with fair trade. Fair trade has an important role to play in that process—fair trade.

There has been many comments recently about a bill that people were concerned about which they claimed would allow foreign troops and police to enter Australia and act against our interests.

This is untrue.

The bill simply gives foreign troops and police who are invited into our country to help in emergencies an exemption of liability if they are acting in good faith while performing their duties. It’s the same exemption that our defence force and police are given in emergencies.

One Nation would clearly not have anything to do with allowing foreign troops or police into Australia to act against the interest of its people.

The bill was the “Defence Legislation Amendment (Enhancement of Defence Force response to Emergencies) Bill 2020”.

As a way of explanation, Clause 123AA:

A protected person (see subsection (3)) is not subject to any liability (whether civil or criminal) in respect of anything the protected person does or omits to do, in good faith, in the performance or purported performance of the protected person’s duties,…. A protected person is defined under 123AA :

  1. Each of the following is a protected person:

(a) a member of the Defence Force;

(b) an APS employee in the Department;

(c) a person authorised under subsection (4) to perform duties in respect of the provision of assistance mentioned in subsection (1).

Transcript

Hi, I’m Senator Malcolm Roberts, and I’m in Thursday Island just above the tip of Cape York. And we’re here for a Senate inquiry, but I also want to respond now to people who’ve contacted our office about something that concerns them. It’s another internet rumour that’s not true.

They’re asking questions about us, or the parliament or the government authorising foreign defence forces to come onto this country and be armed and to control the people, that’s nonsense.

The bill that was passed recently is merely to ensure that overseas volunteers who come here to help us in times of natural disaster have the same rights and protections as Australian soldiers and Australian volunteers, because they’re covered by insurance, foreigners are not, until now.

So it means that providing foreigners, whether they be armed, whether they be, they won’t be armed forces, but whether they be defence forces or police forces or volunteers, will be covered. People like the three pilots who died in the plane crash last year fighting the fires with a water bomber.

Volunteers, defence, police, and so on. They must be acting in good faith. If they’re not acting in good faith, or they do something deliberately harmful to people, then they lose that protection, and they’re vulnerable.

So all that’s happened is that the government is protecting the foreign volunteers to make sure that we keep getting foreign volunteers to come here and help us with their particular skills in terms of natural disasters.

That’s all it is. We checked it thoroughly, and it’s here for our protection.

On the panel with week we discuss ‘The Great Reset’, where billionaires, celebrities and the worlds elites wants you to give up all YOUR possessions and claim you will be happy. We also discuss the United Nations and the US election.

Transcript

Proof transcript only – E&OE

Good day, good evening and welcome to the programme. Well, what another week. And the language is starting now to creep in, isn’t it? You turn on the TV news, right across all the networks, you’re picking up the papers, you’re turned on the radio stations, you hear the words. The words that are meant to create some comfort for us but don’t be conned, the great reset, the great reset. It sounds like everything that was bad is gonna go and everything that’s in front of us is gonna be good. It’s been sanctioned by the Royal Family, I mean, Prince Charles has said, “Let’s have a great reset.” It’s being promoted by the world, the left worldwide. I mean, this big great reset is actually going to be a bigger virus than COVID. It’s gonna have more of an impact on your lifestyle than you could imagine. It’s been publicised by the social media elite and you’ve got minds like build back better, I think just seeing her don’t use that as her line, when she received the government in New Zealand and Joe Biden so we had build back better. And then we’ve got this sort of post COVID world, the new normal, all this mantra, don’t let it con you. What does it actually mean? And do we actually get a site? Well, the bottom line is we might. This is a deal that is being done by the elites and is being foisted upon the weak, the weak governments of the world. And frankly, at the moment, it looks like the Australian government falls into that category as well. But maybe you can have a hand on trying to change it, but at the same time this week, we’ve heard that China, now a member of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, has taken time to have a close look at the human rights violations of, yes, America. They’ve decided amongst about 10 things that they wanna see in the end to the political polarisation in the United States. Now that’s all very well and good for the Chinese Communist Party, one party state ’cause there can’t be any other party, but you do know that in America, there’s two great forces at work. There’s the Democrats, their colours tends to be blue and the Republicans and they tend to be red. And Donald Trump is red and Biden is the blue side. But you know that if he is elected president of the United States, what we’ve heard from places like China in this UN declaration on human rights and this review of America’s human rights is the sort of marching orders that Joe Biden will of course, if we ever see him out of the White House bunker, will of course be attending to, I mean, we haven’t seen him for very much in the last six months, and he’s about to become the most powerful man in the world if all the rhetoric and all of the social media tweets are to be believed. The Chinese have also said they don’t want the United States to interfere in any other countries’ internal issues. And what I mean by that is Hong Kong and of course Taiwan, despite the fact that Taiwan is a democracy, the free China, the people of the People’s Republic of China see Taiwan as a Renegade province. So of course, if the United States says anything about Taiwan, it’s a fundamental breaks of the human rights of the Chinese people. This is just absolute rubbish. So over the last week, as we’ve gone through Remembrance day, I stopped and I thought like any other decent person would, 11 o’clock on the 11th last Wednesday, and I realised that we should be concerned, lest we forget that our freedoms that we enjoy are in fact being secured by those prepared to defend it. And the five oldest continuous democracies in the world, the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand have always defended freedom. Have always been amongst the first to answer the call when there’s tyranny in other places. But now we have so many people within each of these countries, including our own, that seem to be out to weaken our efforts, pull down our traditions, change the way we think. And the world is in fact right now doing, and in a lot of ways, it is history repeating what we saw in pre World War 2 Europe. If you think about 2022 China, if this is passing, putting a big dark shadow over the rest of the world, China, maybe a country that in fact many are saying we should boycott when it comes to the 2022 winter Olympics that are occurring there. But of course, plenty of people in the sporting world would say, no, no, no, keep politics out of sport. Let’s face it, sport is full of politics, there’s political operatives who are active in sport. There are sporting operatives that are active in politics. There’s political decisions that are taken in sport every day, there are political choices, there are political sponsors in sport, local sports organisations, state organisations, the national organisations are all highly political. And so the Australian Olympic Committee of course, is the Olympic size version of this highly political environment. And naturally enough, because I live in a rarefied atmosphere of self-importance, the last thing they want to see is us boycotting on principle, there’s that word again, principle, the People’s Republic of China and the winter Olympics and the entire PR spin that will come for the PRC. So if only sport was just about sport, it seems, if you look at the last week, we’re seeing more and more reasons to know the elite speed, are they big tech, be they the big media, be they big Royals, or be they the big Chinese and Marxist left us elites around the world role, choosing to reset your lifestyle. The last thing they’re gonna do is touch these, care to know what you think, hashtag Hardgrave@skynews.com.au, you can also email me directly at gary.hardgrave@skynews.com.au, still a panel, we always try and do that on a Friday night, as we fight for freedom here. Malcolm Roberts is the Senator for Queensland for One Nation, he joins me here in the Brisbane, Citadel in the city. You use Santa the great and the powerful and very, very wise Bronwyn Bishop, former speaker of the House of Representatives, from Advanced Australia Liz Storer, who’s never afraid to hold back on anything when it comes to fighting for freedom. Great to have you all with us tonight. The big reset, should we be worried, Liz? how do you feel about this great reset nonsense?

Well, nonsense sums it up Gary, sums it up perfectly. What frightens me most about this, and firstly, I should mention I’m no longer with Advance Australia, I am lead advisor with GT Communications and very glad to be surfaced. Thank you, thank you. What frightens me most about this reset is that younger generations are completely unaware of what’s happening. We’ve seen the left for decades now infiltrate our schools, infiltrate out unis, and these kids, now young adults, actually, a lot of them wouldn’t know Marx if he slapped them in the face, have never picked up the Communist manifesto. And yet we’ve got Kamala Harris, who can I say is not vice president elect. I am just as much vice-president elect as Kamala is this evening. We’ve got Kamala.

[Gary] Congratulations on your victory.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, yes, yes, it’s been wonderful. We’ve got Kamala tweeting, you can’t make this stuff up, talking about a reset, tweeting just before the election, a small video that she did the voiceover of literally espousing the virtues of socialism. You can’t make this stuff up, she didn’t say socialism, but the little video was literally talking about the fact that there is no equality in the world unless equality of outcome is what we’re all experiencing here. Not equality of opportunity, and so we’ve created this culture now as the left so artfully does, where it’s understood to be compassionate, et cetera. And so on being synonymous with this, literally communism is what her video was espousing. And this is the woman make no mistake about it, unless the Trumpians are successful, this is the woman who will be president of the United States. Joe Biden will just fill the seat for a little time and total on off.

Yeah, I suspect to be in the White House basement the whole time, we’ll just get him wheeled out a bit like sort of weekend at Bernie’s. He’ll just get wheeled out every so often from Fido opportunity, if in fact he actually even gets installed, sorry, aren’t I lacking in grace, Bronwyn Bishop, you can deal with me accordingly, but seriously we’re being conned. I mean, if you look at Salton, it’s in the whole Gulag archipelago, that enormous idea of the last man clapping, no one wanted to be the last man clapping in this sort of scenario, that Gulag archipelago, you know that there’s a lot of lessons not being taught, the young people, they’re making mistakes, simple.

Well, Gary of course the trouble again, when the rich and the powerful elites of the Western world, privileged elites of the West, supported Lenin and Stalin, and I’m talking about the likes of George Bernard Shaw, of Sydney and Beatrice Webb of John Maynard Keynes and of lady Aster. These people supported these things going on, and absolutely refused to see what the truth was. Solzhenitsyn came along and really exposed it all, and showed the cruelty and the brutality of what the Communist regime was. Now that’s steamed the tide and the march of Socialism for right up to the time that the Berlin Wall came down. But then George Bush weakened. And instead of saying, we have to keep fighting to show that people know what socialism is, so we don’t repeat those mistakes, he went all week and he said, oh, there’s going to be a peace dividend. And we stopped teaching people what socialism was and what we had to stand up for with the principles we believed in to have a free people who had rights and liberties. Well, we then get the Neo Fabians, and they are the Neo Fabians who go to Davos and the world economic forum. They are the ones preaching the great reset, and this is the way to socialism. But in the interim, we got Donald Trump and he was prepared to fight back and fight he did, which in the eyes of the Neo Fabians made it necessary for them to destroy him. And that’s the pattern that we have followed to this very point we’re now at, and we can only hope, and I do not give up on Donald Trump being successful at this point in time. I think it was a mistake for our Prime Minister to be congratulating Mr. Biden, because Mr. Biden said himself that he would not even attempt to claim victory until it was properly certified. When there are a lot of legal ways to go yet, and it is not being properly certified. So we have to hold firm. Donald Trump has led the way he has changed, there are what? 73 million people in America who are prepared to fight back and they need the voice and the support of those of us who believe in freedom of the individual and freedom of opportunity and equality of opportunity, not outcome as Liz said.

Yeah, and I agree. I mean, Malcolm Robinson’s to the point, this great said it’s a, you know, a three word slogan always pretty, pretty popular, but this is not a great thing. This is damaging. People’s freedoms, people’s lifestyles. This is something that is worth fighting for. When you hear it, the people saying it, you should condemn them. That’s how I read it.

I agree with you and Tali that’s once you get past the fact that this great reset is claimed to be supporting, fixing the world’s climate, it’ll fix poverty, it’ll fix in, in inequality. It’ll fix control. It’ll fix everything. Gary, why shouldn’t we wait for it? Because it is just another slogan to hide the reality that this is socialism on the March. And socialism is always about control. We’ve had this so many times and you know, in the past, people have controlled others using physical force. Now, if you grab me around the throat, I’ll put a rifle, bat in my head, Gary, people can see what you’re doing. The insidiousness of socialism this way and slogans is that they sound so nice and people don’t really see what’s going on. And next thing with the gradualism, you know, you’re in slavery. And so the essential, the essential debate, the essential theme that runs through all of the articles that you’ve introduced tonight, and your email and tonight in your editorial is control versus freedom. And that control versus freedom is a battle we all have within us, but we all thrive when we actually are free ourselves and free from our own shackles, but also the planet thrives and the nations thrive when they’re free. That’s society has proven that time and time and time again.

Yeah. Well, look, I mean, the great, the control that the battle that’s on in China, there is a battle in China, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, the Chinese Communist party authorities in Beijing, don’t have as much control of China. It’s the money. That’s actually changing things. The richest man in China, though, has been set down on his backside. He has tried to do a float of this massive Alibaba organisation, and they’ve taken him down. They’ve said, no, you can’t do that anymore. So suddenly the idea of free capital floating around and creating opportunity for everyday Chinese to actually be part of a glow. A growing world economy has been controlled by the Politburo in Beijing. This is nasty. It’s a Brahman. You see, this is a foretaste of what could come. And if, if Joe Biden heightened Biden as many are calling him and others are calling him Beijing, Joe, I mean, there’s, I, I’m not trying to be pejorative here. Although maybe people say I am, but if this plug is actually going to become the president of the United States, he cannot be encumbered to a group of people who actually hate the kind of society that we are used to having.

Well, that’s the point, Gary, you say, if Trump is not reelected, then the two most powerful pit men in the world are Putin and President Xiu. It is quite clear the President Xiu wants to rule the world. He wants to be the dominant power. And as long as Trump was there, he knew if he moved Taiwan, that Trump would act, but he knows that if Trump is gone, Biden will do nothing. So you can watch what’s going to happen to Taiwan. What’s what’ll happen in the middle East, where Trump had actually managed to have countries of the middle East, come to an agreement with Israel. And yet you will have the Biden and those people behind him will probably go back to the Obama policy of getting into bed with Iran. So the problem is that we’re going to face and what is it risk from this election? And I deliberately call these people, the Neo Fabians, because the Fabian society was founded by the webs and George Bernard Shaw to implement the change to socialism, gradually their symbol. And they stained glass window that was commissioned is a Wolf in sheep’s clothing. And that is why I think we have to identify these people for what they are. They preach my sounding things, but there’s a Wolf in there who will eat the sheep very, very easily. And we have to stop being sheep. We have to stop putting not only putting up the hook in her own mouth, we’re now about to swallow that hook. And we’ve just got to learn that that’s the end of us if we do. So, it is a very troubling time. And Mr. Ma came out in that speech, which President Xi objected to so strongly made the point that there is no such thing as a system of, of in the finite financial system in China. They make it up as they go along. And that’s why we can never believe any of the data that comes out of China, but we can believe they are building a force where they wish to conquer large parts of the world and be the dominant power controlling the lives and us and Australia. We would be the vessel state with bearing the knee and bury our back to our Chinese masters as they took our food and our iron off. That is not what I, well, that is not what my father fought for. It’s not what I believe I served in the parliament for. And you served in the parliament for, to leave to our children, grandchildren. We’ve got to fight hard.

Now, why not? Now? Why not? And I’m gonna lose store. You’re only going to look at the Y. The China is being signed to Australia. We are grossly interfering in China because we’ve raised questions about the democracy in Taiwan. We want Taiwan to be protected. We used to recognise until 1973, Taiwan as China and following Richard Nixon’s lead, we then changed our allegiance to the Beijing authorities. Boy, that’s rewarding. And then equally in Hong Kong, you’ve gotta look at what’s happening in Hong Kong, where you’ve got legislators and actually resigned from the parliament. They said, democracy is dead in Hong Kong. If I want to tackle Taiwan, they’ve told Australia to, I’ll tidy it up, shut the hiccup. You know, that that in itself should be a warning to each of us that value the opportunity to speak our and listen to about the views that the bite is not alive and not allowed. It’s not alive in China.

Absolutely. This is a communist party. That seems to be a very simple fact that so many people just don’t seem to understand, perhaps in the 21st century, they think even the communist party looks a bit different. It does not. This is the same regime that has countless millions of innocent blood on their hands. Let’s, let’s be abundantly clear on that when I was watching the American election, as I’m still watching it, because it’s still happening. Gary, as I was watching the American election, I kept saying to myself, if Americans knew nothing more than the fact of China’s plans for the Pacific, and just how intrinsically linked both Kamala and Joe, it’s not just Joe are in the pockets of the CCP. They wouldn’t vote Democrat, not in a million years, not in a million years, but people don’t understand what will take place. They don’t understand the strength of that Alliance. and it’s actually frightening to think that that may yet become something that the rest of us will have to look on and witness, as it unfolds, China is not going to change. It is a communist regime. It is hell bent on world, world supremacy, no matter what. And I think anyone who listens to that and says, that’s fear mongering, I would urge them pick up a history book for heaven’s sake, or even just Google comments that the president is on record saying that we will bend these democracies to our will. We think that China will become more like us as the world advances and you know, democracies around the world. Now outnumber communist dictatorships. They have no such plan. Let me tell you.

Well, I don’t. And I mean, Malcolm Robinson people think you’re wearing, you know, we’re wearing a tinfoil hat putting in, you know, rising this sort of stuff. They think we’re, you know, mad conspiracy theories. We’re not I’ve simply. And I don’t mind being proved wrong. Not one part of me minds being proved wrong about this, but the questions have gotta be asked. And, you know, when I saw that national cabinet, unfortunately, I didn’t make this decision, but national Kevin we’re considering including China in a travel bubble to Australia, I would have thought that the simple way of making that travel bubble work would have been to included the democracies of our region. The flavours Ling democracies in the Pacific that are leading Australian tourism back into it. The, the, the democracy in Taiwan, the democracy in Japan, the democracy in South Korea, before we to put some people from a totalitarian regime onto a plane in and out of Australia, I would have thought that was a simple thing. But anyway, state borders is still shot. It’s pretty distressing. Isn’t it? Australia is still split in so many ways.

Yes, Gary, you make a very, very good point because China is the country that unleashed the COVID virus on the world. Not only that, it made it possible for the COVID virus to get a heads-up because it denied its existence for so long. And then have a look at the country that has done the best of any on earth and that’s Taiwan in the same time as we’ve had, and actually longer period, it’s been exposed longer. It’s had seven deaths from COVID. We’ve had over 900. We have destroyed our economy doing that. Taiwan has simply isolated the sick, isolated, the vulnerable, and let everyone else get back. Stay at work. And their economy has barely ended into negative. I think it’s about 0.5 of a percent negative growth. That’s phenomenal. And, and our prime minister said we should be attacking China. Now the national Kevin does saying, let them mainland Chinese in and ignore Taiwan. This is insane, but let me give, just go back to a point. You mentioned a little while ago to tell you a little bit of a story. I met, I connected with a blood called Ron kitchen. He’s dead now many years ago. And he loaded the, the works of Frederick Hayak and at Ludwig Von Meese and the Austrian school of economics. And he told me a story, and this is firsthand or secondhand actually, because he, he met up with a professor from Princeton and this professor had Chinese heritage. And he was, was a Chinese, even though was an American citizen. And I think it was in the eighties. And I can’t remember the, the name of the Chinese president at the time. Ginger ping, maybe. But anyway, the habit, the Princeton professor with visiting his original roots in, in China and the president of China got wind of this. So he said, could I have a couple of hours of your time? And the Princeton professor said, sure. So he started off this conversation and remember Ron met this Princeton professor and had a good long conversation. And the Princeton professor said that the Chinese president, his opening comments were look at the wealth of our country. Yeah. But look at the state of it. It’s, it’s destitute, it’s poor. And, and he said, can you tell me how we can fix it? And the Princeton professor told him, and then he said, can you give me a couple more hours? I think to cut a long story short, he gave him days. It kept asking him to come back and that opened up China. But the fundamental thing with China is they still want to control people buttoned up the economy, but, but they’ll never be strong because always beneath control, Gary, there is fair. These people are terrified of losing control. And so what we need to do is focus on our strengths. Don’t worry too much about China, focus on our strengths and, and, and lift them because we are destroying our own country. Internally.

Now, as strengths have to be gotta be, have gotta be built around our values, our principles as a, the things that we over the 120 years, Australia has been a nation have earned us the right to say, we are the sixth oldest continuous democracy in the world. And it’s only, it’s only the UK and the USA and Canada that has stood with Australia and New Zealand, the seventh oldest, continuous democracy to defend those freedoms, Switzerland and Sweden have a five just for the record. But my understanding is they actually haven’t necessarily fought any angry shots at any stage of the last hundred years. Got to take a break. I want to come back and talk about how the country is split off the whole side of the impact on the IDF on shocked by what’s occurring. And we’ll talk about that more interest among them.

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That mine sing in public life is to get the beat things, right?

[Announcer] This Saturday is special. One-on-one chat with John Anderson.

You don’t need to pursue the identity. If you have the right policy, the inspiring things of United certain things that divided and missionary John Howard, I felt I had an opportunity to do some good things and improve the country in conversation with John Anderson, Saturday 8:30 p.m.

I need a holiday for Australia. The Outback. Yes. Yes. We could catch her in lunch. I know exactly what you mean. We should just go somewhere. We’ve always wanted to go. Yes. Oh honey. I can teach the kids to surf. Yeah. I mean, obviously.

It’s me. And then I would pass on the Western plan. Holiday. His issue.

Yeah. For Australia. So you want to learn to write, write a book, write a movie, write a law.

Cut. Oh, you want to learn the right things? The go shake the right paycheck, make dinner just the right way. Do the right thing by you. More of an overachiever. You had to own the room, own a presentation on a business, start a business, be a busy. We know some things. Well, at least people know things. Thank the thing is even though it was a thing they know, and all right here, when for you to see the day’s a day.

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Thanks so much for your company. We’re in conversation with Brahma, Bishop, Liz store, and Senator Malcolm Roberts national cabinet made a gain to die briefly. A whole bunch of announcements. Everybody’s going to open up except for Western Australia. Perth remains the most isolated city geographically, and it seems politically in the world lead store. I also note that I said a couple of weeks ago, and people thought our Gary, your gilding, the Lily here, that the Queensland border wide open up until the Suncorp site of origin match was dealt with everybody from new South Wales, except Sydney siders can comment today. They announced the softened and the Queensland government said 52 and a half thousand people can come to Suncor. There’s no dress code, but all by the way, Liz, there’s no dancing allowed in Queensland. Still. We can have 52 and a half thousand at the grand stand, but on the 200 at a funeral or something. So go, go, go figure. It’s all crazy. Isn’t it.

These rules are doing my head in Gary, especially when cases are so low. Now, I think we’ve even got Victoria zero day, zero days, every single day. Now where we’re well past the point, you’d think of these ridiculous restrictions. And when you’re talking about a state that is now hosted a game of tens of thousands of people still throwing out these random restrictions. I mean, I’m a gal in, in, in WUA, you know, leaving the state cabinet today. Like he had don’t worry team. I’ve kept GSA. It is utterly ridiculous. This, this has gone past absurdity. These is ridiculous. And when we’re watching countries like the UK still, you know, devastating, devastating, what they’re seeing unfold there, here in Australia, we’re still acting like we’ve got some sort of pandemic on our hands. The truth of the matter is we really don’t. And yet nobody seems to be calling out the fact we’ve got States with zero cases, closing their borders to States with zero cases. And people like McGowan are really just playing politics with this. Now he saw it go well for Anastasia pallor, Shea. He’s got his election coming up in March. And I think he’s doing exactly the same now going, okay, this pandemic protectionism goes well at the polling. Both. I’ll take another crack.

Yeah. He wants to keep it going as long as possible in Victoria, it’s basically declared that an experiment and the way the bureaucracy operates, Brahman produced a mission failure. The public servants are starting to be filtered out the door, sacrificial lands, but it still strikes me in the deck of cards about 10 or a dozen people that really did Muff up this hotel, quarantine fiasco. There is a whole bunch of people who’ve got to go including the joker himself, Daniel Andrews, but people still liked him. I still thought, you know, we like, we like being punished sort of, you know, bondaged and disciplined Victorian style down there. I think.

I said right from the beginning that China not only exported the disease, it also exported fear. And it is that fear factor that has allowed these premiers to control their population. And it’s, I mean, people pick perfectly normal people who you might think would think properly are cowed into fearing it and saying, well, we need to be locked down. We need to be kept cocooned and so on. So it’s, it’s a real problem. But the, the rest of the problem of course is how do we restore a functioning Federation that high court judgement in Western Australia was absolutely of no use at all. We don’t know what they’ve said. All they’ve said is that they referred the facts of the case to the federal court to determine what facts for high court would make their determination upon. They’ve said no, it was okay to put them in place. Well, was that at the time that the action was begun, we haven’t seen a judgement . We haven’t seen the reasons for the judgement . So there’s a failure in the judiciary to, to uphold the section that was put deliberately into the constitution to stop this sort of behaviour by premiers. And then we look at what premiered chairman Dan is doing down there in Victoria, and talking about setting up a centre for, for communicable diseases, just like the one in New Hampshire that was just part of the belt and road initiative. Are they going to bring some of those viruses here and develop them here with the next outbreak? And believe me, if you think we’ve seen the last, last outbreak of pandemics, you can think again, when the next one happened here, because the bar’s has been brought here. I mean, there are serious questions that have to be asked and, and it doesn’t seem that there is no action on it. It’s not, we we’ve got statements coming out that, Oh, well we’ve met today. And the, in, in the federal cabinet, whatever that’s supposed to mean, elevate the premiers and talk what rubbish we will. Everyone will be up and by Christmas. Well, all the bookings are all too late. Except wh I just find that the, the problems that are being created by the way in which we’ve gone about dealing with these matters are huge and waiting for us to have to be dealt with.

Yeah, look, Brahman. And I really want to support Scott Morrison, but I got to tell you a schema. I’ll buddy, all pal flying down to Victoria to hold hands with Daniel. Andrew is next Melbourne. Next, next week is not exactly what I would call the photo opportunity of 2020. Just a little bit of rough advice for you there, pal, but you can ignore it at your own peril. Meanwhile, in Victoria, over 700 people have died because of the incompetence of the Andrews government, their industrial manslaughter laws should kick in. We’ll see what happens, but there’s been accusations made against the Australian defence force. Now, Malcolm Roberts, I am pretty old fashioned about these things. I support those who are going to put their body on the line. In my name, in a uniform of my country to defend our values in a foreign place. I put my support behind them. Accusations are made. I get it. I understand rumours have been at the heart of some of these things, but there’s no heavy inquiry like Scott Morrison has announced this week into what’s happened in Victoria, 700, 800 people that have died. And yet we’re going to go and pick on our finest in uniform. The way we’re doing it is I think of horrid. I really don’t like it at all.

Gary, this is a very difficult circumstance, very difficult situation because on the one hand, these people, as we all know, and Andrew hasty has said it really well himself. You can see the pain on Andrew Hastie when he raised this topic three years ago, people returning from war have been changed. And, and we haven’t gone in, I haven’t gone into battle. I don’t know if you have never heard, but it is a completely different scenario. There’s enormous pressure that we will never, ever come to grips with. We can never understand that. So that’s the first thing. But the second thing is these, these men, in this case, it is all men have gone into battle to uphold their values. And that means they have to be held accountable for their actions. Maybe that means, first of all, making sure that they get very, very good defence. Maybe it also means that they get a right. They get a very, very fair inquiry. Ben, Robert Smith himself said he welcomes this. Yeah, even though he’s been through the mill himself, he welcomes this because it will clear the air once and for all. So I think we can take a lead from Ben Robert Smith, who has got a, it’s got to been awarded a VC for his, a Victoria Cross for his Valour. And now he’s had the courage to do go through this in public. And now he’s saying out, let’s have the inquiry, let’s clear the decks, but I think we also have to, and in any, in any, if anyone is found guilty of something that they shouldn’t have done, Gary, then they need to be treated with compassion and understanding. And I, I cannot understand the, the minister of defence saying, we’ll strip the metals off them. Well, hang on. They might’ve done something after two years after they’ve won the metal for some definite Valour, we can’t do things like that. We’ve got to be understanding of these people as well as uphold the values that we asked them to fight for.

Yeah. Look at least I have not because of the efforts of so many and generations before me, some of them family members who stood in my name in other places, I have not had to face that kind of circumstance. And I’m grateful for that. I just simply say, I am troubled by the idea of academics will qualify to bureaucrats well qualified and some military you’re going to have going to inquire it, all this sort of thing. I hope they get the values and the principles and the support for these guys ride. I just find the whole thing, sad and demeaning and very sad and demeaning.

Indeed. I actually questioned over the last few days just to myself, whether this is actually in the national interest, if this is in the, in the public interest to be brought out and have this dirty laundry ed, we know this is, this is not something systemic in our ADF. This, this is something there’s a small group of individuals. Clearly we don’t yet know the details that have committed atrocities, but I would, I’d love to echo what Fitz given said. And he himself is a former minister of defence. And he said, these guys were deployed for too long and on back to back deployments. And as you’ve said, Gary, you and I, and, and millions of Australian civilians have absolutely no idea what that’s like. And we have no idea what that’s like thanks to these men and women who go and do it for us so that we can sleep in our beds every night, knowing that we’re safe. And even I though I being a civilian as I am, I’m not above one drink. I don’t think any of us can be above saying, I would never, I would never do this. Or I would never do that after what these people have been through, Mr. Senator Roberts just raised Andrew hasty member for canning. And I remember reading years ago, it would have been because he was quite new to parliament at the time. And he won’t mind me sharing. Cause this is on the public record. He shared it himself. That even as he was doing his training, these gruelling days and days on end, that they’d be sent on, have to undergo unspeakable, not only temperatures, but conditions, no sleep for days on end all the rest of it. And he shared coming back from this particular training trip, just sobbing on the end of the line to his lovely wife, Ruth, this, this stuff, these guys go to go through, breaks them. It absolutely breaks them. And I’m not making excuses for atrocities. They may have committed in, in the line of line of duty, but it, we have to, we have to keep that in mind that human beings cannot go through prolonged periods of these high pressure, no slate, adrenaline running through your veins, 24 seven, that kind of fear that the environment we can’t even imagine for days on end and then still function properly. They, they just can’t.

Great. If you don’t mind me jumping in, I think there’s something that I think there’s another factor here too, that we must.

Right. All Malcolm, just get one last line, one line, you know?

Yeah. That’s something you mentioned in the material you send out and that is that there’s a catch and release policy for it. For people you can’t hold them, you can’t detain them. So some of these people were at the kill soldiers, they catch them. So SSL just catch them and then have to let them go again, because there’s not a proper theatre of war. I know that if I was under that scenario, I’d be thinking twice about letting them go and there’s nowhere to keep them. What else are you going to do? You know, when, when people’s minds under that much stress Brahman, Gary, you know, we’ve got to be understanding and compassionate about that.

I think, and I don’t mean to domain my sincerity at all, but I, I, you know, I think about Jack, Jack Nichols, Jack Nicholson’s line in a few good men, you know, can we handle the truth? I mean, it’s kind of, I guess, yeah, if they’ve done the wrong thing, the system will out, but I am concerned.

Gary. I sat in that parliament in the house of representatives, as we stood again and again, mourning the death of a soldier in Afghanistan. And we made great speeches about their, their, their sacrifice for us, the way they represented us. We as a people, our government, both labour and liberal sent those men to fight for our principles in a foreign land. And as I said, we eulogise and spoke of them. I even attended ramp ceremonies when those bodies were returned to Australia. And yet the same government that sent them, we sent to fight for us is now attacking our own people, our own soldiers. I worked as hard as I could not to have Australia sign up for the international criminal court because I could see how it could be used against us as a matter of international propaganda. But the reality was that Alexander data had virtually committed us. But one thing I did get added was a footnote that said we would never hand over any of our soldiers to that court, which is the thread that is held over. If we don’t investigate, they’ll do. But I insisted that that went in now. Let’s look, what’s happened mr. Justice, the gay Britain, major general, the gay Breton, a former commander of the fifth brigade. The second division has spent four years investigating these issues for years, that investigation actually advertised in Afghanistan for Afghanis to come forward and testify or give still evidence against soldiers. We paid for people to go there to try and find people who would either tell the truth or to lies. How do we know unbelievable for years, this has gone on and those men have lived with that for these four years. We are now told that there was a report that’s going to be released, which we will find shocking. Peter Jennings has very wisely walled that this will be used by ISIS in a recruiting programme for them to say, they’re justified in taking the lives of Australians. And that will be civilian, as well as military people. We are hanging these people out to dry and saying that responses, we will have a further investigation and that investigation we’ll see whether or not there should be any prosecutions in line with the requirements under the ICC. We will never hand over any of our soldiers to that court for them to make the investigation. And if you take a look at who sits on it and would be sitting and just judgement on us, I just get anger, which is beyond belief. So I say that we have a huge obligation to the men and women who serve 29,000 people have served in Afghanistan. When I was minister for defence industry science and personnel, we didn’t send many people overseas at all. It was into Bosnia then and they had to go viral being succonded into the British army. And then they could go across and fight. But the long and the short of it is, is that they have worn our uniform and our flag to support our values. Our values are important, but for the government to turn on our soldiers and to hold them up through this period, we have had something like we have lost more soldiers in the years. We’ve been in Afghanistan to suicide than we lost in combat. So just understand the stresses that they’re under and understand one more point the rules under which they fight are called terms of engagement. And they literally write down what you’re allowed to do and what you’re not allowed to do. And then there is a definition of what is an atrocity or what is a war crime set out the ICC. And this is what is almost like being told you go there to fight with one arm behind your back. I can only say, as I sat in that parliament and heard the eulogies of these men and the others who are equally served with great Valour and attending that ramp ceremony to receive those bodies back. And first now to be putting the hall about 80th under some sort of additional pressure, I find very difficult to come to terms with indeed, we are these here.

Oh, I, I, I congratulate you on what you’ve just said. And I thank you for your eloquence, but the substance of your argument. And I also make this very plain observation. We did this, the Australian government did this, my, these announcements, the week of remembrance day, I find it just sickening to my core. And I hold all of my freedoms in the Palm of my hand and at the tip of my tongue, purely off the back of those, who’ve served this nation and I feel very emotional about it as well. I’m going to take a break. We’ll come back. We’ll stand up for the workers of Australia. Somebody has to.

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Thanks so much for your company on a roll in. This will be hit with Newsnight. After the top of the hour with Liz Stora, we brought my Bishop was Senator Malcolm Roberts. Well, it seems that the labour party, whiteness, the inner city, people who just love everything that involves lattes and nothing to do with coal fire power losing the working VIG who’d thought. I mean watching and Joel Fitzgibbon, I thought bill the cat rather. Well this week, Malcolm Robinson, he said, you know, I’m watching people showing up with one nation, how to vote cards and with liberal national party hat of icons and not live ahead of icons and even branch members of the labour party at doing that, a lot of of potty have lost the worker vote. And I said this back in 2007 27 in the parliament where I said that they were looking after the nonproductive elements of societies, not the workers are recognised was right. Then you are, you are.

And it’s significant to remember one thing, Joe Fitz given was not worried about blue collar jobs until his job was threatened. Then he’s terrified and that’s good. And he should be terrified because we have an outstanding candidate down the Institute, bones articulate, smart. Savvy, and very, very dedicated to the country and very honest and straight. And he’s raised a number of issues with us. The whip we’re prosecuting Stuart is a wonderful man and Joel needs to be concerned because his party has abandoned him. Even if what Joel is doing is, is a sincere, then his party is still abandoned him because it’s abandoned blue collar workers and the labour party is all about wokeness. That’s all it is. Write them off.

25 Years. Next is instal was elected. His dad. Eric was there for a dozen years before that this is a Fitzgibbon thing. Liz Stora the seat of Hunter. But unless you actually start to get the workers of Australia front and foremost, you’re not going to get invited. And I actually think, look what the Republicans are doing in America, where they’ve broadened the base of their appeal. This certainly must be what the liberal party, the national party. I know one nation they’re doing it. I mean, we just need to know that the workers don’t vote labour anymore. I can understand why.

So can I look? I honestly don’t understand how the ALP isn’t just agreeing with everything. Fitzgibbon has said, got to say, Joel broke my heart this week, stepping down from the front bench. And then more recently saying that it’s, it’s not for a run at the leadership. I’m like, please feds do it for the country. Body look, everything. This guy says resonates now. And I take the senator’s point that maybe he wouldn’t have said the same prior to the last election, but here he is trying to speak truth to power within his own party. And labour has been getting crucified due to this, this new urbanisation that it’s found in literally in Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, it has no seats outside of the cities. When, when did this happen? It’s happened since 2007, as this seats outside of city areas have dwindled. These don’t like wokeness. They’re telling labour, they screamed at labour at the ballot box last year. Labor’s not paying attention. I can’t explain it for the life of me.

Well, I brought my Bishop today and I know you’re not on Twitter, but take my word for that. Anthony, Albanese actually tweeted about how our climate is dying and the smoke is killing us. And you know, the great reset kind of narrative. And I was thinking, at the Franklin who I know well is his media office who gonna re retweeted it. And I was thinking, Aw, come on Alba, come on, Franklin. You know, this is just like manifests a heaven for the real Australians who think the labour party have completely lost the plot.

Well, the problem is of course, and this happened some considerable time ago in the 90s that the so-called rusted on workers to the labour party, cease to be rusted on. And they ceased to be someone who was sort of on the, under the boot of the, of the employer, which is the picture that the labour party used to paint, but they became aspirational people. They became small business people. They became in charge of their own, their own destiny. They could see that they could have a better future for their kids if they got these opportunities, which liberal governments offered. And so what the labour party missed out on was to see that the attitude had changed of people who were their traditional rust add-ons that they had become the aspirational people who are the heart and soul of small business. And it used to the liberal party that they came. A similar thing happened in the United States with Ronald Reagan. When the, the Reagan Democrats sort of became a phenomenon it’s happened here. So what we have to understand and what the, what the government liberal governments have to understand is that you have to give those people the things that they need. And that’s why the issue of cheap electricity is so vital because to be successful in those endeavours, they need cheap electricity. It is the only competitive advantage they have against imported goods, and they need to be able to produce here in Australia, to set, as we pivot away from China, as we have to do and become more self-reliant, that’s why we need base power. And that’s why we can’t flood our power lines with the, the so-called with wind and solar, because you get all sorts of problems with delivery of power. And I, and I’ve said before, I can remember being in Manila in the 1980s, and they would be Brown out periods. They’d call them. And every time all the lights went on in the palace at Malecon yang, all the surrounding suburbs, they lost their power because they didn’t have enough. What will happen to us the only way you did enough and always be enough for the green elites for the labour elites, three people out of it. If we don’t get some base power.

Look, the bottom line is we need people with trade skills and nice and building skills. When they plumbers, when they’d spot Ks, we need people who know how to build stuff with their hands or with really clever use of machines. They can be women. They can be men, they can be young, they can be all that. We need those people. We need coal-fired power. We need water where, and when we want it, it’s not hard to work out. I want to hear this from the prime minister. I want to give a shout out before I finished. Cause we got to wind up, but good on your Dominic parity. One of the greatest places of public policy, I’m never in favour of new taxes. The idea of texting paper with electric cars is a beauty of all in favour of electric vehicles, but the infrastructure to make it possible for people, Jimmy Barnes and his a hundred thousand dollar plus, you know, electric car to, to really feel should be paid for an, a tax by the people who own the cars. Surely it shouldn’t be just doing me driving around in other cars. I would’ve thought that was a good piece of public policy. Dominic pyrrhotite well done to you. Malcolm Roberts. Thanks so much for your company tonight. Ramen, Bishop, Liz, Stora, brilliant to have you on tonight and kudos to you, Brahman for standing up for our defence force personnel list. We forget. Well, that’s it for another week back again. Next week, look forward to your company. Have a great day.