Posts

The Need to Avoid Catastrophic War is Paramount

I took the opportunity to set the record straight and clarify what Senator Penny Wong did to avoid answering a question I put to her on government misinformation. Having done so, I spoke in full support Senator Wong’s motion on Hamas attacks on Israel and ongoing conflict in her speech on the yesterday. Her speech was balanced, reasoned and befitting of an Australian Foreign Minister.

It’s true that the actions of radicals have caused untold death and suffering on both sides of the conflict. The Minister said what needs to be said and I refer everyone to her speech. The content, clarity and quality of her speech means I only have one point to add. There’s a chance this conflict could escalate to a catastrophic war and the need to avoid that happening must be paramount in the minds of all involved.

We have seen many such conflicts over the years and there’s one truth from them all: the sooner a ceasefire is declared, hostages are released and both sides sit down and talk to each other, the faster the suffering can be brought to an end.

May peace be with us all soon.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak to the motion that Senator Wong moved yesterday on Hamas attacks on Israel and the ongoing conflict. Firstly, though, I briefly mention the minister’s answer to my first supplementary question in question time yesterday. I asked about remarks the minister had made to the media in a press conference where the minister restated and amplified remarks that were made earlier in the day to the children of Cheng Lei, an Australian and Chinese citizen who is back in Australia following a period of incarceration in China, having concluded her sentence in prison. I am, of course, very pleased to see Cheng Lei free and reunited with her family, yet the minister chose to spin my question in a way that contradicted the events of the press conference, apparently to avoid actually answering my question. The minister’s comments were widely reported after her press conference. Responding to me yesterday, as the minister did, by invoking a motion was an inappropriate and false reflection. 

Turning to this motion on Hamas, I fully support Senator Wong’s motion and her speech on the matter yesterday. Her speech was balanced, reasoned and befitting of an Australian foreign minister. It’s true that the actions of radicals have caused untold death and suffering on both sides of the conflict. The minister said what needs to be said, and I refer everyone to her speech. The content, clarity and quality of her speech means I only have one point to add. There’s a chance this conflict could escalate to a catastrophic war, and the need to avoid that happening must be paramount in the minds of all involved. We have seen many such conflicts over the years, and there’s one truth from them all: the sooner a ceasefire is declared, hostages are released and both sides sit down and talk to each other, the faster the suffering can be brought to an end. May peace be with us all soon. 

Minister Penny Wong’s Speech

/by

Iraq invasion was based on WMD lies

20 years ago Australia joined the USA in an illegal invasion of Iraq.

We were told Saddam Hussein had yellow cake and weapons of mass destruction, this was an outright lie.

Transcript

I commend the Greens for the intent behind their speech. We need scrutiny when we deploy people overseas. I commend our armed services for their work overseas and in this country. They have sacrificed a lot, and they have covered themselves with honour. 

But I remind the Senate of Mr Alexander Downer’s interview on the 7.30 program, on the last day before he retired, where he said that John Howard came from America and strode into cabinet and said, ‘We’re off to Iraq.’ That’s not good enough. Now is not the time to do this.

I want to refer to a new book recently released by Clinton Fernandes titled Sub-imperial Power: Australia in the International Arena. Clinton Fernandes is a Canberra man who works for the University of New South Wales and lectures at ADFA. He has the guts to tell it as it is. It reads: ‘We are a sub-imperial power of the United States. We are making a mess of things by following the United States blindly into conflicts.’ 

Look at the Afghanistan withdrawal. Look at the mess that was created. Look at the weapons of mass destruction and the lies that were told to justify our invasion of Iraq. Then, quite openly and blatantly, we were told, ‘Oh, there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; we lied to you.’ The United States did that. Australia did that. Britain did that. Tony Blair admitted it. Where is the accountability?

Yet, on the other hand, I’m conflicted. I had a haircut on Friday, and the barber was from Iraq. He said that Iraq is better off in certain areas. So I can’t speak with knowledge. 

There are two parts to the Greens motion in part (b): 

(i) urges the Australian Parliament and government to learn the lessons of the past and to never again be dragged into another country’s unjust war of aggression … 

I support that. We need to learn from this. The only way to get accountability is to ask questions about it.

The second part reads: 

(ii)  calls for the withdrawal of ADF personnel still deployed to Iraq today under Operation Okra and Operation Accordion. 

I can’t vote for that because I don’t know the background. I don’t know what the consequences will be, so I’m not going to open my mouth one way or the other on that, but I want to echo the words of Senator Watt: we need an inquiry into that deployment. I think the Greens are on the right track in opening that issue up, but I cannot support the suspension of standing orders to do that.

I do support the intent, which is to have an inquiry and to develop accountability for these decisions of wantonly invading other countries in support of the United States.

So I commend the Greens, but I won’t be supporting their motion for the suspension of standing orders.

I thank you for raising it. 

/1 Comment/by

Ukraine: lets take a different perspective

We know that truth is the first casualty of war. Politicians of both sides hint they want to drag us into another war, but we have been lied to before. War is horrible for all involved, we must seek peace wherever possible as the people are the ones who suffer most.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to note that peace and security are my goals. Yet often these conflict—part of the irony of the human condition—at a personal level and a global level. We do know some things for sure. War is ugly. There are many inhuman actions in even the smallest war. We also know that truth is always war’s first casualty. We’re told there are two sides to this issue in Ukraine. I want to discuss a third view. So far, we’ve only heard one view. I’ll leave the other side to the Russians. They can talk for themselves; I’m not going to speak for the Russians. I want to discuss a third view. Having read widely in the last 14 years, I no longer swallow the crap we were fed at school and continue to be fed in the media.

Former Senator Ron Paul in the United States is acknowledged for trying to start a department of peace in America instead of a defence department. He had the respect, when he was in Congress, of both sides of politics, Democrats and Republicans. He is very well known for his honesty, his competence and his sincerity. Ron Paul said that every major war since 1913 can be directly attributed to the United States Federal Reserve bank, which is controlled by globalists.

Senator Steele-John just talked about Iraq. Mr President, I’d take your mind back to Iraq, and I remind people of what Mr Alexander Downer said when he retired. On his last night he said that, when John Howard came back from the 9/11 World Trade Center towers collapse in 2001, he walked into cabinet and said, ‘We’re off to Iraq.’ And the cabinet followed, and Australia followed, and in that conflict we killed Australian men and women—young men and women. We also killed a lot of Iraqis and people of other nationalities. ‘We’re off to Iraq.’ I can recall another incident, too, when Prime Minister Howard, Prime Minister Tony Blair from the United Kingdom and President George W Bush from the United States said, ‘We’re all going to go there because of weapons of mass destruction.’ And then, quietly, the world was told they never had any evidence of weapons of mass destruction, but not one parliament, not one congress, held anyone accountable. It went similarly after the Vietnam War and so many other wars around the world, and, as Senator Steele-John just said, it was led on many occasions by the United States.

I have huge admiration for the United States, having lived there for five years, been through all 50 states, worked in eight states and lived in eight states. I admire what the United States has done. I’m married to an American—a dual citizen of Australia and America. But I recognise now that I swallowed a lot of rubbish and propaganda from the Americans, because the government of America led many war efforts. The American people are fine, peace-loving people, but we have been taken into conflicts. So I’m open to alternative views on the Ukrainian issue, but we have no dog in this fight and we should stay out of it.

We repeatedly see decisions in the place—as people know, I can see—where there is data contradicting the reality, and yet, without any data, we blunder into things. We sometimes ignore the facts and data. And always, as one of the Labor senators pointed out, the people pay. So I raise questions. I question the narrative. I question the media narrative—it’s one-way. I question the political narrative—it’s one-way. I question the propaganda and the demonising. But I don’t make statements without facts, and I don’t know sufficient facts to take other than a third view here.

I question the cost of fuel. The biggest impact on our fuel prices is not the Ukraine conflict; it’s government taxes. Senator Hanson has flagged a reduction in excise duty. I question our capacity to defend ourselves, because we need manufacturing to produce weapons, armaments, tanks. We don’t have that capacity anymore. We’ve been gutted by adherence to UN agreements—the Lima declaration, the Kyoto protocol. We see, today, the government setting aside money for injecting babies—babies!—with an untested vaccine.

We heard the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Payne, talk about the Russians now having to fight German weapons that are being given to Ukraine. But the Germans are giving them billions of dollars for gas, because the United Nations has destroyed Germany’s capacity to look after its own energy needs. We have been disarmed. Germany is being disarmed. The only concrete thing I will say in this statement is that we need to get the hell out of the United Nations, not follow it, because the United Nations is pushing a war on humanity.

I’m not sufficiently informed to take a stance either way on this issue. I am, though, sufficiently informed to invite all senators to question what we’re being told. I implore senators, first of all, to understand basic needs of humans and the needs that are driving these conflicts, whether they’re domestic, national or international, and to understand that meeting universal human needs for security, basic interactions and connections is key. It is key to connection and key to relationships.

So I’d just ask people to question. I question how the Ukraine—I’m told by Senator Steele-John—is $129 billion in debt to the IMF, when it’s one of the richest countries in the world. How is that possible? So I ask questions, and I take a third view.

/2 Comments/by

The Drums of War – 2SM with Marcus Paul

,

Governments are destroying our country which is making it harder to stand up to China. I talked to Marcus Paul this morning about that and how I was reminded over the weekend about just how good Australian manufacturing used to be.

Transcript

[Marcus Paul] Hello, Malcolm.

[Malcolm Roberts] Good morning, Marcus, how are you?

[Marcus Paul] All right, thank you how are you?

[Malcolm Roberts] Very well, thanks.

[Marcus Paul] What do you make of it all, the drums of war beating and all this rubbish?

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, I think you summarised it very well, when you said marketing. It’s about pretending that the government is strong. Whereas in fact, I’ve just finished an inquiry report for the Northern Agenda. You know, what’s happening in our country, Marcus, is that the North is being held back along the same issues that the South is destroying. Energy, water, taxation, the basics. And the fundamental point about security is you have to have a strong economy. And the wombats in Canberra are destroying our economy through pandering to overseas bureaucrats, and selling our country out. It’s treasonous. So the fundamentals: we have to have a strong economy, a strong country, and that’s what we need to get back to.

[Marcus Paul] All right, with the fact that the, you know, the whole issue of quarantine during the pandemic, which is a federal responsibility, is being completely ballsed up, and palmed off by Morrison and his mates, with the fact that that’s completely being stuffed up. Be, you know, some of the reasons for the distraction, do you think?

[Malcolm Roberts] Possibly quite possibly, because you know, these politicians in Canberra have a habit of distracting, as you just said. But the whole pandemic has not been managed well. What we’ve got is an absence of data, that’s driving the plans. And we don’t have a plan, actually. We don’t even have a strategy. It just seems to be lurching from one thing to the next. One moment, one message to sell. Every single week, different message. There’s no coherent plan, that’s based on data. And I’ll talk more about that in a few weeks time, at senate estimates. But we need a plan for managing our economy, because that is fundamental to health. What we’re doing is destroying our economy, with some of the responses. I mean, people, you know, the Premiers of the States talk, and the Prime Minister talks about going and spending money in your state, and travelling. How the hell can people make plans when they could fly to Western Australia for example, and get locked down because they’ve got one positive test. They’d have to come back and spend $3,000 in quarantine. It’s just capricious. It’s destructive, it doesn’t consider the people.

[Marcus Paul] Your mates up there in the upper Hunter, might be as unhappy as what labor are at the moment, because I’m sorry, Pork-Barrelarow is out there with his chequebook, story this morning. And they’re promising funding to a number of women’s business organisations. While you know, there are other areas, probably should be prioritised. There’s a bit more pork barreling going on by the Berejiklian Barrilaro government, to sort of like keep your heads up on that, mate.

[Malcolm Roberts] I’m not surprised, are you?

[Marcus Paul] Well, of course not.

[Malcolm Roberts] But you know what these people are going around. What we have in this country is a system of having options every four years at the state level, every three years at the federal government level. And people don’t seem to realise that these promises have to be paid for. And who’s gonna pay for them? The very people who have taken part in the election, the voters. So, it’s a disrespectful way of running government, but it seems, the people seem to fall for it quite often. So we’ve gotta get more people aware of what’s going on in government, so that people realise that these promises are just hollow, and that they’re wasting money, quite often

[Marcus Paul] Aussie ingenuity and initiative, what’s happened to it? We used to make engines and wonderful pieces of technology.

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, you’re absolutely correct, Marcus. A lot of your listeners, the older listeners will remember names like Lister, Southern Cross, Cooper, Sundial, Barzakov. These are just some of the names on old engines, old diesel engines that were purring and puttering along at the Dalby, I went out to the Dalby Show. You know, you would have gone to shows when you were a kid.

[Marcus Paul] Oh yeah, yep.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah, Royal Easter, where did you grow up?

[Marcus Paul] Sydney’s West, the Luddenham Show, the Penrith Show. You know, they were wonderful.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah, and so what we saw at Dalby, which is west of Toowoomba on the Darling Downs, beautiful Darling Downs, it’s definitely a rural town. And we saw one whole field dedicated to 400, more than 400 engines, old engines. Had to be more than 30 years old. Some of them are a 100 years old that were puttering along, and they set a record for having the most engines running concurrently in a small area. But could you imagine this? Hundred metres long, five lines of engines, all with the enthusiasts with them, tinkering them along. You know and these engines, as I said, had to be more than 30 years old. But they worked across our country. They were essential in farming industry. Many were designed and built in Australia, highly dependable, highly reliable. Some were built under licence from overseas countries. We make none of these engines now, none at all. Yet we have great people like Jack Brabham, for example. He’s the only person ever, to have been an owner of a Formula One team, a designer of a car, and the driver, the only one ever. And he won three world champions. He’ll never be repeated. We’ve got the talent in this country. We’ve just destroyed our capacity to be productive.

[Marcus Paul] Ah, gee. All right, Malcolm. Great to have you on the programme, mate. We’ll catch up again next week. Thank you.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you, Marcus. Have a good one, mate. One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts. Marcus Paul in the Morning.

/by