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United Nations Pact for the Future – A Power Grab by Global Billionaires

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The world’s predatory billionaires are continuing their quest to rule the world for their own benefit, with vassal states like Australia recently signing onto their latest power grab – the United Nations Pact for the Future.

Before this Pact can take effect in Australia, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties will need to conduct an inquiry, followed by both Houses of Parliament voting for ratification. The public still has time to bring to heel the globalists running the Albanese Labor government.

The Pact is essentially a comprehensive wish list for global governance. On the upside, it lacks detail, firm language, and binding commitments. These were in the original draft but were removed to push the diluted document through. Even then, nine nations voted against moving towards a vote, and 40 more abstained. The UN doesn’t have the support it needs to press ahead with any significant theft of national sovereignty. However, that won’t stop some traitors in our Parliament and bureaucracy from handing it over, claiming that “the UN told us to.”

Only One Nation is committed to standing against the transfer of wealth and power to the world’s predatory billionaires and their lackeys in the United Nations, World Health Organisation and World Economic Forum.

Transcript

Last week the United Nations passed its Pact for the Future. Before the pact can come into effect in Australia, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties has to do an inquiry, and then both houses of parliament vote for ratification. The public have time to bring to heal the globalists running the Albanese Labor government.

The pact is a comprehensive wish list for world governance with no detail and no implementation plan. There are 56 bold actions—really, they’re fluffy motherhood statements. For example, action 2, which I will quote in full, is:

Action 2. We will place the eradication of poverty at the centre of our efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda.

21. Eradicating poverty, in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is an imperative for all humankind. We decide to:

(a) Take comprehensive and targeted measures to eradicate poverty by addressing the multidimensional nature of poverty, including through rural development strategies and investments and innovations in the social sector, especially education and health;

(b) Take concrete actions to prevent people from falling back into poverty, including by establishing well-designed, sustainable and efficient social protection systems for all that are responsive to shocks.

That’s the entire section on eliminating poverty. It looks like the AI author trained only on children’s picture books.

Do you remember Labor’s failed slogan: ‘By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty’? The pact is not a pandemic treaty. The word ‘pandemic’ is not mentioned. COVID is not mentioned. The World Health Organization is not mentioned. There are no penalty clauses for noncompliance. There is no dispute clause, because the pact does not include anything tangible enough to dispute. In the formal vote to adopt, 45 nations opposed it or abstained. What happens now is that our globalist government will sign up to any and every theft of Australian sovereignty it can while saying, ‘The United Nations made me do it.’ No, the United Nations did not. Whatever nefarious attack on agriculture, standard of living, education and human rights the government is planning is entirely this government’s responsibility.

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One Nation’s Plan to Restore Australian Farming : End Net Zero Madness

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In this video I outline One Nation’s plan to restore Australian farming – within the 60 seconds I was allotted to debate the Nationals’ motion on the issue. 

It’s an easy solution: end the net zero madness! 

Net zero is a policy of the Liberals, the Nationals, Labor, the Greens, and the Teals. Their collective commitment to net zero is destroying farming through the death of a thousand regulatory cuts, strangling farmers with restrictions on water use, farm chemicals, fertilisers, on their soil. This is choking the life out of rural Australia in the name of reducing carbon dioxide, which helps grow the very food these net zero ideologues eat. 

In reality, net zero means net zero food, net zero clothing, net zero freedom and net zero travel. The UN and the World Economic Forum are pushing for food to be produced in near-urban intensive food manufacturing facilities producing cultural lab-grown meat, forced greens with no cell structure and bug protein. It’s time to let Australian farmers once again feed and clothe the world.  

Let’s end government driven by ideology and restore common sense to farming. 

Transcript

How would One Nation restore Australian farming—explained in the 60 seconds the Nationals have allocated me? It’s easy: end the net zero madness. Net zero is a policy of the Liberals, the Nationals, the Labor Party, the Greens and the teals. Each committed to destroying farming through the death of a thousand regulatory cuts, strangling farmers with restrictions on water use, on farm chemicals and fertilisers and even on their soil. This is strangling the life out of rural Australia in the name of reducing carbon dioxide, which fertilises the very food these net zero ideologues eat. 

Net zero really means net zero food, net zero clothes, net zero freedom and net zero travel. We’ve been told by the UN and the World Economic Forum that food will be produced in near-urban intensive food-manufacturing facilities producing cultured laboratory meat, forced greens with no cell structure and bug protein. Allow Australian farmers to once again feed and clothe the world. It’s time to end government by ideology. 

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Albanese Government’s Sham Celebration

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Unbelievable! The Albanese Labor government is celebrating a measly 0.8% wage increase for the quarter, while inflation has gone up by 1%. Do the math, and it’s clear—we’re all going backwards by 0.2%! 😡 Yet, the Treasurer and Prime Minister have the audacity to tell us to celebrate. Meanwhile, everyday Aussies are suffering through the worst cost-of-living crisis in modern history. Our GDP is barely avoiding a recession, propped up only by a massive influx of one million new migrants in just two years. Let’s be real: we’re in the middle of the worst per capita recession since the Great Depression!

The Liberal-Labor Uniparty is shipping off our natural resources, obeying unelected foreign bodies like the WEF, and allowing predatory investment funds to own our critical industries. Additionally, they’ve also let our housing crisis spiral out of control by bringing in more people than we can house.

Only One Nation will put a stop to this madness and fight for the Australian people. It’s time to end these anti-Australian decisions that are dragging us backwards.

Transcript

Well, I couldn’t believe my ears last week. The Albanese Labor government burst out of the gates to tell Australians to celebrate and rejoice: wages had gone up 0.8 per cent for the quarter. The Treasurer and Prime Minister tell us: ‘Pop the champagne bottles! Just ignore the fact that inflation has gone up one per cent for the same quarter.’ That means everyone has gone backwards an average of 0.2 per cent. Can you believe the Treasurer and Prime Minister can bring themselves to front up to the cameras to address this parliament and put such a ridiculous spin on the latest round of bad news? How do they do it? How does the Labor Party keep telling Australians we’ve never had it better, while Australians struggle through the worst cost-of-living crisis in modern history? The GDP is treading water; it’s barely staying out of technical recession. How is it staying out? Thanks to one million fresh migrant arrivals in just two years, boosting official gross domestic product, GDP, to just barely over the recession threshold. 

Meanwhile, let’s look at how everyday Australians are faring. We’re in the middle of the worst per capita recession since the Great Depression. Australians have not gone backwards on average this badly since the 1930s—almost a century. What is the Liberal-Labor uniparty’s answer to this? The uniparty will continue to send our natural resources overseas for China to use in building solar panels that China sells back to us. The uniparty will continue to obey what unelected foreign organisations like the World Economic Forum say. The uniparty will keep letting foreign predatory investment funds like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, and banks like JP Morgan, own our critical industries and get away with economic murder. The uniparty will continue to let too many new arrivals into our country before we have the necessary housing and services, prolonging the housing crisis that the uniparty created over recent decades. The housing crisis did not occur overnight; it’s been cultivated. Only One Nation will stop this madness and put an end to anti-Australia decisions that are sending our people backwards. (Time expired) 

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The Andrew Gray Podcast: Are We Being Lied To?

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I joined Andrew Gray on his Podcast – Healthy Leadership Mentor where we discuss many topics including the many ways the Australian people are being deceived.

👉 Subscribe to his Newsletter: https://andrew-gray.ck.page/profile

🎙️ Subscribe to his Podcast: https://healthyleadershipmentor.buzzs…

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National Day of Protest: No Digital ID Rally

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A Triad of Tyranny

Three Bills are being rammed through the Senate to create legislation that will transform the UN-WEF plans for surveillance and control into a dystopian reality in Australia.

The first is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023, which is designed to permit the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens and normalise it. The second, the Digital Identity Bill 2023, will ensure Australians have no choice but to succumb to setting up a digital ID. The third is the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023. This is the censorship tool to make sure both the media and social media carries government sanctioned opinions only. The government in power is exempted and free to be the Ministry of Truth, spreading misinformation or disinformation. Remember how well that went during the COVID response?

The Driver’s Licence database is being upgraded to become the repository of your master identification record, which is already being used to establish your identity with a paper check and now with a facial scan.

I implored the Senate to vote against and to reject this Bill. This is the first of three Bills necessary to turn Australia into the world’s first World Economic Forum digital prison.

Transcript

One Nation strongly opposes the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023. Here’s why. The Albanese government’s great mate, Blackrock boss Larry Fink, and predatory billionaires at the World Economic Forum are fond of the phrase ‘you will own nothing and be happy’. What they really mean is that they will own everything and you will comply. Why would people voluntarily enslave themselves, give up their homes, cars and household goods and lose the right to travel freely, I hear you ask. The answer is that people will not be given a choice. They will be coerced—forced into it. That’s the purpose of this government’s triad of tyranny.

First is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023, which will normalise and allow the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens. Second is the Digital ID Bill 2023, which will force every Australian into having a digital ID. Third is the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023, which will ensure media and social media only carry government sanctioned opinions; the government will be exempted and can be free to spread misinformation and disinformation.

Biometric data is your face turned into a data file based on your physical characteristics. It allows for faster and more accurate identification. They will capture your face. The national drivers licence database is being upgraded to become the repository of your master identification record, which is already used to establish your identity with a paper check. Now it will have a facial scan.

Australians do not need to consent in a meaningful manner. The bill currently uses the word ‘consent’ without definition. Consent can be implied. Here’s an example. If a person sees a video of themselves on a self-service check-out at the supermarket and uses the check-out anyway, it’s considered implied consent. The government has accepted that implied consent is no consent at all and has upgraded the reference to ‘consent’ in their amendment on sheet UD100 to ‘explicit consent’. That isn’t good enough either. Explicit consent can be provided as blanket consent. An example would be MasterCard changing their terms and conditions to allow for facial recognition whenever their card is used. Once the card owner gets the email saying, ‘We have updated our terms and conditions. Click here to approve,’ and people click without reading it, one of those new terms could be permission for facial recognition. Did you give consent? No.

Banks currently record the image of anyone using their ATMs and then use that in the case of a fraudulent transaction. Banks will update their terms and conditions to give themselves the right to run your biometric
verification on each occasion before allowing access to your account. Refusing the new permission gives your bank or card company the right to refuse service. It’s that simple. It’s blackmail. This is why the government suggesting a digital ID or biometric data check will be voluntary is a complete lie. It’s compulsory, because not agreeing means you lose your bank account or payment card or service—just as those voluntary COVID injections were compulsory if you wanted to keep your job and your house and feed your family.

I foreshadow an amendment in the committee stage on sheet 2327 to change the definition of ‘explicit’ to ‘active’, meaning on each occasion your face is to be scanned they must ask permission before they scan it and make sure they get your permission each time. That’s active consent. This should be supported, because the government already says Australians will have to consent to their biometric data being used—unless, of course, that was misinformation.

This bill does not offer a direct link between the authentication action at a check-out, office, airport et cetera and the master file. A government hub receives a request and pulls the master file, meaning only the government has access to the master file. This seems to look acceptable, yet it means there’s a master file with 17 million records containing name, address, telephone, date of birth, drivers licence number, passport number and a biometric identification file all sitting in the same database. That’s all the information necessary to steal someone’s ID and impersonate them online—a hacker’s paradise.

Robodebt proved that our bureaucrats are incapable of even a simple one-to-one database match, and now they’re being trusted to pull this off. It’s impossible without a high level of compulsion and without completely ignoring victims of software or data-matching errors. If the look-up fails, then your purchase, travel, document, signing or whatever other use fails. If the purchase was for petrol, your family could be stranded late at night. We might as well start the royal commission now.

Downstream from the big government database are what I call intermediaries or entities with participating agreements. There are 20 of these so far. Their role is to take a request for authentication from a bank or card
processor, solicitor, real estate agent, airline—anyone needing you to prove you are who you say you are—and submit that to the national drivers licence database hub to run past the master database. In the original bill there were no effective checks and balances on those businesses. The government’s amendment of its own bill has added a few checks and balances to ensure that intermediaries must delete data received as part of the verification process.

Thank you, Minister Gallagher. That, taken together with my amendment to make the level of consent clear, takes some of the potential abuse out of the bill. A clear privacy statement would have helped. The government have promised they will do that later. There are trust issues around that promise.

Questions remain around the New South Wales government’s comment that this bill will allow them to verify that every person detected driving a car past a surveillance camera has a drivers licence.

The only way this can be achieved is if every driver is scanned every time they pass a detection camera and their image is compared to the national database. Does this mean those cameras going up around Australia are just the right height to scan the driver’s face and that the cameras will be used to scan and verify your identity each time you pass one? Yes, it does. Before they work out who you are and whether you have a licence, they have to scan and verify your biometrics. It’s the only explanation for the New South Wales government’s comment.

For those listening to this with incredulity, I remind you that this is exactly the system now in place in London, with Lord Mayor Khan’s ULEZ, Ultra Low Emission Zone, and in Birmingham, Manchester and other cities in Britain. It’s really the World Economic Forum’s 15-minute cities happening right now. Residents are locked into their zone and can only leave a certain number of times a year. This is happening in Britain. That depends on the make and model of the car you drive. If you drive a car they don’t like, you can’t move. Rich people who can afford electric cars can, of course, come and go as they please. Everyday citizens are locked in or, when they leave, the cameras detect them leaving and fine them on the spot. It’s a fine of 180 pounds a week for leaving over seven days.

That’s in Britain now. Already it has raised hundreds of millions of pounds because people will pay for freedom.

Look it up. Don’t just trust me: look it up. There are fines for not registering with the system and fines for breaching the 15-minute limits. It’s a virtual fence. It’s like an electric dog collar. It’s the foundation for a social credit system to completely control people’s lives. So don’t tell me this is a conspiracy theory. It’s real and it’s happening now in our mother country.

Cash is necessary to ensure these measures are ameliorated as much as possible, which is why the globalist wing of the Liberal Party tried to ban cash in the last parliament, which One Nation defeated. It should be obvious that predatory, parasitic billionaires and some of their lackeys in the Labor and Liberal Party are getting their ducks in a row because they want to be ready for the full implementation of their globalist masters’ control agenda, exactly as they promised. It’s not like they’re hiding any of this. When they tell us what they’re going to do, listen.

Remember this government’s triad of tyranny. Already entered into parliament is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023 to normalise and allow the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens. Here it is. There’s the Digital ID Bill 2023 to force every Australian into having a digital ID. There’s the misinformation and disinformation bill 2023, which will ensure media and social media only carry government sanctioned opinions, and the government is exempted. I implore the Senate to vote against this bill and to reject this bill. This is the first of three bills necessary to turn Australia into the world’s first World Economic Forum digital prison.

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Labor Abandons its Roots

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The Labor Party’s famed light on the hill is now nothing more than the sun reflecting off solar panels, which we know are expensive, short lived and an environmental disaster – just like the Albanese Labour government. In a recent article in The Australian, Jenny George AO delivered a scathing assessment of the modern Labor Party, stating that “Labor today is not the party it once was. It has lost its moral direction.”Members of the Labor Party like Jenny George have not left the party – the party left them. Continuing in her own words – “The party that was formed to give political expression to the needs of working people has allowed the light on the hill to dim.” 

The duopoly of Labor and the Liberal-National Party, that Australians wearily switch between every few years, is no longer built on the foundations of what Labor and the LNP originally stood for. These establishment parties continue to take from working Australians to line the pockets of their billionaire mates at the World Economic Forum. 

One Nation is the only party that still stands for working Australians and will support all who’ve come to this country to lift themselves up through their own hard work and enterprise.

Transcript

On the weekend, former ACTU president and former Labor member of parliament Jennie George AO published an article in the Australian newspaper. It’s compulsory reading. Jennie clearly holds Labor’s light on the hill in her heart, and her words echo the sadness and grief of many Labor true believers. She said: ‘The party that was formed to give political expression to the needs of working people has allowed the light on the hill to dim.’ In a recent speech I remarked that in 2024 Labor’s famed light on the hill is now nothing more than the sun reflecting off solar panels, which we know are expensive, short-lived and an environmental disaster—just like the Albanese Labor government. 

Jennie George’s judgement of the modern ALP is savage. She says: ‘Labor today is not the party it was; it has lost its moral compass.’ Ouch! Labor Party members like Jennie have not left the party; the party left them. The Overton window is a metaphor for the acceptable range of ideas and policies in which many politicians think they can act. Through it, such politicians see the middle ground of Australian politics. Under successive Labor-Greens and Liberals-Nationals governments, the Overton window has moved so far to the left and to the autocratic—that it no longer provides for everyday Australians. We’re losing wealth, spending power, access to housing, democracy and enjoyment of the riches our country has to offer. Establishment parties continue to take from working Australians to line the pockets of their millionaire and billionaire mates at the World Economic Forum. 

One Nation is the only party that still stands for working Australians and for all who have come here to lift themselves up through their own hard work and enterprise. Our One Nation policies will make the lives of working Australians easier. Jennie George’s words embolden old Labor to take back their party and excise from its ranks those who wear the mark of the World Economic Forum. Restore the ascendancy of our parliament, and return power to the people we are supposed to serve. 

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Luxury EVs for ASEAN-Australia Summit a PR Stunt

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In yet more wasteful virtue signalling, Labor is laying on an extra fleet of luxury EVs for the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit from 4th-6th March 2024 to shuttle the hundreds of delegates around Melbourne at the taxpayers expense.

As much as this government is advancing the World Economic Forum agenda promoting bug protein, limits on food consumption, and energy policies, I am sure the meeting, like Davos, will get through copious amounts of meat and dairy. Any photos of the food can be sent to my website or shared to my social media.

The insanity of the Net Zero dog and pony show gets worse. Because there are not enough electric cars in the Victorian fleet, high end luxury European EVs from COMCAR services are being sent to Melbourne from Canberra and Adelaide. COMCAR staff are having to organising their route to Melbourne to include stopping at charging stations so they actually do make it to Melbourne.

Why is the PM again wasting tax dollars on tokenism? One Nation is keen to uncover just how much this stunt is costing Australian taxpayers.

Transcript

Next week the 11 leaders of countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will arrive in Melbourne for the biannual ASEAN Summit. Hundreds of delegates will be shuttled around Melbourne at taxpayers’ expense. One Nation welcomes meetings like ASEAN that encourage countries to be good neighbours, and One Nation supports spending only what’s necessary to achieve a good outcome.  

As much as this government is advancing the World Economic Forum agenda promoting bug protein, limits on food consumption, and energy policies, I am sure the meeting will get through copious amounts of luxury food. Any photos of the food can be sent to my website or shared to my social media. What really got my attention is today’s Australian newspaper, with an article stating that the Prime Minister has required all vehicles provided to delegates to be electric. Because there are not enough electric cars in the Victorian fleet, electric Comcars are being sent to Melbourne from Canberra and Adelaide. Comcar staff are having to organising their route to Melbourne to include stopping at charging stations so they actually do make it to Melbourne. Why put on this tokenistic superficial show of fealty to the globalist electrification agenda at all?  

In the last few weeks, we’ve seen leading car makers do a U-turn on plans to sell only electric cars due to low demand, low profit and escalating scarcity of materials. In fact, despite heavy subsidies, last year in Europe EVs accounted for only 14 per cent of sales. Australia is half that. Insurance premiums are skyrocketing as damaged EVs prove very expensive to repair—one reason EVs lose value at twice the rate of cars with internal combustion engines. They’re lemons. The amount of minerals and energy needed to make, maintain and recycle electric vehicles is so high that EV stands for ‘environmental vandalism’.  

One Nation would like to know how much this exercise in virtue signalling is costing our Australian taxpayers. 

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Labor Proposes to Tax the Shirt off Your Back

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During Question Time, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher twice failed to rule out adding a tax to clothing.

This tax will be passed on to you and I at the checkout, making clothing more expensive and adding to the cost of living. The excuse for this tax is to reduce climate change by reducing the amount of clothing being manufactured. The wealthy wont reduce their purchases for the sake of a tax, yet everyday Australians will have no choice.

This exchange shows the Albanese Government really is considering taxing the shirt on your back, so you buy fewer clothes. Welcome to life under a Labor/Greens/WEF government.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water, Senator Gallagher. Last week the Minister for the Environment and Water, Tania Plibersek MP, stated that Australians were throwing out too many items of clothing, and manufacturers should sign up to a government-backed scheme called Seamless to recycle and not dump used clothes. Clothing can and should be recycled into new clothing and other fibre products. One Australian company operates an upcycling scheme that has dozens of manufacturers, trade linen suppliers, recycling companies and retailers as members, and has taken 100 tonnes of clothing out of landfill. Minister, why is the government reinventing the wheel, creating its own favoured solution and imposing that instead of working with the industry to help them upscale their existing solution?

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council): I thank Senator Roberts for the question. From what I’ve seen from the minister and the work that she has been doing in space, she has been working with industry and relevant businesses on the development of this policy. That has been critical to the work that she has been doing and it has certainly been under way for some time. I know there was talk before there was a summit and there was talk of a voluntary code, but it is an important part of ensuring that we are protecting the environment from the amount of waste that is going into landfill—and a big contributor of that is clothing. I don’t know, maybe I have misunderstood your question, Senator Roberts, but while there are manufacturers and industries in place that are already doing this, this is about building on that and making it more across-the-board, particularly for those that aren’t doing that, to make sure we are lifting our game in relation to recycling, and preventing the huge amount of clothing material going into landfill. If there are manufacturers or businesses that you think are feeling out of the loop of that consultation I’m sure the Minister for the Environment and Water would be happy to reach out.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a first supplementary question?

Senator ROBERTS: Councils do not currently include clothing on the list of things people can put into a yellow bin. Most suggest giving used clothes to charity shops, very little of which can be resold. Most of that ends up in landfill at the charity shop’s expense. Isn’t the first step here sorting out the system for recycling and processing, then working with councils and retailers to encourage recycling through yellow bins? Is your government putting the cart before the horse?

Senator GALLAGHER: I don’t accept that, Senator Roberts. Where we can, we do work with councils and we work with businesses—we’ll work with anybody who wants to help protect the environment and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. From my reading—and I was not here last week—of the work that Minister Plibersek was doing, it was about encouraging the voluntary cooperation or involvement of businesses in Seamless, in that program, to build it from there. So I would think, yes, you have to work with all of those people, including the councils that run the recycling facilities, whether it be the tips or whether it be what is called the Green Shed here. People donate to Vinnies. There are clothing bins. There are all of those options. Many of those are run by local government. But the Commonwealth government should provide a leadership role and provide that stewardship, where we can, and work together with everybody involved.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: Minister Plibersek threatened that if the industry did not accept the government’s superfluous Seamless then a 4 cent waste levy should be imposed on clothing manufacturers. This proposal will increase the cost of clothing at the checkouts. Minister, will you, right now, rule out taxing clothing? 

Senator GALLAGHER: Minister Plibersek has been working with the industry to reduce the amount of waste. Clothes are cheaper than they have ever been—this is part of the problem. Anyone with teenagers or anyone who goes on some of these websites knows that you can replace your whole wardrobe, very cost-efficiently, because of the nature of people’s buying habits and the ability to get clothes from overseas. We are seeing that the average Australian sends almost 10 kilos of clothing waste to landfill every year. So it is a big problem, and it’s a problem that we need to work across industry to fix. 

The PRESIDENT: Minister, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts? 

Senator ROBERTS: A point of order on relevance: I asked, ‘Will the minister now rule out taxing clothing?’ 

The PRESIDENT: The minister is being relevant to your question, Senator Roberts. 

Senator GALLAGHER: I am explaining what the government is doing. You might want to take it somewhere else, which we have no plans to do. We are talking about what we are doing now with Seamless, which is: working with industry to reduce the amount of clothing going to landfill. And we will work with anybody who wants to work with us on that.

Following Question Time, I moved to take note of the Minister’s response to my questions.

When did it become appropriate for the government to decide how much clothing you own? Minister Tania Plibersek is repeating World Economic Forum rhetoric designed to widen the gulf between the haves and the have nots. It’s terrifying that Minister Plibersek should recycle WEF talking points to the Australian public.

The real failure however is that many people aren’t aware that clothes can be recycled. Councils and retail stores don’t offer recycling options, and although the fashion industry has started recycling facilities in Sydney and Melbourne, more is needed.

Instead of taxing clothing, how about working with the industry to expand capability and encourage the clothing industry to tag items for recycling instead of throwing them out. The government could do with ignoring the WEF and its CCP-style rules and instead think for itself on behalf of Australians not globalists. How about less stick and more common sense?

Transcript

I move: 

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the government’s proposed tax on clothing. 

We are told the proposed tax on clothing is to encourage recycling. The proposal from the Minister for the Environment and Water was floated over the weekend. This was not some random thought bubble. The World Economic Forum and its acolytes have been saying for years that everyday citizens are buying too much clothing. Minister Plibersek repeated those World Economic Forum talking points in the same press conference. This begs the questions: What’s the correct amount of clothing a person can own? Who decides how much clothing we each get to own? Is the intent to remove colour and style options so that a few approved uniforms are all we need? Didn’t China try that already? 

This proposal sits alongside the World Economic Forum policy that I spoke to last sitting, calling on people to wear clothing for a week and jeans for a month before washing them. It’s true that laundering clothing does wear it out. To get by with fewer items of clothing, one has to wash them less often. At least they thought this through. 

It’s terrifying that a minister of the Crown would repeat World Economic Forum talking points designed to ensure that everyday Australians have less. The failure here, though, is this: the reason we throw out so much clothing is that Australians don’t know clothing can be recycled. Councils don’t have clothing on the lists of things you can put in a yellow bin. Retailers don’t have recycling bins in stores, and they don’t attach a tag to a garment saying, ‘You can recycle the product in a yellow bin.’ The industry already has recycling facilities in Sydney and Melbourne, which is a good start. 

Here’s an idea: instead of taxing clothing to create a new recycling system, as the Labor Party is considering, how about working with the industry to expand capability and then encourage the public to recycle clothing instead of throwing it out? This government needs to use less stick and more commonsense. It needs to use less control and do more listening and consulting. 

Question agreed to. 

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FSANZ Handling of Lab Grown Meat is a Concern

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I asked questions about the progress of an application by Vow Food for lab-grown quail meat. This is a serious matter that will provide approval for an entirely new industry — an industry that is promoted as being environmentally friendly, while offering a high standard of food, when the truth is the complete opposite.

My questions were based on the timetable for approval published on Food Standards Australia New Zealand’s (FSANZ) own website for this application. A timetable that appears to be out of date. It’s not acceptable that FSANZ would not keep the index page for this most important of applications up to date. I trust the answers provided, which extend the timetable 8 months, are truthful.

While FSANZ are apparently calling for submissions, there has been no attempt to promote the ability of the public and interested groups to do so. This suggests the submission will be curated to provide support for the application. Lab grown meat is a massive threat to public health and safety.

The product is grown in a bioreactor and develops a nutrition profile which is directly related to the fertilizer solution added to the growing medium. Fatal bacteria such as e-coli and salmonella must be controlled. The name of the game here is profit, taking food production away from family farms that produce a healthy natural product and moving it to city-based intensive production facilities owned by foreign corporations operating for profit. I have no confidence under this model that the main input — the nutrition slurry, and the anti-bacterial protections — will not be dialled down so as to dial profits up. I will return to this topic in May.

Transcript

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, you have the call.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing today. I’ve got a document that I’m going to try to table later. My questions are about the progress of the Vow company’s lab-grown quail meat. It appears your organisation has recommended that your board approve the lab-grown meat at its next meeting later this month. Is that correct?

Dr Cuthbert: No, that’s not correct. That process goes through two calls for submissions, so we’ve got two processes where we seek comments from any interested stakeholder.

Senator ROBERTS: Any Australian?

Dr Cuthbert: Any stakeholder. It just finished its first call for submissions on, I believe, 5 February. We received approximately 40 submissions on that first round. We’ll then be considering all of the submissions that we’ve received and go out for a second round of consultation once we’ve considered all of those submissions. There will be that second opportunity for people to comment. Only after that will we be putting it forward to the board for consideration.

CHAIR: I’m just going to provide advice on this document. I’m still seeking the source to table, but I’m happy for it to be distributed to witnesses to assist in answering questions. Then we’ll provide advice on tabling.

Senator ROBERTS: Why are there calls for comment?

Dr Cuthbert: Under the FSANZ Act there are models under which we can assess a product. The framework we utilise depends on the product’s complexity and other variables. For this one, because it’s a normal food and because of the complexity that was assessed, we determined that the process that it’s under will include two rounds of public consultation.

Senator ROBERTS: If the board approves a product, which—is that likely?

Dr Cuthbert: We’re still in the process of—

Senator ROBERTS: So it’s too early to say if it’s likely or not. When will you finish your process of consultation and listening, and make a recommendation to the board? When will the board sign off—if it signs off? I’m after rough timing.

Dr Cuthbert: I might seek input from Ms Jenny Hazelton, who’s managing the branch responsible for this piece of work.

Ms Hazelton: The normal process for applications—there are some statutory time frames for completion of that work. At this stage we’re anticipating it will be later this year when we will be putting this to the board. As Dr Cuthbert’s already indicated, we do have another round of public comment, and what comes forward in that second round of public comment will likely then determine when it will actually go to the board.

Senator ROBERTS: So it could go to the board sometime after July or maybe towards the end of the year?

Ms Hazelton: Closer to the end of the year, more likely.

Senator ROBERTS: How long will it take to be gazetted if the board approves it?

Ms Hazelton: The process from there would be that we would notify the Food Ministers Meeting of the outcome.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s federal and state?

Dr Cuthbert: Yes. That’s the representation on the Food Ministers Meeting. They have 60 days to consider that and either ask for us to review that decision or accept, and it would then go on to a gazettal after that time.

Senator ROBERTS: So they’re part of the process of approving or rejecting?

Ms Hazelton: Correct.

Senator ROBERTS: How does that process work? Is it a unanimous vote, or is it just that each state signs up or doesn’t sign up?

Ms Hazelton: It operates through a consensus. Sorry—each state and territory and New Zealand has an opportunity to vote for whether they will accept the approval or whether they will ask for a review.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I referenced your document 273-23 ‘Consumer insights tracker’, which is one of these. There it is; 273-23. Are you familiar with that?

Dr Cuthbert: Our consumer insights tracker?

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. This is a supporting document to consumer literature review application A1269.

Dr Cuthbert: Apologies. Yes; thank you very much.

Senator ROBERTS: It’s available on your website, which concludes, the best name to give this novel food is ‘cell cultured,’ which makes it sound better than ‘lab grown’ or ‘Frankenfood’. I note that your language on subsequent documents uses ‘cell cultured’ or ‘cultured’. Why are you using language that promotes adoption of this product?

Ms Hazelton: We did do a literature review in terms of looking at consumers understanding of what that type of language would be. We are only at the first stage of this process—we’ve just received submissions—so that’s what we have proposed to date. That may not necessarily be what is ultimately in the final approval.

Senator ROBERTS: Your document, which was in that pile there, A1269 hazard and risk assessment, that document references the food safety aspects of cell-based food from the United Nations and the World Health Organization—both organisations I have very little regard for, but nonetheless even they list 53 potential hazards from lab grown meat. That report concludes on page 118: ‘Risk assessment was only the first part of the process of approving lab grown meat for human consumption. What needs to follow are our regulatory authorities cooperating with each other to share information around these potential health risks, which can be pretty severe.’ Rather than doing that and asking for in-depth studies, is FSANZ intending on waving these products through?

Dr Cuthbert: We will continue to do our assessment, and that assessment is quite broad, to determine the safety that needs to be considered through the process.

Senator ROBERTS: Has Vow addressed all your concerns?

Ms Leemhuis: We have received a raft of information from the applicant, Vow, but in addition to that we do look globally at what other evidence is available to inform our assessment.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Could you take on notice—I won’t take up the committee’s time now because we’re behind schedule—the approval processes or the steps that you take to consider an application, please? Did you ask Vow for genotoxicity studies in rats, commonly used to ascertain the safety of the product on reproduction and on the growth of cancers or organ damage.

Ms Leemhuis: We regularly ask for toxicity studies for almost all applications that we receive. I’d have to take on notice the specific studies we received for this one, although they will be referenced in the A1269 report online.

Senator ROBERTS: Including genotoxicity?

Ms Leemhuis: Including genotoxicity, yes.

Senator ROBERTS: The approval process seems to be, ‘Well, we can’t find literature that says’—this is casting the net broadly about the approval process, not necessarily yours—’this novel food is dangerous, so we won’t do the work to fill that gap and make sure this product is safe.’ That sounds like malfeasance. Have you done much work with other agencies, including your own, on whether the process is rigorous?

Ms Leemhuis: We work internationally with all of our regulatory partners in this area. We are not alone in looking at these new products coming to market, so, yes, we have regular conversations with a number of agencies globally around this, and the evidence required to assess the safety of these products.

Senator ROBERTS: Could you take it on notice to list those agencies for me, please?

Ms Leemhuis: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: And would you characterise the exercise in some agencies overseas as just tick and flick, ‘Just approve it’, ‘Might as well do it’?

Ms Leemhuis: I’m not sure we could comment on other agencies processes, just our own.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. How would you describe your process of assessment and approval? Rigorous?

Ms Leemhuis: Yes.

Dr Cuthbert: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: These products, these fake meats, are grown in a bioreactor that needs to force cell growth as fast as possible to make money in what is a chemical and energy intensive process. One outcome that many authors have warned about is how the forcing of cell division leads to cancerous cells growing and that people could, in fact, be eating a product that is cancer. I don’t even see that dealt with in your risk assessment. Why not?

Ms Leemhuis: We look at the toxicity of these products and all the evidence provided for that. So, not only do we look at the end product, but we also look at all the inputs into how that product is made. Our view is informed by that.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. These products have all the nutrition in them that is introduced into the bioreactor. You talk about nutritional value, but it appears no ongoing monitoring will be imposed on Vow to ensure they keep shovelling these nutrients in there at the same rate as the samples they send you. Is that correct? Is there any ongoing monitoring?

Ms Leemhuis: Again, I’d note we’re not finalised with our process yet. In terms of management, that will be in the next call for submission.

Senator ROBERTS: Forget about Vow for a minute. If you authorise or approve this fake meat from some company, then do you monitor the consequences of that in succeeding years?

Ms Leemhuis: FSANZ has an ongoing role in monitoring the food supplies, so, yes. But as part of our assessment process we can also impose conditions that do look to monitor these products if they are of concern or concerns are raised through the assessment that we want to continue to look at into the future.

Senator ROBERTS: I guess there’s a difference between monitoring something in closed conditions and letting it go through a manufacturing process that may or may not be sloppy—who knows what will happen in there? Listeria has been identified as a medium- to high-risk foodborne pathogen that can enter during the final stage of cell growth, meaning it gets into the bioreactor. You have identified potential risks from salmonella and E. coli. Vow have made the claim that lab meats help antimicrobial resistance by using fewer antimicrobial products in production, cleaning and sanitising their factory than natural meat. How accurate is that statement?

Ms Leemhuis: Sorry; I’m not quite sure what statement you’re referring to.

Senator ROBERTS: Vow has made the claim that lab meats help antimicrobial resistance by using fewer antimicrobial products in production, cleaning and sanitising than is the case in natural meat. Is that correct?

Dr Cuthbert: I don’t know that it’s necessary for us to comment on the accuracy of a claim that a company is making. Our job is to ensure that we’re evaluating the safety of the product that’s before us to determine if it’s suitable and safe to be circulated for consumption. Whether it’s more or less than another process is not part of the process.

Senator ROBERTS: So I guess you’ll do that assessment as part of your approval process?

Mr Comley: What’s an absolute assessment?

Senator ROBERTS: Sorry, Mr Comley?

Mr Comley: Sorry; I should leave it to the food authority. I was just saying I think what Dr Cuthbert was saying is it’s an absolute assessment rather than relative assessment against other products that are on the market at the moment.

Dr Cuthbert: Exactly.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. Your documentation, some could say, dresses up this decision as some kind of saviour for the environment. I have circulated an Oxford University article and a peer reviewed paper that finds that very energy intensive bioreactors could have worse long-term environmental consequences than livestock farming in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions—CO2e. Now I don’t think the carbon dioxide production is at all a threat to humanity but, for those who do, recent calculations show that if we wanted to meet the additional demand for meat by 2030 exclusively with cultured meat we would have to build 150,000 bioreactors, which would produce 352 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent as against 150 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent for natural livestock farming. Why shouldn’t people conclude that approving this lab meat is a terrible mistake?

Ms Leemhuis: Just in terms of our roles and responsibilities, it really is about the safety of this product. That’s the act. It says that our role is to assess the safety of the product for human consumption, which is the role we have taken in looking at this application—

Senator ROBERTS: And not just in the lab, but in practical terms.

Ms Leemhuis: rather than the carbon emissions. That’s not within our scope to consider; it’s the safety of the product.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you very much.

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Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Goes to Davos!

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At this year’s Davos, less government officials were present than usual, yet Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, was not only present, but she was also an agenda contributor, pushing for greater online safety.

I asked in what capacity Ms Julie Inman Grant was present at Davos for the World Economic Forum 2024 annual meeting, what was the cost to Australian taxpayers and whether staff travelled with her on this trip at public expense. As an independent statutory authority, Commissioner Inman Grant is planning to embrace global opportunities to help achieve the outcomes she perceives necessary for online safety. The Commissioner is seeking broader powers to achieve her agenda, for our own good of course, and once again this begs the question exactly who is deciding what is ‘good’?

Listening to her speak about online safety regulations, the one word conspicuous by its absence is censorship. The other missing words were freedom of expression.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for being here today. Did you attend the World Economic Forum planning session in Davos last month? If so, was that in your personal capacity or as the eSafety Commissioner?

Ms Inman Grant: I attended the world economic global summit as the eSafety Commissioner. I achieved more in four days than I could in four years because I was meeting with senior technology executives. I was talking directly to the people who are building AI and immersive technologies and asked directly the decision makers what they are doing to make their platforms safer. I was sharing really our leadership and our model in terms of how we’re tackling online safety.

Senator ROBERTS: Well, I think we’re the ones who should be assessing whether or not you’re justified. How many staff accompanied you? What was the cost to taxpayers?

Ms Inman Grant: I will take that on notice. I had one staff member accompany me. I supplemented that with trips to Brussels, where I met with European Commission officials, and to Dublin to meet with my fellow regulators in Ireland and the UK. So it was a very productive trip.

Senator ROBERTS: Now can I have the justification, please? What did taxpayers get for their money? How did attending help in the discharge of your duties?

Ms Inman Grant: Well, I had access to the presidents of most of the major technology companies, including the CEO of OpenAI. I was able to ask him what they were planning to do to build safety into this. Any time that we can influence the decision-makers at this level to make technology safer is better.

Senator ROBERTS: You run an online agency, right?

Ms Inman Grant: I run—

Senator ROBERTS: Couldn’t you have done this online?

Ms Inman Grant: I run a real agency that has real people and capital equipment. I couldn’t engage in this forum online and not have those kinds of meetings to make a real difference for Australians in terms of getting real change happening.

Senator ROBERTS: You are referencing your panel session at Davos. Your office has just sent Twitter a notice regarding them allowing hate on the Twitter platform, including allowing previously suspended users back on the platform.

Ms Inman Grant: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: Can you give me examples of Australian accounts that X has allowed back on that your office objects to?

Ms Inman Grant: Well, the online hate notice looked at the range of trust and safety governance steps that they had taken, including firing 80 per cent of their safety engineers, more than half of their content moderators and 80 per cent of their public policy personnel—so the people who actually look after the safety. We did ask them. It was reported that there were 62,000 previously banned users. To be permanently banned on Twitter, you have to have violated the policies pretty egregiously a number of times. We asked them the question. They responded. We asked about the 62,000. They responded with 6,100. We assumed that meant they reinstated 6,100 previously banned Australian accounts, which wasn’t in the manner and form of the notice and the question that we asked them. They didn’t name what those specific ones were, but they did tell us that there are no additional safety provisions even though they have been permanently banned for online hate in some cases.

Senator ROBERTS: It seems to me, Ms Grant, that you’re assuming the previous bans were in order. Had you explored those previous bans before coming to that judgement?

Ms Inman Grant: Twitter, as the company, had a whole range of policies, including a hateful conduct policy. They remove or—

Senator ROBERTS: So you haven’t? What you’ve done is you’ve gone off their interpretation of their policy, even though we know they were biased.

Ms Inman Grant: That’s the only thing we can do, Senator.

Senator ROBERTS: Could you come back to my question—

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, please allow Ms Inman Grant to answer.

Senator ROBERTS: and give me examples of Australian accounts?

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I appreciate that you are somewhat agitated. Could you please respect the witnesses and allow them to answer the questions.

Senator ROBERTS: I would like the witness to give me examples of Australian accounts that X has allowed back that her office objects to. That’s my question and you haven’t answered it.

Ms Inman Grant: I didn’t ask them specific questions about which accounts they were. I asked for the quant the numbers.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Are you setting yourself up as an arbiter of what should and should not be seen online?

Ms Inman Grant: No. I am not. I have been designated by the government to serve as the eSafety Commissioner and to remediate harms of online individuals who have experienced online abuse and, in most cases, have reported that abuse to the platform. The platform hasn’t enforced their terms of policy, so we are there as a safety net or a backstop to help remediate that harm.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Your remarks included this comment, and I quote: There are lots of different tools in the toolbox we’ll be using. What are those tools? Under what explicit power do you possess them? Who supervises how you use them?

Ms Inman Grant: All our powers are designated under the Online Safety Act. We have a range of complaints schemes that deal with youth based cyber bullying, image-based abuse, adult cyber abuse and the online content scheme. We have systems and process powers under the basic online safety expectations. We have now six codes registered and two standards that we’re working on. They are the primary tools.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Who supervises how you use them? Who assesses whether or not you’re being effective or overextending?

Ms Inman Grant: Well, we are held to account. We have lots of reporting and transparency and accountability measures ourselves. If there’s ever a question about any decision that is made, it can be challenged through internal review, the ombudsman, the AAT or the Federal Court. So we are accountable to the people and the government.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. At the World Economic Forum planning session in Davos, you said, and I quote: We have started something called the Global Online Safety Regulator.  Who is ‘we’? Did you receive ministerial permission to involve Australia in another globalist power sink hole?  You may laugh, but we are facing a big threat.

Ms Inman Grant: I am an independent statutory authority. The Internet is global. Most of our regulatory targets are based overseas. For more than seven years, we were the only online safety regulator in the world.  Now, we use the tools we have and we can be effective, but we know we’re going to go much further when we work together with other like-minded independent statutory authorities around the globe. So with the UK, with Ireland and with Fiji in November 2022, we launched the global online safety regulators network. That has now grown to seven independent regulators, including France, South Korea and South Africa. A number of countries are serving as observers. That is so we can achieve a degree of regulatory coherence for the technology industry and make sure that we’re working together to achieve better safety outcomes for all of our citizens.

Senator ROBERTS: Did you get ministerial approval for that?

Ms Inman Grant: I don’t think it was required. Certainly the minister was aware.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. This is a further remark you made—this is how it was reported:

We have reached a tipping point where technology is neither good nor bad. We need to be pushing towards the forces of good.  That comment seems steeped in hubris. Who decides what the forces of good are? You?

Ms Inman Grant: Well, the Online Safety Act does define thresholds for harm. Certainly our research looks at the benefits and the drawbacks in terms of how people experience technology and whether it helps them to create, to connect, to work and to communicate versus the harms that they experience, whether it’s—

Senator ROBERTS: How do you listen to people?

Ms Inman Grant: How do I listen to people?

Senator ROBERTS: You just said it’s the people who decide.

Ms Inman Grant: I listen to people in many different ways. We have citizen facing complaints schemes. We’re out in forums all the time. We correspond. We also have about two million people who visit our website every year so they can access resources or report forms of online abuse.

Senator ROBERTS: This is my last question, Chair. Thank you for that. You state: Deepfakes are covered under our world leading image-based abuse scheme, which has close to a 90 per cent success rate. How do you measure 90 per cent objectively? This is your statement.

Ms Inman Grant: We look at the number of complaints that we receive. The 90 per cent success rate is because in the vast majority of cases people just want the intimate imagery and videos taken down, mostly through informal means. We measure the 90 per cent based on how many complaints we receive and how many we get down.

Senator ROBERTS: So the images reported and the images removed? Ninety per cent of them would be removed?

Mr Dagg: When we investigate a complaint about image-based abuse, for example, or any of the other harms set out in our complaint schemes, we measure the response to our requests for removal or our formal interventions. We find, as the commissioner said, requests to be far more efficient and produce a faster turnaround, so they constitute the bulk of our interventions. Ninety per cent of those in the case of image-based abuse succeed. That measure of success is whether or not the images are taken down.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.

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