During the May/June Senate Estimates hearings, I asked the Department of Health and Aged Care to clarify their role with the Department of Home Affairs in censoring social media posts.

Home Affairs had indicated that it relied upon the Department of Health to identify social media posts that ‘contravened Facebook/Meta’s guidelines’. This of course is just more dodging of responsibility as the agency trampling the fundamental rights of speech. Although it’s government doing the censoring, they give the social media corporations the button to push.

It turns out that when Home Affairs wanted to censor or provide information to social media platforms where posts breached the platform’s own guidelines during the COVID response, they relied upon the Department of Health to identify whether or not there was a breach. The Department of Health rarely identified posts and merely provided the information that the government decreed to be ‘correct’.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Yes. Professor Murphy, could you please clarify your department’s relationship with the Department of Home Affairs, because Home Affairs seem to think that they relied upon the Department of Health for identifying social media posts that contravened Meta’s guidelines.

Prof. Murphy: Ms Balmanno can go over that again.

Ms Balmanno: As evidence became available in terms of the nature of the virus and the nature of treatments, vaccines and all of those sorts of things and how it was being transmitted, obviously there was a growing evidence base there, and it was our job to collate that and to point to the source information, whether that be the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, whether that be the World Health Organization or whatever it might be. We would collate that information for the Department of Home Affairs. That would be what they were able to the then assess posts against. But ultimately the assessment is against the social media platform’s own policies about what is appropriate and not appropriate to be put onto their platforms. They each have a published policy, so they would use our evidence base to inform that decision and assess against those policies. Where they felt there was a breach and a post or an account was putting forward information that was not consistent with those policies, they would refer that to the social media company to look at.

Senator Roberts: Let me clarify, then, to make sure I’ve got the understanding. Home Affairs wanted to censor or provide information to social media platforms where a post breached a social media platform’s own guidelines, and they relied upon you to identify whether there was a breach.

Ms Balmanno: We were part of informing that, in that—

Senator Roberts: Who else was part?

Ms Balmanno: My point is the elements that we were able to contribute to were whether if, for example, they were making a referral specifically because they thought the information was false and was disinformation being deliberately promulgated to cause harm, they would use the evidence sources that we had collated for them to make that assessment and say, ‘According to all of this published research or according to the views of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee and the position in Australia, here is the evidence we are pointing to to suggest that this post is incorrect.’ So we would help provide that evidence. That was our role.

Senator Roberts: So you didn’t identify posts; you just provided evidence when Home Affairs asked for the evidence?

Mr Blackwood: Yes, we were proactive in providing it if there were something not covered—

Senator Roberts: So you sometimes did identify posts?

Ms Balmanno: We were proactive in providing evidence as new evidence came to light and adding to the evidence base. If there were an issue they come across that they thought was incorrect—for example, the idea that 5G was causing COVID was one of the early ones that we did a lot of referrals in relation to—and if we didn’t already have that in the evidence base, they would obviously check that with us in terms of an evidence assessment, and that would be added to it.

Senator Roberts: So it was a hybrid role, then. Sometimes you identifies posts—

Ms Balmanno: We very rarely identified posts.

Senator Roberts: But sometimes you did.

Ms Balmanno: We probably have a handful of examples where we identified posts, and I have agreed to take that on notice.

Senator Roberts: Thank you.

At the May/June Senate Estimates, I asked the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) about their accountability and responsibilities for financial services and then probed further into depositor guarantees. I wanted to try and establish whether Australians’ savings are secure in the event of a financial crash. Have a listen.

APRA made the point that Financial Claims Scheme (FCS) is really a last resort. Australian banks and financial institutions are required to have practical plans in place to ensure they can get up and running again in the event of a financial crisis. If that were to fail, however, account holders would be covered for the first $250,000 of their deposited funds per institution.

What this answer failed to mention is that the Financial Guarantee Scheme (FGS) only kicks in once the bank fails. At this point, the bank would have been able to use bail-in provisions to use depositor’s funds to save themselves.

The FCS is also unfunded. The government has not put any money aside to fund the scheme — there is a limit of $20 billion per bank, which is only 10% of what would be needed for just one of the Big-4 banks alone. The Treasurer is not required to trigger the FCS if they don’t want to spend the money.

At the May/June Senate Estimates I asked questions of the Coal LSL Board to establish that a person working under an Enterprise Agreement contract cannot receive benefits less than the agreed award for the same category.

Under the Black Coal Award there’s no category for casuals because casuals are not allowed to be employed under the Black Coal award.

The Board confirmed that they do not check which category a coal miner works when calculating long service entitlements, merely accepting what the employer tells Coal LSL.

All this contributes to coal miners being exploited in not getting their entitlements.

Ten medical professionals have had their registrations suspended by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) simply because they spoke out about the COVID injection risks — 4 doctors, 5 nurses and 1 pharmacist.

Even now, AHPRA officials remain in denial about the risks that these injections pose, despite the growing body of evidence that contradicts the marketing slogan of safe and effective.

Australians forced against their will into getting these shots to continue their job, education or see family and loved ones did not have the benefit of ‘honest advice’. Although they should have been able to freely discuss their needs, they were not given this opportunity because the statement AHPRA put out to clarify existing health advice and media coverage around it served to effectively muzzle healthcare providers through fear.

At no time did the agencies involved in providing public health advice reassure medical professionals or their patients that they still had the right to privacy and confidentiality. Patients receiving medical advice before undergoing treatment were entitled to be warned of risk.

Let’s not forget these injections were only provisionally approved due to the experimental nature of the mRNA and vector technology. If our best and brightest medical professionals are feeling silenced by government bodies that will punish any criticism of novel medicines, what have we become?

We now know the jab roll-out is a military/health response which is why it by-passed the usual safety protocols. These were products that were not ready to be injected into the arms of people and yet the only ones protected are the manufacturers.

It’s time for the Health Minister, AHPRA, TGA and ATAGI to loosen the stranglehold they have on our healthcare professionals and let them be free to do their jobs. Australians deserve nothing less.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing today, Mr Fletcher. How many health practitioners has AHPRA suspended for being outspoken, contrary to the joint statement of 9 March 2021?

Mr Fletcher: In relation to concerns that we’ve received about any aspect of the conduct of a practitioner related to COVID-19, 31 registered health practitioners have been suspended since the commencement of the pandemic, and 10 of those suspensions were solely with reference to a breach or an alleged breach of the code of conduct related to the vaccination statement. Just to complete that: that’s four medical practitioners, five nurses and one pharmacist.

Senator Roberts: How many health practitioners have had their registration cancelled because of being outspoken contrary to the joint position statement of 9 March 2021?

Mr Fletcher: I might ask the general counsel, Dr Jamie Orchard, to join me, because, just to remind you, neither AHPRA nor the Medical Board nor any of the boards have the power to cancel the registration of a health practitioner. A suspension is an interim measure while we investigate the concerns.

Senator Roberts: Who has the power to cancel it?

Mr Fletcher: That’s done by the independent tribunal within each state and territory. If we have a concern that there is professional misconduct, which is the most serious finding we can make, we then have to refer that to the tribunal, and it’s only the tribunal who can make a decision about cancellation. We’ve got five tribunal outcomes to date, but I’ll just ask Dr Orchard to give you the details.

Dr Orchard: So far a number of matters have been referred to tribunal in respect of practitioners relating to COVID related issues. We have five decisions so far from the tribunals. We can’t go into the details of the other matters because they’re still pending before the tribunals. Those matters relate to one dentist whose registration was suspended and a registered nurse who was disqualified. There was another registered nurse who had been the subject of suspension from the board but was not suspended by the tribunal. There was an enrolled nurse whose registration was suspended for 11 months. There is one final matter, where the tribunal has found professional misconduct but hasn’t yet decided on the sanction.

Senator Roberts: All five are associated with COVID?

Dr Orchard: All related to COVID in some way, but not necessarily solely in relation to making antivaccination statements.

Senator Roberts: How many health practitioners have either been suspended or had their registration cancelled because they made statements that supported the use of ivermectin in the context of treatment of COVID-19?

Dr Orchard: We’d have to take that on notice and have a look.

Senator Roberts: In the 9 March 2021 position statement, it threatens regulatory action for criticising the COVID-19 injections and/or the national immunisation campaign. Is that still in effect?

Mr Fletcher: Senator, the statement you refer to, just to remind you of the context, was issued by all of the 15 national boards with AHPRA.

Senator Roberts: It’s a joint statement.

Mr Fletcher: So it’s a joint statement. Essentially, it was issued in response to queries from practitioners about their obligations in relation to COVID-19 and vaccination, and the statement essentially aims to make clear how existing obligations on a registered health practitioner, through codes of conduct and the like, applied in the context of COVID-19 and vaccination. That statement is still in force.

Senator Roberts: When can we expect this statement to be amended or removed in light of the best available medical scientific advice, which now shows the COVID-19 vaccines, the injections, to be unsafe and not effective? The risk-benefit is undoubtedly terrible.

Mr Fletcher: The statement has always been aligned with the public health advice at the time. We look to jurisdictional health departments, the TGA and ATAGI as the primary sources of public health advice. We will certainly be consulting with them in the near future about the current status of that public health advice and whether any amendment to that statement is needed.

Senator Roberts: Health practitioners like the GPs I’m about to mention—they’ve given me permission to use their names—Dr Mark Hobart, 19 months; GP registrar Dr William Bay, nine months; and emergency department registered nurse Beulah Martin, 11 months, continue to have their health practitioner registration suspended for allegedly engaging in conduct not supportive of the COVID-19 injections. Why are they still being punished?

Mr Fletcher: We’re going to need to be a bit careful about what we say publicly about individual matters, but I’ll just ask Dr Orchard to comment about what we can say publicly about at least two of the practitioners you’ve named there.

Senator Roberts: The context is why they are still being punished in regard to what’s now emerging about the injections?

Mr Fletcher: Let me ask Dr Orchard to explain what we can say publicly.

Dr Orchard: Senator, the action in respect of any practitioners—including those that you’ve mentioned—that was taken by the relevant boards at the time to suspend those practitioners was taken pursuant to the provisions of the national law, either for the purpose of preventing serious risk or in the public interest, and that’s the basis on which they were suspended at the time. Those matters are currently still before the courts because there are appeals going on in respect of each of them, so we can’t really go into further detail while the matters are still being considered by the courts.

Senator Roberts: Let’s come back to national law in a minute. Despite lengthy delays in investigation and AHPRA’s commitment to the Senate to achieve timely investigations and keeping in mind that the section 156 suspension powers under so-called national law are meant to be only an emergency and temporary measure for the most serious of threats to the health and safety of the public, how long can we expect AHPRA to keep maintaining the suspension of doctors, nurses and medical professionals around Australia who have expressed concerns regarding these vaccines, these injections, when now, in light of the best available evidence, those concerns are well justified? You have been suppressing medical professionals giving their honest advice and forcing them to go against the Hippocratic oath or to surrender.

Mr Fletcher: I reject the assertion you made that we have in any way been censoring practitioners. What we have said in that statement is that we expect that people dealing with patients use the best available evidence and their clinical judgement. That is an obligation that has been in the code of conduct for health practitioners that predates COVID-19. There is no change in that. Suspension is an interim measure while we investigate, and it has to meet a legal threshold under that national law. Sometimes one of the reasons that suspension is extended or takes a period of time is because a practitioner exercises the right to appeal their suspension, either to a tribunal or a court. Obviously, while those appeals are underway, we put our work on hold. Essentially, the suspension is there, as I say, on the one hand to allow us to ensure there is appropriate public protection meeting a legal threshold under the national law while we investigate each case.

Senator Roberts: Are you aware that some of the country’s best medical people, best specialists, are telling me that they are silent and changing their behaviour because they are suppressed by AHPRA? Are you aware of that?

Mr Fletcher: I have read the commentary on that, yes.

Prof. Murphy: I’ll make a comment. Senator Roberts keeps asserting that there’s new evidence that the vaccines are not safe or effective. We completely refute that suggestion.

Senator Roberts: I knew you would.

Prof. Murphy: There is no credible scientific evidence that the vaccines, other than—

Senator Roberts: That’s a false statement.

Prof. Murphy: No, I’m going on the best available scientific evidence, and I do not think you should be able to make that statement continually.

Senator Roberts: I will keep making the statement based on science.

Senator Gallagher: It cannot be left unchallenged.

Senator Roberts: He can challenge it, but I’m not going to quit.

Chair: Senator Roberts, I was listening carefully. Before you ask your last question, I am going to remind you that it is important that you put these as questions rather than as statements. I believe you did that with your last question, but the question before was a sentence without a question at the end of it. I think it is appropriate in that case for the witnesses at the table to respond, but the best way is to put questions and then we can hear answers.

Senator Roberts: I am happy to show you my questions.

Chair: Senator Roberts, I was listening carefully. I am happy to have a discussion if I have misheard, but in the question before your last question I didn’t hear a question; I heard a statement. You have a supplementary question, and I remind you that it assists the process of the committee if we frame questions for answers, as I’ve said from the start.

Senator Roberts: Many health practitioners have been suspended under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law. Is it not true that such a singular national law does not exist, and that the national law is not a Commonwealth law at all but a collection of state based health laws such as the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (Queensland) and the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (Victoria)?

Mr Fletcher: I defer to my general counsel to talk about the legal construct of the national scheme.

Dr Orchard: You’re correct in saying that it’s not a Commonwealth law; it’s not. It is a cooperative piece of legislation amongst the various states and territories of Australia. The legislation was initially passed, and any amendments that are passed are passed through the Queensland parliament and then the various states and territories have different mechanisms by which they apply both the original law and any amendments to that law in their own jurisdiction.

Senator Roberts: Thank you for confirming. If so, how can AHPRA accurately and lawfully enforce one national law across Australia, when in fact it is not a national law but many state laws, each with its own amendments, across each state and territory of this Commonwealth? We have state laws being enforced by a national body that’s responsible to the states.

Dr Orchard: I will say, when you talk about the differences, there are very limited differences across the various jurisdictions. It does operate largely as a single national law across the country, subject to some exceptions of course. We ensure that, in the course of our regulatory role in applying that law, we do so consistently across the country so that it operates in a sense in a seamless way and practitioners who operate in one jurisdiction are able to move into another jurisdiction and continue their profession without having to worry about the difference in the state laws that might apply to them.

Chair: Senator Roberts, I’m passing the call to the opposition.

In the May-June Senate Estimates, I asked David de Carvalho, CEO of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) why the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) will no longer report progress through the NAPLAN ban system so that parents can see how their child is progressing relative to others?

In light of the latest disappointing NAPLAN results, which shows one in three children failing literacy and numeracy, I thought you’d be interested to hear his response.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing again. Why will NAPLAN no longer report progress through the NAPLAN bands so parents know how their child is progressing relative to other children?

Mr de Carvalho: Ministers decided on 10 February this year to move to a much better reporting system, which actually provides more meaningful information for parents. They will now be getting information that indicates where they are in terms of proficiency standards, which were agreed would be introduced as part of the national school reform agreement. The bands, if you go back to 2008, when they were set up, are essentially a statistical construct. We had a scale of around 1,000 points. The mean we set at 500. It was essentially divided into 10 bands. That number was relatively arbitrary. It could have been more. It could have been less. It’s a kind of a goldilocks number, if you like—a nice round number. The cut points in the bands themselves, unlike the new system, which we are introducing, didn’t have inherent educational value other than simply to be kind of marker points on a scale. It’s bit like telling a parent about their child’s height. They’ve moved from the zero to 20-centimetre band into the 21- to 40-centimetre band. Or, with weight, they’ve moved from the zero to 10-kilogram band into the 11- to 20-kilogram band. What parents really want to know is: is my child actually progressing at the normal rate or do they need additional support? These new standards—

Senator Henderson: I would disagree with that, actually.

Mr de Carvalho: The teacher view has been used to say, ‘What questions should children be able to answer to meet a challenging and reasonable expectation?’ We’ve used professional teacher judgement as opposed to a statistical or arithmetical division to identify the standard expected. That’s the one that we road-tested with parents. We asked them, ‘Would you prefer to see an individual student report with the numerical bands or this more meaningful information?’ They were quite unequivocal about it. They preferred the latter. It’s also not correct to say that parents won’t see their progress. Each individual student report has never reported progress. You need to keep the previous reports. Even if you are in year 3 and then year 5 under the new system, you may increase your NAPLAN score, say, from 250 to 300. You may still be reported in year 5 as strong whereas you were also strong in year 3 but the descriptors associated with ‘strong’ will indicate a higher level of capability. Parents will still be able to see that their child has progressed into a higher skill set. There will be more detailed information, more meaningful information, for parents through the new system.

Senator Roberts: Thank you for that. There are things in there that sound attractive, but I don’t understand it well enough. Perhaps you could tell me what is wrong with this description. Instead of providing a reading score in band 3, 4, 5 or 6, giving parents an idea of exactly where their child is in terms of progression, all of those bands will be replaced by the word ‘developing’. ACARA has said parents found the bands confusing. Isn’t that just an indictment on your failure to explain the more accurate band reports? Could you go into more detail? Tell me what is wrong with that.

Mr de Carvalho: I will go back to the point I was trying to make at the start. Those bands were simply arithmetically derived.

Senator Roberts: So a child was placed in there numerically?

Mr de Carvalho: There is a scale of, say, zero to 1,000. You set the mean at 500 and then you have your statistical categories, your differentials, set just by picking 100 or 200 or whatever the scale is to deliver 10 categories. But what we’re doing this time is using teacher professional judgement. We’ve consulted professional expert teachers about where on the scale they expect children to be based on what they’ve learned in previous years. We have asked which questions they should be able to answer to be able to say, ‘Yes, they’re meeting expectations.’ That was not the case under the previous 10-band regime. Parents will be able to see at a glance. What is really important about the new system is that particularly those children who are genuinely struggling will be identified as needing additional support. That is crucial, because under the old system, we had a category called the national minimum standard. It was broadly recognised that the national minimum standard was set too low. There was a relatively small percentage of children below the national minimum standard. It wasn’t really a call to action. Now we will have more students identified in that bottom category and it will be clear through the name of the category or the name of the level that those children need additional support. It will be a prompt to parents to have a discussion with their teachers about what needs to be done. I think that is a  real, important change.

Senator Roberts: So the parent will be able to see the areas in which the child is deficient or strong?

Mr de Carvalho: The descriptors will also be part of the individual student report. It is a paper based report, and you can only put so many words on a paper based report. There will be high-level descriptions for each domain—that is, reading, writing, numeracy, spelling and grammar—and what it means if you are in each of those levels. If you want more fine-grained information, you will be able to go to the ACARA website and get more and more fine-grained information. With that, teachers will be able to have good conversations with parents about what needs to be done.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. It looks like there is more understanding to be gained on my part.

Parents contacted my office with concerns they had about a National Assessment Program (NAP) science quiz survey, which targeted children in Grade 6 (11 and 12 years). One of the survey questions was about families ‘compliance’ with the government’s COVID guidelines/regulations.

In Senate Estimates, I asked how relevant this line of questioning was with the stated NAP science objectives and whether the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) believes this is appropriate questioning for school children, who authorised the questions and who sees the results of the survey.

The COVID response has eroded many people’s faith in the government. Asking children to judge matters of civil compliance does not help build back trust in the wake of the last three years of hell that many families have gone through.

We have yet to receive responses from #ACARA to our questions, but hope to have them before the next Senate Estimates in October.

This area of stunning natural beauty, with its rock wallabies and rock art galleries, holds the most important critical koala population in North Queensland.

It’s exactly the kind of area Australians would expect to be protected, and it’s running out of time.

The Upper Burdekin and Mount Fox is adjacent to a Wet Tropics Heritage area in the hinterland behind Ingham. The area was actually earmarked for National Park status as you’d expect… until Fortescue Metals (Windlab) got there first with their ‘Material Change of Use’ to industrial energy production.

Haulage roads 70m wide cutting into the mountain for 193 wind turbines concreted deep into the earth, their generators and housing, and the tracks for high voltage power pylons will destroy this site if we don’t act. Unlike coal mines which are required to remediate the site afterwards, there is no environmental bond, no legislation to ensure these so-called ‘green’ energy projects make good when the wind turbines fail after a decade or so.

We support Rainforest Reserves Australia in asking Andrew Forrest, the majority shareholder in Windlab, to walk away from the Upper Burdekin project and allow this site to be protected under National Park status as intended.

Here is my reflection on the second Albanese government budget, particularly relevant as the Prime Minister is breaking his election promises at breakneck speed.

Were these promises ever designed to be kept? Or were these strategic promises designed to hide this government’s Soviet-style agenda during the election campaign? It’s that agenda that I speak to — an agenda of making people reliant on government handouts, to make them captive to the government. A compliant, captive population is the building block of a Soviet-style society that this Prime Minister appears to have supported in his youth.

As part of this agenda, rather than creating viable private sector jobs, the Prime Minister is destroying them.

We’ve lost 1,500 jobs in transport with the loss of Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics in the name of net zero-trucking. We’ve lost jobs and risk losing entire communities in coal regions, including the Bowen Basin in our state of Queensland, in the name of net zero-mining. We’ve lost jobs in the live sheep export industry, which Labor is shutting down in the name of net zero-grazing. We’re set to lose more jobs and more family farms in the agricultural sector as Minister Plibersek restarts water buybacks in the name of net zero-agriculture. ‘No water buybacks’ was another broken promise which all along was really a bald-faced lie.

Net zero has made Australians poorer, transferring tens of billions of dollars in wealth from taxpayers to the government’s mates in the solar and wind scam, who then export that wealth to foreign tax havens. Solar and wind are parasitic mal-investments. They’re parasitic and they kill their host, the Australian economy. All this is wrapped in a feel-good cloak of saving the planet.

Net zero is a fraudulent plan to replace productive energy generation with fairytale generation designed to create energy shortage, and from that shortage comes control. The only winners will be the billionaire carpetbaggers who are driving this agenda through their ownership of media, energy companies and, of course, political parties.

The PM has given in to the foreign controlled Australian banks, removing penalties for criminal banking behaviour. As night follows daylight robbery, criminal banking behaviour will follow.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I believe this second Albanese government budget is a time for reflection, a reflection on what this government promised and what it’s delivered. There’s been much talk about the Prime Minister’s broken promises, without any thought to the question: were these promises ever designed to be kept, or were these strategic promises designed to hide this government’s Soviet-style agenda during the election campaign? It’s that agenda that I speak to now. It’s an agenda of making people reliant on government handouts, to make them captive to the government. A compliant, captive population is the building block of a Soviet-style society that this Prime Minister appears to have supported in his youth.

As part of this agenda, rather than creating viable private sector jobs, the Prime Minister is destroying them. We’ve lost 1,500 jobs in transport with the loss of Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics in the name of net zero—trucking. We’ve lost jobs and risk losing entire communities in coal regions, including the Bowen Basin in our state of Queensland, in the name of net zero—mining. We’ve lost jobs in the live sheep export industry, which Labor is shutting down in the name of net zero—grazing. We’re set to lose more jobs and more family farms in the agricultural sector as Minister Plibersek restarts water buybacks in the name of net zero—agriculture. ‘No water buybacks’ was another broken promise which all along was really a bald-faced lie.

Net zero has made Australians poorer, transferring tens of billions of dollars in wealth from taxpayers to the government’s mates in the solar and wind scam, who then export that wealth to foreign tax havens. Solar and wind are parasitic mal-investments. They’re parasitic and they kill their host, the Australian economy. All this is wrapped in a feel-good cloak of saving the planet. Supported by affluent Australians who have led lives of plenty, these people now embrace the climate agenda to ease their conscience about leading lives of plenty. In reality, net zero is a fraudulent plan to replace productive energy generation with fairytale generation designed to create energy shortage, and from that shortage comes control. The only winners will be the billionaire carpetbaggers who are driving this agenda through their ownership of media, energy companies and, of course, political parties. The Prime Minister has given in to the foreign controlled Australian banks, removing penalties for criminal banking behaviour. Surely, criminal banking behaviour will follow.

Let me remind people: former Prime Minister John Howard did the same thing in 2003 when he tore up the banking code of practice and gave the green light to banks to tear apart the laws of fairness and decency, laws that protected everyday Australians from financial exploitation. Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones has withdrawn penalties for criminal bankers in his financial accountability scheme proposal. He really is a friend—a great friend—of the big banks and their foreign owners. What, may I ask, is he doing in the Labor Party? The Prime Minister is hollowing out the bush, transferring up to two-thirds of Australian land area to the United Nations through native title and locking it away from Aboriginals. The Prime Minister has cancelled one submarine that will never be built and replaced it with another submarine that will never be built, all the while destroying Australia’s defensive capability. Everyday Australia will feel the result of this mismanagement all at once, and then unrest will result. That’s why the Prime Minister and our weakened, complicit military leadership are training Australian troops to attack Australian protesters. Clearly, the troops on the streets threatening and intimidating Australians into staying silent in their homes were just on a training exercise for what’s to come. Yet the future is never dictated; it can only be manipulated.

Conservatives can retake government in the next election if we come together and do more to spread our message of economic prosperity, family, community and Australian values. I’ve said this before in this place: abundance is not a dirty word; it’s a wonderful word. One Nation is the party of abundance, with policies that generate wealth for everyday Australians and prevent wealth from being leeched away from Australia. Conservatives must do more to drown out the self-interest of the presstitute media, who are advancing the interests of predatory billionaires on their share register over the interests of everyday Australians. Here’s an example: in the recent Senate committee hearing into One Nation’s anti-vaccine-mandate bill, we heard of a fine young Australian killed by vaccine mandates imposed by her employer, SG Global. SG Global is part-owned by the Vanguard investment fund. Their primary shareholder is a South African company that is partly owned by Vanguard. They use financing instruments from Vanguard. Vanguard use their ownership to force vaccine mandates that require the purchase of vaccines from Pfizer, a company in which Vanguard are the largest institutional shareholder. Do you see how it works? That’s how the rich become richer and everyday Australians lose wealth, lose health and, with no explanation or media interest, lose their lives in unexplained deaths. There have been more than 35,000 excess deaths in Australia. In a world run by everyday Australians, this sort of crony capitalism would rightly be considered racketeering, yet no action has been taken by the uniparty to uncover the truth and dispense justice to the crooked.

What we hear from the Prime Minister is rhetoric around plans for better days accompanied by handouts to make it look like he cares—not to do good but to look good. Handouts are government funded fake jobs which will not lift the poor out of poverty. They will not provide a sustainable breadwinner job that is so necessary for starting and supporting a family. The indisputable truth here is that wealth drives social change, not the other way around. Handouts take wealth; they do not create it. This is why every policy that comes out of the antihuman Greens, the teals and the Labor Party is about making people poorer and taking their homeownership, their spending power, their opportunity and, worse, their pride in order to break their spirit.

This is not an unfortunate outcome of Albanese government policies. This is the agenda the Prime Minister was covering up with his empty promises during the election campaign. It is a deliberate strategy to return the public to poverty, where they can be controlled, indoctrinated and caged in their 15-minute cities. Even the Bank of England stated recently that the public had to get used to being poorer. To hell with that. Corporate ownership and influence in Australia have gone too far. Health has been compromised, as I spoke about during my recent matter of public importance on a COVID royal commission, which the Albanese government promised before it was elected. Education has been compromised, as I spoke about in my two-minute statement on the sex education program of the UN and the UN’s World Health Organization that can only be called child sexual grooming. Energy has been compromised, as Treasurer Chalmers’s $15 billion income support in the budget shows. This giveaway is an admission of the failure of parasitic solar and wind energy to provide energy that people can afford.

It’s not just energy, of course. Food is becoming much more expensive, and that process will continue until everyday Australians eat the bugs or the lab meat—the in-vitro, cancerous meat. If this is not obvious to the chamber yet, then let me use an example from the Netherlands, where the globalist government of World Economic Forum lackey Mark Rutte has announced that they’re buying back 1,000 family farms from Dutch farmers and rewilding them, using taxpayer money to buy back farms and shut the farms, shutting food production. The purchase agreement made at the point of an administrative gun requires the farmers to agree to never farm their land or any other land in the European Union ever again—all that knowledge gone, all that experience gone and all those farmers prevented from ever growing food again. Is this where Australia is heading? Under the antihuman Greens and the soviet Albanese government, the answer is yes, no doubt. I call on the Prime Minister to categorically rule out purchasing and rewilding Australian farms and to rule out taking food off the table and the future away from rural Australians. One Nation’s message to the Prime Minister is this: Australia is not the Soviet Union, and it never will be.

It’s time Australian conservatives left behind the fifth column of globalist infiltration that has infected parts of the Liberal and National parties and returned to genuine conservativism. History has shown that the only way to lift people out of poverty and oppression is through economic progress. That’s the basis for human progress. The last 170 years have been remarkable for that. The last 30 years have seen a backward step under policies adopted from the United Nations and the World Economic Forum. History has taught us that some rich greedy bastard will always try and take everything for themselves. It is, though, only in recent years that the Labor and Liberal parties have decided to let them do that, no doubt in response to pressure from the party of the rich, the teals. The Liberals seem to have forgotten one of their founding principles: wealth in the hands of everyday Australians is the antidote to oppression and tyranny.

One Nation will grow the wealth of everyday Australians and drive Australia forward using our abundant, cheap means of power generation, coal, to produce clean, environmentally responsible baseload power—reliable, secure, stable, synchronous baseload power. This will provide an answer to net zero for those who have joined the UN and World Economic Forum’s alliance and its net zero cult, while we will also save the national silverware—and by that I mean our productive capacity.

One Nation will use vehicles driven by internal-combustion engines that power our productive capacity in a way that electric vehicles can only ever pretend to do, at a fraction of the cost of those monstrous electric vehicles—inefficient resource hogs. One Nation will build infrastructure, including through Project Iron Boomerang, the Outback Way project, the Gladstone port upgrade and the Hells Gate water and hydro project. These are Queensland projects that will provide breadwinner jobs for 100,000 Australians and add 20 per cent to our gross domestic product. The longer the Albanese government wrecking ball continues, the more Australia will need a One Nation conservative government to restore wealth and opportunity to everyday Australians.

My latest article in The Spectator …

No amount of regulation has been able to force our banks to behave ethically because the banks will always have smarter lawyers than the government. The only way to restore fair banking practice is free market competition.

Suncorp Bank is on the market and the ACCC refused ANZ permission to buy it. The Future Fund should step in, buy Suncorp and turn it into a people’s bank. Suncorp should then be run in a way that guarantees cash, face-to-face banking services through a branch or Australia Post outlet, prohibits de-banking and decides loan applications on financial merit alone, rather than ESG and other political measures.

This is the disgraceful reality behind the climate change agenda. A reality most Australians never get to see.

How do the Greens feel about vulnerable Greater Glider habitat being cleared in Far North Queensland? Will they say it’s for the Greater Good?

What about pushing out the endangered Northern Quoll in order to dig roads and huge holes for these monstrosities?

Critically endangered native plants making way for concrete, fibreglass, and steel that will be consigned to the scrap heap in 12-15 years is acceptable by-kill for the Green Agenda? Really?

How on earth did this get past the wildlife conservation watchdogs? Just look at this environmental vandalism being carried out in the name of saving the environment.

Scarring the landscape and fiddling the books for an agenda that’s killing our country. It’s criminal.

We support Friends of Chalumbin. Thank you to Steven Nowakowski for sharing the videos.