The BRICS member states are abandoning the United States’ dollar and other nations are seeking to join the BRICS bloc, which accounts for 25% of world trade and is expected to grow to 50% by 2030. The US dollar is now just 58% of all world trade. As the world moves away from the US dollar its value may fall.

Our Reserve Bank holds AU$35 billion in foreign reserves and half of that is in US treasuries securities. I asked the Governor whether the RBA had modeled the probability of that fall on Australia’s US holdings and whether they intended to invest in more US treasuries. The governor expects Australia’s economy to grow and foreign holdings to increase — as part of risk management however they are looking at other currency markets in line with the RBA’s key bench marks, but without speculating on any future currency fluctuations.

The BRICS group of major emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China (the four founding members of the bloc) and South Africa is holding its 15th heads of state and government summit in Johannesburg on 22nd August. Founded as an informal club in 2009, it was initially created as a platform to challenge a world order dominated by the US and its allies with a focus on economic cooperation and increasing multilateral trade and development. As many as 23 countries have now formally applied to join the group and many more are said to be interested.

With more countries investing in and accumulating greater gold reserves and widespread reports that the BRICS alliance is working on creating a new gold-backed trading currency, I asked the Governor if Australia is planning to increase our gold reserves.

The answer was no. “We’ve got our gold reserves and we haven’t bought and sold for a long time, and we have no intention of changing that.”

Transcript

Senator Roberts: I have a question about the Reserve Bank’s reserves. Let me get to it by giving some background. At the BRICS meeting in Cape Town on 2 and 3 June, 13 nations will formally apply to join BRICS, which is currently Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa—and Saudi Arabia, with an each-way bet. Candidate nations include Mexico, Argentina, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Indonesia and Iran. BRICS is now the world’s largest trading bloc, accounting for 25 per cent of world trade which is expected to grow to 50 per cent by 2030. And it’s big in oil.

BRICS member states are abandoning the US dollar in favour of using their own currency or the Chinese renminbi in an environment where other countries, including Australia, are doing the same thing. Pakistan is now buying Russian oil and renminbi. The US dollar is now denominating just 58 per cent of all world trade. The United States has printed $10 trillion over the last seven years, doubling their M2 money supply. That increase has been absorbed in part by an increase in international trade.  As the world moves away from the US dollar the value of the US dollar may fall. The Reserve Bank holds United States treasuries and dollars. Have you modelled the effect on your balance sheet from that probable fall in the value of US holdings.

Mr Lowe: Not as a result of these other global changes you’ve talked about. We spend a lot of time and part of our risk management processes looking at volatility in currencies, because currencies move around all the time, don’t they? That affects the value of those assets on our balance sheet, so we model that from a risk-management perspective. Despite the developments you’re talking about, most countries still hold the bulk of their foreign reserves in US dollars. There’s diversification going on, which is good, but the US dollar is going to remain the dominant currency for some time.

Senator Roberts: What is the value of Reserve Bank holdings of US dollar and US treasuries in Australian dollars?

Mr Lowe: Our total foreign reserves at the moment I think are the equivalent of U$35 billion. What’s the share, Brad?

Dr Jones: I think it’s 55 per cent.

Mr Lowe: Roughly half of that $35 billion is allocated to US dollars, and then we have holdings of yen, Korean won, euros and rmb.

Senator Roberts: What about treasuries?

Mr Lowe: When we hold US dollars we invest it in US Treasury securities. We don’t invest in bank deposits or any other securities. We invest in US government securities.

Senator Roberts: What’s the reverse holding of Australian government currency and bonds held by the US government or their agencies?

Mr Lowe: We don’t have data on that.

Senator Roberts: Could you get that on notice?

Mr Lowe: No.

Senator Roberts: You don’t have it?

Mr Lowe: We don’t have data on specific holdings of other countries.

Dr Jones: If I understood your question correctly, Senator, the US holds euros and yen, from recollection, but not in large quantities.

Senator Roberts: While that arrangement helps with international stability across holdings, it is a method for backdoor quantitative easing. Does the Reserve Bank expect to increase your holding of US treasuries in the next 12 months?

Mr Lowe: We’ve just done an exercise where we were looking at how much of our balance sheet should be held in foreign assets. We said we’ve got $35 billion at the moment. As the size of the economy grows you would expect that to gradually increase. But, no, nothing dramatic. As the economy grows and the nominal value of the Australian economy gets bigger, then you would expect a bigger portfolio in US dollars and foreign currency.

Senator Roberts: The Reserve Bank has a mission to anticipate movements in major trading partners and in world markets. As it affects your provisioning and portfolio, does the Reserve Bank anticipate being affected by any out of the ordinary moves in financial markets in connection with the US economy or the US dollar over forward estimates?

Mr Lowe: We’ve recently been focused on the US debt limit issues in the US. If an agreement had not been reached there, that would have had implications for currency markets and economies around the world. So that’s one thing that we’ve looked at carefully. It looks like that has been resolved, thankfully. And, just as part of our general risk management exercise, we’re looking at developments in other economies and their implications for currency markets in own economy.

Dr Jones: As a general rule though, the way the bank has operated its reserves has changed quite a bit over the last, say, 25 years, and now the bank effectively sets key benchmarks and sticks to them. There are not big discretionary decisions going on every day. There’s wild speculation going on at the Reserve Bank, I can assure you, about the future value of exchange rates.

Senator Roberts: I wasn’t implying that. Worldwide purchases of US treasuries by central banks has fallen $600 billion in 2022 as compared to a baseline year of 2013. That’s just arbitrary—2013. Purchases of gold have increased $300 billion. So something is going on that Australia would be prudent to hedge against. Is the Reserve Bank increasing its gold reserves as an each way bet against BRICS introducing a gold brick currency of some form?

Mr Lowe: No, we’re not. We’ve got our gold reserves. We haven’t bought and sold for a long time and we have no intention of changing that at the moment.

Senator Roberts: Thank you, Governor.

The Creative Australia bill 2023 is more about politics than art. It is legislation designed to modernise the Australia Council, but in reality it’s driving artists and writers overseas in search of art and culture.

Modernising art has resulted in a era where junk is put on display in the town square and the real works of art are being torn down. Creative Australia celebrates the primacy of left-wing controlled politics over entertainment, humour, culture and class.

The injection of a staggering $286 million into a new Creative Australia in the coming year is an unwarranted extravagance at this time. It’s the kind of expenditure you would never expect to see when a country is in economic and health crises. Many Australians are struggling with mental health issues and seeking help — the kind of professional help that the government cut by $200 million last year.

Instead of welding politics to the arts we should allow the people to genuinely reward artwork and other creative works that appeal to them. Let the public decide what they genuinely connect with. Artists that produce rubbish should not be funded and flattered because of their politics.

More deserving artists are being shut out of Creative Australia because of wokism. It’s no wonder Australians are going overseas for their culture.

You cannot buy culture Minister Burke, no matter how much taxpayers’ money you throw at it.

Transcript

As a servant to the many amazing people who make up our great Queensland community—our one great Queensland community—I rise to speak on the Creative Australia Bill 2023. It is legislation that is so out of touch that it’s my duty—indeed my pleasure—to make remarks on this legislation, which implements a previous bill to modernise the Australia Council. ‘Modernisation’ is a word few Australians wish to hear when it comes to the arts. Modern art, with its ugly exterior and substandard political shouting, is the reason so many Australians turn their back on the local arts community, sadly, choosing instead to seek their cultural fix overseas, amongst the historical buildings and ruins and the splendour of Western civilisation. A single marble pillar from the Roman age holds more fascination to the typical Australian than the entire offering of last year’s Australia Council. Despite the terrifying amount of money spent on the arts, it’s not the beating heart of Australian culture. It’s a desert of talent, accentuated with outcrops of brutalism, obscurity, absurdity—installations made from literal trash, the obscene, the lazy and the inconsequential masquerading as talent.

Creative Australia celebrates the primacy of left-wing controlled politics over entertainment, humour, culture and class. Minister Burke has taken up his position on the throne presiding over this self-indulgent mess—this slop. To stop the overpaid leaders of the art world snapping at his ankles, he’s decided to throw even more taxpayer money at them. It’s a terrible shame, because the real artists and writers of Australia are forced to leave our country and seek a career overseas, where the merit of their work is valued above the artist’s identity.

Creative Australia and Minister Burke are failing the real arts community and, with that, failing everyday Australians, failing our country. Remember, this is the era when local councils erect bits of junk in the town square while tearing down bronze and stone statues—works of real, actual art, erected to honour the real builders of Australia. Our so-called arts community is busy deconstructing its historical betters while replacing them with nothing of lasting merit. It’s no wonder the Australia Council had to spend money on surveys, trying to work out why their performances are empty and, as a result, changing their name, not their product. That’s what seems to be the outcome.

Modernisation, the key part of this proposal, can be best illustrated by using a scene outside the Melbourne art gallery. By the way, yes, this really happened. Imagine this: customers were queueing to gain access to a collection of Renaissance masters while a modern piece of installation art outside involved adults dressed as sheep, pretending to eat the grass and baa baaing at the customers. Can you believe this!

Senator McGrath: Yes, I do!

Senator Roberts: That’s the sad part! Considering this was before the age of COVID, perhaps we should have taken that as a warning for how eager modernity is to embrace a sheeplike existence. Suck it up!

In the middle of an economic crisis, as a result of government overreaction and wastage in the COVID years, the government has decided to undertake an unnecessary refurnishing of the arts, using money taken from places where it would have actually done some damn good. Modernising the arts and needlessly rebranding its bureaucracy is something a bored government does on a slow day when it’s rolling in a surplus, not when we’re in a crisis—a financial crisis, an economic crisis, a moral crisis, a social crisis.

First, we sat through Minister Burke and his 14 town hall meetings, worth $40,000, so that he could introduce himself to the cultural sector, apparently forgetting that he is caretaker of an existing and well-known department and not a freshly appointed CEO with a fragile ego. Instead of spending $40,000 of taxpayers’ money on himself, perhaps Minister Burke could have given that money to the cultural sector and sent out a few tweets saying, ‘Hi,’ or maybe ‘G’day,’ and called the whole thing done. Maybe that’s what he could have done.

The rest of the legislation behaves like the Tim Tam genie’s infinite arts grants. We are told that in order to deliver the national cultural policy, of which this legislation is in service, $286 million will be provided in the next financial year—$286 million in 12 months. That’s more than a quarter of a billion dollars. For perspective, $200 million is roughly the cost of the one million mental health appointments that the Labor government decided to cut from Medicare last year. Labor has looked at where that money should be spent and decided it’s better off being handed over to this new Creative Australia and not on psychology sessions for Australians struggling with mental health.

What is it that the Australian taxpayer gets for that $286 million, aside from a bloated bureaucracy that spends its time drinking champagne and shaking hands, perhaps calling patrons of fine arts ‘sheep’ again? When was the last time the Australia Council showed some real diversity and inclusion and funded artworks and cultural endeavours from conservative artists? Where are the grants to preserve colonial artists and the enormous work they did recording Australia’s pioneer days? What about artworks dedicated to the Western values of liberty and individualism? What could be more important? Artists protesting against the cruelty of big-state authority and abuse during the COVID years perhaps? That’ll be a long wait, a very long wait. Their voices are exiled from this so-called inclusive publicly funded boondoggle.

The sort of arts and culture funded by the previous Australia Council is not rich and diverse; it’s a saturated market of climate-apocalypse propaganda, seen through the prism of race and religion and ideology. Their corporate strategy says exactly that:

It includes emphases on access and equity, advocacy for the vital role of arts and culture, and investing in arts and creativity that reflects and connects the many communities that make up contemporary Australia.

It doesn’t say, ‘We are committed to funding excellence and achievement for talented individuals in the arts community.’ It doesn’t say that. The Australia Council even threw in some World Economic Forum propaganda for good measure, stating:

The technologies of the fourth industrial revolution are transforming and disrupting industries, economies, and how we interact with our world and each other.

Wonderful! This isn’t art. It’s politics—international, unelected bureaucratic politics and ideology of the elites, the globalist predators, masquerading as art and funded by taxpayers. What was it doing on the Australia Council website? Why? What was it? And will Creative Australia adopt the same fealty to foreign powers? Two hundred and eighty-six million dollars is the reward for hijacking the arts sector to promote a woke ideology over an artistic one. I’ll say that again: a woke ideology over an artistic ideology, an artistic culture. The inclusion of Aboriginal art as the predominant destination of Creative Australia funding suggests this is another bribe to support the Voice. It’s coming at us from every angle. That shows that they’re actually desperate.

Creative Australia is advocating that the arts become all about ‘a place for every story and a story for every place’. I’m sure the public is trembling in anticipation of that agenda—’agenda’ being the operative word. It suggests the government is doubling down on woke and calling it art. The government hasn’t realised that, in order to increase the reach of arts and culture, you let the free market direct the program. That ensures that the program meets people’s real needs. You allow the people to reward artwork that appeals to and connects with them. That ensures that it meets people’s real needs.

Artists that produce rubbish should not be funded simply because they flatter the Labor-Greens-teal government. Their work is drowning out more deserving artists who are rejected because Creative Australia does not like their politics. There’s a reason working-class families in Australia save up for years to fly to the other side of the world and stand beneath Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. When was the last time a product of the Australia Council left millions of international tourists in awe, questioning the human limits of skill and vision? The answer is never—never—because you cannot buy culture, no matter how much taxpayer money Minister Burke throws at it.

Join us for the Australian launch of Children’s Health Defense, the renowned organisation and now Australian chapter movement.

This organisation is dedicated to making a positive impact on the health and well-being of children and families in Australia.

Book using the link below.

Saturday | 26 August 2023

9am to 4pm

The Well Function Centre

58 Highland Way

Upper Coomera QLD 4209

“The scope of the voice is its strength,” said one of its Indigenous architects, Megan Davis. The Voice is racist. It is flawed, divisive — inserting race into the constitution. It would destroy the People’s constitution which is for ALL Australians and replace it with a Politicians’ constitution.

The problem with the Voice is what is being hidden from the public: the power being created and how that power changes our system of government. The ‘Yes’ campaign has no basis for its argument that the powers being created won’t be used and in trying, it is deceiving Australians. There is no doubt that past governments have failed aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ needs despite spending billions of dollars. Since 2018, there have been 19,000 grants given to 300 indigenous corporations for aboriginal purposes, at a grand total of $11.5 billion. The grants and other funds directed at these issues are not closing the gap. Where has this jaw dropping amount of money gone? It is in fact the aboriginal industry that is entrenching this gap to our national disgrace. Billions already spent and billions more to run the Voice.

No one should be surprised that the Native Title legislation’s preamble is littered with references to the Voice’s roots, the globalist United Nations. The Voice would further entrench aboriginal disadvantage, promote victim mentality and sow further division.

The public has turned against the Voice in spite of concerted efforts by government and their corporate sponsors to force compliance.

The PM initially said if people reject the Voice, he would not rule out legislating it into parliament instead. What is the point of a referendum, if politicians will not listen?

I will be voting no!

Transcript

Tonight my remarks go to the path ahead. I serve my home state of Queensland, which is made up of many different people. Some came here first, others were born here and others have come here since. With the Voice referendum legislation decided, the cohesion of our Queensland community is threatened by the most divisive government initiative since the Vietnam War if not ever. Never has this country seen an issue that splits Australians right down the middle, where the vote will be won or lost on just a handful of votes in a handful of states. With the vote so close, every Australian must act with caution. Sadly—tragically—I see no sign that that is to happen. I’m deeply concerned that in the months ahead emotion will be deliberately triggered to leverage the emotional response for votes, which will continue hiding deeply troubled absent details. There will be appeals to fear and there will be shaming on both sides. These are evident now, and the campaign has not yet been called.

Above all else there will be disinformation, which will occur because the Prime Minister refuses to reveal the details of the Voice. By details, I don’t mean the discussion document and the Uluru Statement that are legally irrelevant to the practical application of the Voice. Those documents do not form part of the vote and will not inform a legal challenge to a voice provision should one occur. I mean the legislation that will set out how the Voice will work in practice. If the implementing legislation is presented before the vote then without a doubt the High Court will hold the government to that legislation—no more, no less. That is why the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, will not release it. The less detail revealed, the more discretion the Prime Minister will have to introduce a woke political agenda under the cover of implementing the Voice, an agenda that will fundamentally reshape Australian society.

Don’t take my word for it! Listen to the words of voice architect professor Marcia Langton who only last week said:

People who are opposing (the voice referendum) are saying we are destroying the fabric of their sacred Constitution. Yes, that’s right, that is exactly what we are doing.

I find it difficult to reconcile the words of the architect of the Voice, Professor Langton, with the words of Prime Minister Albanese, who called his proposal ‘modest’. Destroying the fabric of our nation’s Constitution modest? I thank Professor Langton for her candour, and I criticise the Prime Minister for his lack of candour, his cover-up, his deceit. Not that Professor Langton spoke truthfully out of a higher regard for the fundament principles of peaceful discourse—in fact, far from it. In 2019 Professor Langton said:

It would be terribly unfortunate for all Australians if the debate sinks into a nasty, eugenicist, 19th century-style of debate about the superior race versus the inferior race.

Who’s doing that? Who’s saying Aboriginal Australians do not deserve equal representation and do not deserve the same access to opportunity as anyone else in this country? Who’s saying that those on the no side desire less for Aboriginals than they do for any other Australians. No-one is saying it; that’s who—no-one. Those words in and of themselves inject a level of vitriol that the speaker has claimed is coming from the no side. Those comments invite hatred and violence against the no side. Those comments tell everyone who Marcia Langton is, not who we are. Labels and slurs are the refuge of the ignorant, the dishonest and the fearful. They reveal a lack of solid data, facts and logical argument.

I’m concerned that the hatred we are seeing from some in the yes case must lead to violence. I call on the Prime Minister to call out the personal attacks and restore stability to the debate coming from the yes advocates. It is a fundamental principle of One Nation that Aboriginals together with all who are now in this country must be treated fairly and offered equality of opportunity. Anyone who seeks to minimise, to harm, to malign, to deprive those who were here first has no place in One Nation. I implore all Australians to remember the golden rule of free speech, which is this: just because you can say something does not mean you should. I implore both sides to consider your words. Consider your memes and your signs at the rallies, which will no doubt occur. Consider that on the other side of this referendum we will still be the same country composed of the same people, and we will all need to get along. To use an old saying: least said, soonest mended. This advice was first seen in writing in the 1606 literary classic Don Quixote. Ironically, like the Voice, Don Quixote is a cautionary tale of a man who does not see the world as it is but rather as he needs it to be, in order to justify his doomed quest to vanquish imaginary enemies for his own ego. One Nation will continue to advocate for measures that actually raise Aboriginal Australians up, through the provision of basic services, jobs and, above all else, opportunity.

We know COVID injections contain spike proteins that instruct human cells to make spike proteins for extended periods of time.

I asked these questions in the Senate:

  • What is the biological function of the COVID spike protein?
  • Are COVID injections fundamentally safe?
  • Could the COVID injections be instructing human bodies to make a substance which is making them sicker not healthier?

Moderna has told us that spike proteins are the same whether derived from COVID or the injections. Spike proteins fuse cells together.

Big pharma tried and failed for 20 years to use spike proteins as an antigen so they’re nothing new. COVID was just an excuse to finally use them without the usual safety net of robust regulations and trial data, and make obscene profits.

The spike protein has an unknown impact on the body’s complex mechanisms involving laminin. These large cross-shaped proteins are often called the ‘god molecule’ for their shape. They are part of the body’s healing processes.

Another problem with the spike protein in these injections is that the virus mutates rapidly, making the injection lose any effectiveness very quickly. This is why the so-called ‘vaccine’ was not an immunisation and did not stop infection or transmission.

The COVID injections did not offer protection against new strains. There was no valid independent science to support that statement. That was a lie. The TGA would normally prosecute any pharma company making such claims, and yet it was the TGA itself making that statement!

Spike proteins are also able to trigger cell fusion in brain tissue, possibly causing brain dysfunction and damage leading to ‘long COVID’. As Moderna has revealed, there is no difference between spike proteins from COVID or the COVID injection.

The West has spent the past three years injecting people with the very thing that causes long COVID. Spike proteins.

How this has happened is the scandal that must be investigated immediately.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I ask a question tonight: what is the biological function of the COVID spike protein? This question asks whether COVID injections are fundamentally safe, because we know that COVID injections contain spike protein that embed into our system a genetic instruction for human cells to make spike proteins for extended periods of time. Could COVID injections be instructing human bodies to make a substance that’s making bodies sicker not healthier? Let’s review the latest data.

First point: spike protein may replace a protein molecule called laminin. Laminin is found in the extracellular matrix, the sheets of protein that form the substrate of all internal organs. Laminin is critical to how our cells hold together. Interfering with laminin can cause our organs to fail. Laminin is shaped like a crucifix and is widely known as the ‘God molecule’. When I met with Moderna in my office a few months ago, they were happy to admit that their spike protein was identical to the spike protein molecule in COVID. So, when studying spike protein, it does not matter what the source is. What matters is that, with the new study on the effects of that spike protein on the body, COVID injections are instructing body cells to produce spike proteins.

What we do know is that the spike protein is fusogenic, meaning its job is to bind cells together—think velcro. It does the same job that laminin does. Big pharma has tried to use spike proteins as an antigen for 20 years, and for 20 years they failed. The COVID injections were not a sudden success. Pharma simply lied and cheated on the clinical trials to use this thing they had spent billions on in an injection arranged to be rushed through approvals, and they made obscene profits in the process.

Now we’re seeing symptoms that can be explained with the discovery that the spike protein replaces laminin in the extracellular matrix. Does the spike protein interfere with laminin? The answer is: we do not know. This is what happens when we do not know yet insist on playing God. The reason using spike proteins as an antigen has failed is because the spike protein mutates in the wild every few weeks. A COVID injection loses any claim to effectiveness very quickly and needs to be updated. This is why the COVID injections are being retired and new ones are being released continually.

Do you remember when we were told that the vaccines offered protection against new strains and to keep taking them? That was a lie—a bloody lie. There was no valid independent science to support that statement. The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA, would normally prosecute a drug maker making misleading comments about their product without proof of the claim. In this case, though, it was the TGA making the misleading claims, so it’s the TGA who should be held to account.

COVID injection effectiveness was knowingly misrepresented, and here’s why. There’s no pathway for an antibody and a serum—blood—to get into the lung. While we can deliver a drug to the lungs and it will get into the serum, it can’t go back the other way, from serum to the lungs. The problem is that, in order to stop infection and transmission, the injections had to get into the lungs and the nose. The COVID injections simply never made it there. People who took the injection had levels of IgG antibody in the nose and lungs that were 1,000 times less than the levels in their blood. This is why the injections did not stop infection or transmission and never could have. The TGA knew, or should have known. This was the science, and they bloody well ignored it to promote injections that failed miserably and killed tens of thousands of people, melting down and exploding the database of adverse events.

Second point: spike proteins cause brain damage, leading to long COVID. Scientists at Macquarie University and the University of Queensland used mini brains infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus to discover that the spike protein could trigger fusion in cells in both mouse and human brain tissue. The host brain cells are fused, possibly causing brain dysfunction, said Professor Lars Ittner, director of the Dementia Research Centre at Macquarie University. The discovery could explain chronic neurological symptoms such as headaches, brain fog, exhaustion and loss of taste or smell—even long after the initial infection.

Of course, spike protein from the injection was not included in the study, and yet, as Moderna themselves say, there’s no bloody difference. The West has spent three years injecting people with the very thing that’s most likely causing long COVID. Big pharma never researched the effect of their spike protein on the human body yet received approval for their sickening products anyway. How this happened is a scandal that must be referred to a Senate select inquiry immediately.

Have your say and sign our petition by clicking on the links below. Help safeguard Australia’s democratic and ‘human’ rights to free speech.

There are only a few days left for you to ‘Have Your Say’ (while you still can) on the Government’s ‘Censorship’ bill giving ACMA powers to combat misinformation and disinformation. One of the greatest sources of misinformation, government departments and their funded media, are excluded from this bill, making it not fit for purpose.

The sleight of hand in this legislation is in the use of the words “misinformation and disinformation”. If we replace those key words in this bill to the more accurate “truth and scientific fact” we can see it is a threat to the prevailing narrative preferred by government “for the safety and well-being of the Australian people”.

It is immediately apparent that the bill is aiming for Orwellian censorship. Such social engineering would see the elimination of thought crimes (freedom of expression) and the removal of the ability for citizens to access truth and protest Government mistakes, bad policy and restriction of freedom.

This bill demonstrates that this government and ACMA has no role or interest in the truth which is disturbing to the majority of Australians. The proposed code would “support fact checking” which has been revealed in the United States court to actually be a misnomer for “narrative reinforcing”. That this legislation is even proposed by a democratically elected Government is beyond comprehension. It must be defeated if we are to remain a free country where the truth, not ‘The Narrative’, should set us free.

The Iron Boomerang inquiry was initiated by One Nation because we saw the project’s undeniable benefits.

This 3,300 km transcontinental railway represents significant advantages to all Australians across the top end by connecting Central Queensland with the Pilbara in Western Australia. It will increase our GDP by hundreds of billions of dollars from the steel alone, without counting the concrete, fertiliser, and other by-products.

This project offers a boon to Australia. One that is tangible and has details backing it up. One that makes money — doesn’t just cost money. One that keeps wealth in Australia rather than sending it offshore to further enrich foreign interests. One that will truly improve the lives of indigenous Australians with a multipurpose corridor bringing utilities, transport and tourism to their communities.

I look forward to seeing this project proceed further. The Iron Boomerang a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for this government to make a difference for all of Australia.

Transcript

As a servant to the many varied people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak to the Rural, Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee inquiry’s report into the project known as Iron Boomerang. One Nation’s Senate motion initiated this inquiry because of this project’s undeniable benefit to all of Australia. I thank the committee and the secretariat for their work, and I thank the witnesses for attending. This is a complicated project, and the committee and the secretariat have done a great job of processing the information presented across different hearings. Project lead Shane Condon has made this his life’s work, and Australia must be forever in his debt for the vision, application and sheer determination that he has shown. One Nation is fully supportive of the report’s recommendations.

As this project moves forward to a new era, I must remark that Project Iron Boomerang is probably a misnomer. It does consist of a 3,300-kilometre transcontinental railroad with heavy-duty axle capacity connecting existing rail networks in the iron ore region of the Pilbara to the existing coal rail networks in Central Queensland. Iron ore will be transported from Western Australia to Queensland, and those carriages will then be loaded with coal to transport back to the west, hence the boomerang in the name.

Steel mills at either end combine these minerals into steel—the world’s highest-quality steel at the world’s lowest price. Steel is a huge industry that helped build the wealth of this nation, and will do so again. It is also building the wealth of many nations right now. Steel is then exported as container traffic backload through ports in northern Queensland and Western Australia, offering faster and cheaper market access for our steel as against our competitors.

The fundamental benefit of this system is to reduce freight to the smallest possible footprint, economic as well as carbon dioxide for those who think that’s important. Less coal will be exported across the world in bulk oil carriers that burn 200 tonnes of heavy diesel oil a day, carriers that then return empty while burning another 100 tonnes of oil a day on the way with huge reductions in carbon dioxide for those who believe that we need to cut human production of carbon dioxide. Less iron ore and dirt will be exported from Western Australia across the world, saving the heavy diesel consumption and again reducing carbon dioxide production and the cost. Instead, ore is transported a shorter distance in a gas electric train offering a huge competitive advantage for Australian steel and a huge benefit for the environment—the real environment, as well as that carbon dioxide sky-gas nonsense.

The committee rightly identified the railroad and the steel development are separate issues. It’s possible, as Senator Canavan has pointed out, that ships can operate the boomerang trip in first phase of the project, and we’ve had that confirmed since. The southern route is slightly longer than a direct rail link but will cost less at around $10 a tonne versus $40 a tonne for the railroad. Having said that, the railroad will become the cheaper option after the volume of ore and coal being moved exceeds 150 million tonnes a year. This point will be reached with the second stage of steel production, which is to increase the mills from 10 to 20.

The railroad carries many other benefits the committee did not hear in evidence that East West Line Parks may like to correct during their discussions with Infrastructure Australia. Grazing interests have expressed a strong desire to use the line to transport cattle from the remote cattle stations to the east and then to markets overseas. That trip is currently done using road, which puts the animals under pressure and causes a costly reduction in body weight of around 15 per cent. Rail offers a smoother, faster ride and a reduction in body weight of only five per cent. That’s a benefit all round.

Aboriginal interests own many remote cattle stations employing Aboriginal workers. This rail will represent a significant benefit to the Aboriginal community right across the Top End. Agricultural interests would use the rail line to take production from the Ord River irrigation area to market in the east, reducing their freight costs by 50 per cent or even more. The line will open stranded asset rare-earth mines that hold mineral reserves we need to make the electric cars, batteries, windmills and solar panels necessary for net zero. Hmm. The line will open the currently inaccessible East Pilbara, an area containing significant mineral wealth, while adding additional life to existing mines across the Pilbara.

Environmentalists oppose mining and oppose expanding the steel industry at the same time as calling for a transition from petrol to electric cars and the covering of our continent in steel transmission towers and steel wind turbines. Environmentalists can, of course, use their favoured building material—compressed rainbow unicorn farts. The rest of us though use steel. Project Iron Boomerang is not unique. The 2,300-kilometre Tarcoola to Darwin railway was completed 10 years ago. It was completed in five years at a cost of just $3.5 billion across similar terrain. This is not complicated engineering. Railroads like this are being built overseas, and a shorter railroad was recently completed in the Pilbara. We can do this.

A second aspect of the east-west railroad is the multifunction corridor that would normally be built alongside a railway such as this. For a small additional cost in relative terms, this could be upgraded to hold a fibre-optic cable, water and power trunk lines. These, in turn, could provide town water, power and the internet to regional and remote communities, mostly Aboriginal, right across the Top End. Sidings along the route would allow for a local passenger or freight train to improve transport and freight services to these same remote communities.

Tourism is another likely benefit. The Ghan can expand to offer what would be one of the world’s ‘must do’ trips, offering real employment to the Aboriginal community. I hope that Infrastructure Australia pursues inquiry into this aspect of the project. One Nation would love to see homes built with power, water and the internet for remote Aboriginal communities. Iron Boomerang holds that future for these communities. I hope that Infrastructure Australia reviews this most exciting aspect of the project.

The committee has recommended a separate inquiry be held into the steel component of Project Iron Boomerang. The terms of reference are well chosen, with one suggestion. During many meetings, as part of promoting this project, I met with an Australian company that has technology which captures carbon dioxide from the steel mill’s steam stack and combines that output with seawater to produce valuable commodities such as ammonia and ethanol. The process is self-funding. These building blocks can be turned into fertiliser, AdBlue, ethanol and many other products that Australia currently imports. These are not just by-products; they’re products essential to our national security. I hope the steel inquiry hears evidence on how a commercially proven coal-to-hydrogen process can power an electric arc furnace—’green steel’, if you want to use that term. There are, though, many questions around this process that’s years from commercial reality, especially in terms of quality; it’s brittle at the moment.

World steel demand is expected to remain at two per cent growth over the medium term, with the new developing crescent of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan taking up the slack from maturing Chinese, USA and European markets. Indonesia is constructing a new national capital, with construction extending to 2040. This alone will consume the output from our Project Iron Boomerang phase 1 steel mills. If we’re to wind back exports of coal for power in the name of climate change—and I hope we’re not; One Nation strongly opposes this—substituting the use of coal for power with the use of coal for steel would provide continuity of employment for the coal industry, something that should keep unions happy.

Another economic benefit of the steel mills is fly ash, a by-product of steel manufacture when the power source is coal. Fly ash can replace 20 to 30 per cent of the cement in concrete. Project Iron Boomerang will result in the construction of new concrete plants to utilise the steel parks’ by-products. As even the Greens would agree, you can’t do wind power without concrete, and Australia does not have enough concrete for the job. The world steel market is worth A$2 trillion a year. Iron Boomerang will increase Australia’s GDP by hundreds of billions of dollars, just from the steel, let alone the concrete, fertiliser, ammonia and other by-products.

The committee correctly identified the potential national security benefits of the railway, the steel parks and the port upgrades this project will deliver. The expectation is for a naval maintenance base in North Queensland to service the United States Pacific fleet. The railway offers access to parts of this country where access is currently problematic. I note the Maritime Union of Australia is advancing their rebuilding the Australian shipping and maritime industries proposal to expand the Australian shipping fleet. Project Iron Boomerang steel mills will produce four-metre wide slabs instead of the normal two-metre wide slabs. When used to produce railway rolling stock and ships, this results in half the number of welds and joins, producing a cheaper, stronger and faster product. I hope the union will participate in the steel inquiry and look for ways to breathe new life into Australia’s heavy manufacturing industries, currently languishing after decades of planned decay, a decay that has cost breadwinner jobs and economic security.

With the attractive markets, returns and many by-products, it’s no surprise private industry and net private investors are waiting ready to fund and construct this project. There is, though, a problem: private investors don’t trust our government, and after debacles like Adani who could blame them? At some point the federal government is going to have to put their hands into their pockets to fund the final business case, not because the proponents can’t fund it, but because their backers will not let them. For this project to proceed further, the government must demonstrate skin in the game. I look forward to the inquiries that have been recommended in this report, and I look forward to Infrastructure Australia advancing this project. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Albanese government. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned. Consideration resumed of the motion.

Customers of Australia’s ‘Big Four’ banks are not getting a fair go.

The Commonwealth Bank announced a $10.2 billion annual profit made on the backs of the hard work of their customers and staff, who deserve better.

The Senate inquiry into bank closures in regional Australia has heard evidence of banks acting in concert, if not collusion, to close branches, forcing customers online and preventing the use of cash. Even with online banking unavailable in areas where bank branches close and despite their actions not serving their customers’ needs they’ve gone ahead with closures. Worse, the banks have misled the committee not only about their plans to close branches in the future, but even about the reasons why.

I will be addressing the reprehensible behaviour of the Big Four banks in the next sitting.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people in our one Queensland community, it’s my duty to ensure that our constituents get a fair go. Customers of the big four Australian banks are not getting a fair go.

The Commonwealth Bank announced a $10.2 billion annual profit made on the backs of the hard work of their customers and staff, who deserve better. While the banking superprofits tax will return some of that excess profit to taxpayers, my question is: how are the big four banks able to exploit their oligopoly power to deliver obscene profits? 

One Nation, of course, supports the right of companies to invest money and receive a fair return on investment—a fair return. One Nation believes that free market competition is the answer to providing all Australians with wealth and prosperity. Australia does not have free market competition in many industries, including in banking. We have an oligopoly conspiring together to rip off as much money as they can from captive clients. That was evident in 2017, when I chaired the Senate Select Committee on Lending to Primary Production Customers. The committee heard evidence of inhuman banking behaviour that screwed their own customers, taking homes, livelihoods, equity and even cattle, to which the banks were not legally entitled. No compensation has ever been made, because good luck suing a bank. Banks are above the law. 

The Senate inquiry into bank closures in regional Australia has heard evidence of banks acting in concert, if not collusion, to close branches, force customers online and prevent the use of cash, despite online banking not being available in areas where bank branches closes and not suiting customers’ needs. Worse, banks have misled the committee regarding their future branch closure plans and misled the committee on the reasons for closures. The big four banks’ behaviour is reprehensible. In the next sitting, I’ll advance the debate regarding a proposal to stop banks further hollowing out the bush and forcing their customers into digital prison.

Watch this space. 

Renting is a big issue for Australians. Rents are going up and finding a rental home is growing more difficult.

Listening to everyday Australians across regional Queensland in recent weeks, what I heard most about rent controls was how much damage they do.

A rent cap actually damages before it’s introduced.

The Greens announced they’re pursuing rent caps, and the reaction has been immediate. Landlords all over the country are now furiously putting up rents ready for the freeze.

The Greens never think things through.

Rapper Zuby, in a very well-delivered address in 2022 at CPAC, observed that most politicians don’t care if people die—and he is correct. Most politicians don’t care if people die.

There’s no royal commission. There’s no Senate inquiry. There’s no access to contracts—they’re commercial-in-confidence we’re told. Years after they were signed, they’re still commercial-in-confidence. Taxpayers paid for the injections, yet we cannot see what we paid for. We can’t even see how much we paid. Censorship. What are they hiding?

Bill Gates paid for censorship in the mouthpiece Big Brother media that is often owned by the same people who own Pfizer. Bill Gates paid for censorship across social media. Gates is an investor in big pharma—a massive investor in big pharma—and a massive contributor to the World Health Organization, the UN’s World Health Organization.

I hold the whole Senate accountable, apart from six senators withstanding the catcalls.

At last Thursday’s Senate inquiry into anti-discrimination bills—one of which was moved by Senator Hanson and another one by Senator Canavan, Senator Antic and Senator Rennick—four of the five senators grilling Pfizer, Moderna and the TGA were from Queensland. Four, plus Senator Antic. Pfizer did not know where to go.

Clearly Pfizer, Moderna and the TGA all disgraced themselves and showed themselves to be inhuman. Clearly none feel accountable for the deaths, the chronic and crippling injuries, the severe injuries—not federal government or its health departments, not the state premiers or their health departments, not employers mandating injections. No-one takes accountability.

We will chase you until you are held accountable.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak in support of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Vaccine Indemnity) Bill 2023, because with indemnity comes impunity, and this parliament needs huge doses of accountability to change it from exploiting the people and return it to serving the people.

The main process for distributing vaccines in Australia is through the National Immunisation Program. Section 9B of the National Health Act 1953 allows the minister for health to provide, or arrange for the provision of, injections for distribution through the National Immunisation Program. Injections distributed via the National Immunisation Program must be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The purchase of injections occurs through the Commonwealth entering into supply contracts with the relevant pharmaceutical companies. These arrangements would include the amount of compensation the Commonwealth is liable to pay in exchange for the injections and are generally subject to the Commonwealth Procurement Rules.

During COVID, the Liberal government, with the full support of the Labor opposition and the Greens, simply tore up the rule book. Pfizer were given a blanket immunity. Pfizer knew, when the injection was being developed and tested, that they had a blanket immunity. What could go wrong? Firstly, accountability is shredded. The outcome of this ill-considered decision was an excess mortality rate in Australia of 27 per cent above normal since the ‘fakecines’ were rolled out. Most likely 30,000 Australians will die this year from side effects of our COVID response, including the injectables. Did they really think Pfizer, a multinational pharmaceutical company with an appalling track record, would suddenly turn into a model corporate citizen when asked to produce the COVID injections? Did you?

Prior to COVID, Pfizer had been fined US$3 billion for criminal acts. They are a habitual offender, persistently engaging in illegal and corrupt marketing practices, bribing physicians and suppressing adverse trial results. We know Pfizer suppressed bad trial data in the COVID trials, fabricated results, excluded test subjects that became sick and failed to test for a full range of adverse effects. They did this knowingly. The ‘fakecines’ were then manufactured in a shoddy fashion and did not use good manufacturing process as they were supposed to and as every other product approved in Australia must.

Live DNA derived from E. coli used in production has been found in large quantities in the Pfizer product—up to a billion strands or parts of strands in every dose. Huge variations between batches suggest huge variations in manufacturing quality. I say ‘suggest’ because we have no idea what is actually in these products, because the TGA accepts batch testing from the manufacturer and has not conducted the testing on each batch as it arrives. It has not conducted the testing. The TGA took the US FDA’s word for the results of the stage 2/3 clinical trials, and the FDA took Pfizer’s word for it. We’re relying on Pfizer’s word for these.

To give a product immunity, the TGA should have thoroughly tested these injections, not looked the other way. We have no idea what harm these products will eventually cause, because there was no long-term safety testing conducted—none. Why would they spend that money when they already had the immunity? That’s what immunity has done to them—more profit for Pfizer, more money in the pocket for CEO Albert Bourla, who banked US$30 million in salary and bonuses last financial year. Overall, Pfizer sold $36 billion in COVID products in 2022, pushing Pfizer to a record $100 billion in sales. I am slightly encouraged to see their share price is down 40 per cent from the peak of 2021, and projected revenue in 2023 is down 80 per cent.

While Pfizer made out like the fraudulent bandits they are, the Australian taxpayers are on the hook for who knows how much. The budget papers are required to show every potential liability the government has. There is an entry for our liability under the COVID products, yet they have not quantified it. You have not quantified it; there’s no figure there. That can’t continue. This liability will run into the billions. Australia needs this bill from Senator Babet to make sure no greedy, dishonest, opportunistic pharmaceutical company is allowed to get away with financial murder again. Australia needs this bill to make sure that no inhuman monster like the former health minister Greg Hunt, like the former prime minister Scott Morrison, like premiers Palaszczuk, McGowan and Andrews, is allowed to get away with malfeasance forcing experimental gene therapy based injections leading to tens of thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of people permanently crippled for life and hundreds of thousands of people injured, and uncounted people in mourning. Those are the nuts and bolts.

Now we go to the morality because governments cannot be trusted. With immunity, comes impunity. The simple reason for lack of accountability is the hiding of government actions through indemnities. Firstly, my position on medications including injections: we all want safe treatment. We are all pro-medicine. We all want that each of us decides what is put into our body—my body, my choice. We all want freedom to make our choice and for our choice to be accepted and respected. We all wholeheartedly support medicines that are fully tested and proven safe, effective, affordable and accessible. I am opposed to untested drugs, forcing untested experimental injections on to people, forcing untested experimental injections on to people with the only alternative being to lose one’s livelihood or let your children starve. How could any human allow this to happen?

How could any human allow this to happen, yet you did. Then in your shame, your cowardice, your guilt, the best you could do to those of us who stood up to this inhuman, monstrous and at times murderous madness was to call us ‘anti-vaxxers’. Pathetic—labels are the refuge of the ignorant, the incompetent, the dishonest, the guilty and the fearful, name-calling as you sling words at us for protecting innocent good people. But your vilification means nothing to us because we go for the truth. I oppose coercion, I oppose mandates, I oppose confidentiality hiding details from taxpayers. These untested injections from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca were forced on people using lies. Daily for two weeks former prime minister Morrison said, ‘There are no vaccine mandates in Australia.’ That was a lie, a murderous lie killing 30,000 Australians annually in excess deaths above normal. Worse, the Morrison-Hunt duo enabled and drove the injection mandate. Here is how: the Morrison-Hunt duo bought the injections. The Morrison-Hunt duo gave them to the states. The Morrison-Hunt duo indemnified the states. The Morrison-Hunt duo made federal health department data available to the states.

That was the only way the states could enforce their mandates, which really were driven by the Morrison-Hunt duo. State premiers admitted their vaccine mandates were in line with the bogus so-called ‘National Cabinet’, which was headed by Scott Morrison. The Morrison federal government mandated injections in Defence, the Australian Electoral Commission, aged care, the Australian Federal Police and others, but there are no vaccine mandates in Australia, he said. Then on Tuesday, I spoke about the Medical Countermeasures Consortium, which drove the whole lot, the four nations’ defence departments, from Canada, America, Britain and Australia. This was planned and delivered, and Pfizer did the work on behalf of the American Department of Defense. That’s why it bypassed the testing. Now we have 30,000 excess deaths That’s the equivalent to two Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashes every week for a year—every week for a year! Yet we have Queensland nurses still suspended. Foreign nurses are being recruited by Premier Palaszczuk to take their jobs. Then she’s told us repeatedly for the last three years, ‘The health system is crashing.’ Disgraceful, inhuman. The police are mandated, and they’ve lost many. The teachers have been mandated, and, when they finally lifted the mandate, many of them didn’t come back. We found children were crippled, affected. The teachers were fined. Doctors were mandated and many have left the profession. How can Australia put up with that? That’s going to hurt the patients. The pilots were mandated and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, CASA, cares not a bit. It’s wilfully blind, it’s misfeasance and it’s betraying passenger air safety.

In a shining light, the Australian Firefighters Alliance was formed because their union would not stand up for them. Many unions went rogue and did not stand up for their members. The Australian Firefighters Alliance resisted. They developed, from the very start, a defensive strategy and an offensive strategy and that’s the only one that Premier Palaszczuk did not mandate. It’s based on a false premise. Livelihoods and lives have been destroyed.

We had the absurdity of the drugs failure, the vaccine failure, the injections failure being falsely blamed on the people who didn’t take it. Indemnities encourage impunity and rogue behaviour, irresponsible behaviour, destructive behaviour, cruel, monstrous, inhuman behaviour. Indemnities destroy accountability because everything is hidden, and indemnities are given. There’s no problem disclosed and so there’s no compensation. Millions of people suffer in silence and this Labor government perpetuates the misery, the deceit.

Rapper Zuby, in a very well-delivered address in 2022 at CPAC observed that most politicians don’t care if people die—and he is correct. Most politicians don’t care if people die. There’s no royal commission. There’s no Senate inquiry. There’s no access to contracts—they’re commercial-in-confidence we’re told. Years after they were signed, they’re still commercial-in-confidence. Taxpayers paid for injections, yet we cannot see what we paid for. We can’t even see how much we paid. Censorship. What are they hiding? Bill Gates paid for censorship in the mouthpiece Big Brother media that is often owned by the same people who own Pfizer. Bill Gates paid for censorship across social media. Gates is an investor in big pharma—a massive investor in big pharma—and a massive contributor to the World Health Organization, the UN’s World Health Organization.

I hold the whole Senate accountable, the whole Senate, apart from six senators withstanding the catcalls. At last Thursday’s Senate inquiry into antidiscrimination bills—one of which was moved by Senator Hanson and another one by Senator Canavan, Senator Antic and Senator Rennick—four of the five senators grilling Pfizer, Moderna and the TGA were from Queensland. Four, plus Senator Antic. Pfizer did not know where to go. Clearly Pfizer, Moderna and the TGA all disgraced themselves and showed themselves to be inhuman. Clearly none feel accountable for the deaths, the chronic and crippling injuries, the severe injuries—not federal government or its health departments, not the state premiers or their health departments, not employers mandating injections. No-one takes accountability. We will chase you until you are held accountable.

We’ve had airline employees taken to hospital and then returned and Qantas insisted they be injected. There are too many other stories there; I won’t go into them. But we see people awakening. We see the situation has created heroes: Hoody, Maria Zeee, Chris Spicer and many, many more from the independent people’s media; doctors who formed the Australian Medical Professionals Society; Dr William Bay, and he is a doctor; nurses like Dee; firies like Dan; police like Krystal; paramedics like Peter; doctors like Camillo; pilots like Alan; and thousands of construction workers and other workers. You’ve woken the people up. Thank you so much for being our heroes. Here and globally, you’re wakening people up.

When indemnities are granted, especially in secret, accountability is removed, and you in this Senate, in this parliament, have demonstrated that repeatedly. You’ve confirmed it. All who oppose this bill will be voting to continue the needless deaths and lies. This bill will prevent recurrence. Ending indemnity will end impunity. It will contribute to restoring accountability. Transparency restores trust. I wholeheartedly support this bill and urge all senators to vote in support.