China take advantage of weak Australian governments

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Transcript

 I move:

That the Senate notes that the current dispute between China and Australia is more deep-seated than a trade spat involving wine, coal and timber.

The motion I moved is the opening paragraph in Robert Gottliebsen’s newspaper article in The Australian yesterday, and I’ll quote it again:

When China declared that Australia had been “evil” it suddenly became clear that the dispute between the two nations is more deep-seated than a trade spat involving wine coal, timber etc.

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia who is involved in the governance of Australia, I want to focus on Gottliebsen’s meaty fourth paragraph:

From President Xi down, there has been little respect for Australia for a long time and many in China believe we are a foolish country that makes mistakes at almost every turn, led by defence.

He then details serious flaws in the governance of three Defence projects, the submarine ‘shemozzle’, as he calls it, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and the Hunter frigates. We obviously are ‘a foolish country’ based on this, and the obvious point of his article is our shoddy governments over many decades, both Liberal-National and Labor.

People in this country are feeling concerned about the seriously deteriorating state of our country. We have lost our economic sovereignty. We’re losing our national sovereignty. We’re plunging towards catastrophe economically, and dependence with a complete loss of security. People are fed up and, across many communities and industries—and I mean right around the country—people are feeling dispirited, hopeless, confused, aimless, wary, concerned and even fearful, because most can sense our country’s destruction. Yet, 100 years ago Australia was No. 1 in the world in income per person and had the highest GDP—gross domestic product—per person.

There’s a worse aspect beyond economic demise though. Bullies like China prey on those perceived as being weak. Gottliebsen rightly says that, due to poor, and even stupid, decisions, we’re rightly perceived as being weak in defence. Yet he barely scratches the full extent of the deterioration of our security, because our productive capacity has been dismantled, and our economic security has been smashed, destroyed. We are vulnerable. Now, as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, that is what I will discuss, because, like bullies in a schoolyard or in a workplace, China preys on those it perceives as weak or foolish. By the way, when I raise China, I refer to the Chinese Communist Party and not the millions of Australians of Chinese descent now in our country, descendants of those who came during the gold rushes almost two centuries ago, and those who immigrated more recently.

Not only does the Chinese Communist Party assess other nations against China’s values and standards; the Chinese Communist Party assesses our country against our own values, and from that it finds out: Does our government have courage? Does our government have integrity? Do the politicians in this country and this parliament have the strength of character needed to lead a country? I’ve been thinking about this for some years now and I’ve made a list of Australian values: mateship; a fair go; support; loyalty; being fair dinkum; telling the truth; honesty; fairness; freedom to live; freedom of speech; freedom of thought; freedom of belief; freedom of religion; freedom of faith; freedom of interaction; freedom of exchange; democracy; our flag; our nation; family; care; respect for people; respect for community; respect for the law; respect for the environment; making sure government fulfils its three primary roles, which are protecting life, protecting property and protecting freedom, and stays out of everything else; and our Constitution. We value our Constitution, especially competitive federalism, and we value human progress. Australia has led that improvement in progress in the past 150 years. It has been amazing progress, right across the world.

So let’s assess governments against these values and their impact on our productive capacity. Productive capacity depends on many things, but particularly energy costs—the primacy of energy. An ever-decreasing cost of energy has led to 150 years of human progress. Australia has gone from having the world’s lowest electricity prices to having the world’s highest, yet we’re now the world’s largest exporter of energy—gas and coal. China imports a lot of our coal, but the production of coal in their own country is eight times our total production—not just our exports but our total production. They make us look like small producers of coal. They have the largest coal reserves in the world, along with the United States. They use our coal. They’re building steel power plants out of our coal, and they’re building hundreds of coal-fired power stations.

We legislate to use their wind turbines and their solar panels. We subsidise them. It drives up the cost of our electricity, and we pay them for unreliables—their solar and wind generators. We pay them for components of electric vehicles, which we also subsidise. And then we have Chinese companies, affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, owning electricity networks in our major cities. Then we have the Queensland Labor government stealing $1½ billion a year through the generators. All of this destroys jobs and destroys competitiveness.

Then taxpayers pay people, quite often foreigners, to come in and squat on the land, just to get carbon dioxide credits. It’s called carbon dioxide farming. It takes good farmland and destroys it with noxious weeds and feral animals—pests—and then that has to be reclaimed at some later date; who knows when. Then we have Angus Taylor, the Minister for Energy and Emissions, a farmer. He knows that the EPBC Act is hurting him—I’ve had conversations with him—but he just smiles, rolls his eyes and puts up with it. He is a sceptic on climate change—sceptical that we are affecting the climate. He’s been slammed, and he’s now coming back into parliament and driving up electricity prices. Matt Canavan, Barnaby Joyce: strong sceptics in their beliefs. Barnaby Joyce was the Deputy Prime Minister. The Chinese know that. They watch him. They saw him come into cabinet and they saw him run for election in New England, when he moved out of the Senate and into the lower house. And Malcolm Turnbull, to get Mr Joyce elected, showered $400 million of taxpayer funds on unreliable wind power. Then Matt Canavan and Barnaby Joyce were both in the cabinet, and they suddenly became alarmists, spouting alarm about carbon dioxide.

So I asked Matt Canavan in the Senate one day where his evidence was, and he just slid away from me. Now that he’s out of cabinet and Mr Joyce is out of cabinet, all of a sudden they’re becoming a little bit sceptical again in their words. But the Chinese Communist Party see this and that tells them a lot about the lack of leadership in this country.

The Chinese have their own agreement within the Paris Agreement. It says, ‘We will continue doing whatever we want, continue growing our economy, continue constructing our country, developing our country and putting in place infrastructure, and then in 2030 we may consider something.’ Meanwhile, this parliament in this building has legislated to destroy our economy to comply with Kyoto. That’s not an agreement; that is stupidity and economic suicide. The Chinese Communist Party watches us pay academics to tell lies about climate and to misrepresent the climate science. We even put some of them in charge of or in senior places in the CSIRO and pay them $800,000 a year to destroy our country. Dr Andrew Johnson went from head of the climate research agency department in the CSIRO to become head of the Bureau of Meteorology. Under him and his predecessors, the Bureau of Meteorology has been shown to be concocting the data and misrepresenting temperatures.

We pay people like Ove Hoegh-Gulberg and Ian Chubb, former chief scientists, to destroy the science, to misrepresent the science. In 1975, Whitlam signed an agreement saying we’ll comply with the Lima Declaration to shut down our manufacturing and export it. The following year, Liberal Prime Minister Fraser ratified the deal. In 1992, Paul Keating’s Labor government signed the Rio Declaration, which is about 21st century global governance. Then we had the Kyoto protocol destroying our country, stealing our farmers’ property rights. And now we have the Paris Agreement exporting jobs and shutting manufacturing.

Then the current Prime Minister has the temerity to say, ‘We will fiddle with the industrial relations system to bring back manufacturing.’ How the hell can you bring back manufacturing when you have the highest electricity costs in the world and a big component of manufacturing—the largest component, usually—is the cost of electricity? How the hell can you do it with a tax system that favours multinational companies and lets them off scot-free? How the hell can you do it with overregulation? How the hell can you do it with a lack of water? How the hell can you do it with a lack of infrastructure? The Chinese are watching this and they’re helping us destroy our electricity sector and export even more jobs, because our prices for electricity are going up, businesses are shutting and then the jobs start up in China.

We are now reversing the last 170 years of human progress, because the key to human progress is decreasing the price of energy, which raises productivity, raises wealth, raises the standard of living. That ended in this country 24 years ago. We have ceded governance to the UN: Lima, Kyoto, Rio, Paris and many other agreements. How does this comply with Aussie values? How does it comply with being fair dinkum? Worse, the granddaddy who concocted this climate change rubbish was Maurice Strong. He concocted it when he created and then took over as head of the United Nations Environment Program. He pushed that program, starting from the 1970s, and in the 1980s he ramped it up. In 1988 he formed the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a fraudulent organisation. And the Liberals, Labor, the Nationals and the Greens have fallen for it all. Maurice Strong was a crook. He was wanted by the police in America and died in exile in China. Who’s the beneficiary of all this destruction of Western civilisation? The Chinese government.

That’s what the people in this chamber and the chamber across the hall there have done to this country by blindly following the UN diktats. How does that comply with our values? It doesn’t. It breaks our values. What about water ownership? Destroyed by separating water ownership from property ownership. What about the Murray-Darling Basin and the corruption that is rife? What about the family farms shutting down? What about water projects? What water projects? That’s it; there aren’t any. And yet look at what amazing water projects the Chinese Communist Party has put together to develop its country.

What about infrastructure? Hardly anything built and no plan. The north is exposed without the Bradfield scheme and we see floods destroying Townsville. There is destruction and a waste of water flowing out to sea. We see the state governments joining in. The Labor Party in Queensland has reef regulations which are shutting down agriculture. Vegetation protection legislation is destroying agriculture. Firebreaks aren’t allowed and are being destroyed when farms are under fire. We put animals and fungus ahead of humans.

The Queensland Labor government put a Chinese company in charge of the electoral roll and then there is Queensland local council corruption linked to the Labor state government. This extends well beyond Ipswich and Paul Pisasale; it is systemic and it is widespread. We have foreign banks that were deregulated under John Howard and we saw the result of that through the Hayne royal commission. We see Adani frustrated by both the Liberal-National and Labor governments in Queensland and by the federal government, which was weak. That’s one man from India, which has a booming, growing economy, who wanted to spend $17 billion in our country. He was thwarted for eight years. That’s a blight on us that not even the Chinese can miss—that no-one in the world can miss. We go on and on and on.

I give Senator Rex Patrick credit for moving a motion to get an inquiry into the relationship between China and Australia six times—and I supported him every time. Both the Labor Party and the Liberal-Nationals squashed it. This is what the Chinese are seeing, yet Australians are wanting far more. Australians want leadership. Australians want security, reassurance, confidence, leadership, trust, pride and freedom—a restoration so that we can be No. 1 in the world again. What does Australia need? It needs principled leadership based on values. It needs disciplined leadership based on data and facts instead of ideology paying off donors. It needs honest leadership and strength of character. It’s the simple ability to say: ‘I’m wrong, I’m sorry—can you help me? Please explain.’ We need visionary policies, and that is what will take us back to being No. 1.

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Anti Bail-In Bill defeated, but will be fixed – 2SM with Marcus Paul

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Transcript

[Marcus Paul]

All right, welcome back to the programme on this Thursday, December 3, where it’s 22 minutes away from eight o’clock, New South Wales, daylight saving time. And Senator Malcolm Roberts joins us on the programme. Good day, Malcolm.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Good morning, Marcus, how are you?

[Marcus Paul]

I’m okay. I think you’d still be disappointed with the bank bail-in voted down this week. I know you’ve done a lot of work on it.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yes, we were disappointed, but we were expecting to get, have it defeated. We were mildly hoping the labour party would wake up, But they abandoned their core, but what has been very good, Marcus, is that as a result of my speech and as a result of the work, one of the liberals came up to me later and he organised a meeting with me and our staff and himself and a senior advisor from the treasurer’s department.

And they now acknowledge that there is a problem and that they have promised to remedy it. So it looks like it’ll be taken care of, anyway, thanks to the effort we’ve done.

[Marcus Paul]

All right, just remind my listeners, What this is all about, what is the bail-in?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Well, let’s talk about a bail-out first. A bail-out is when a bank gets into trouble and the government gives it taxpayer money. So basically a bail-out is where the taxpayer money goes from the taxpayer through the government, to the bank, save the banks, even though the taxpayers didn’t cause the damage and bail-in is where the bank takes the depositors’ money and converts into shares.

So they get their money, they get the depositors’ money and get out of trouble. And in exchange, the depositors get worthless pieces of paper called shares because the bank is so close to collapse, it won’t be of any value.

So then that means that the depositors have a worthless piece of paper or they can hang on for a few years and hope that the bank comes back, which it probably will in our system, but a bail-in takes money, steals money from the depositors of the bank.

[Marcus Paul]

All right, and you’re hopeful that eventually after further discussions, even though it was voted down earlier this week, you’re hopeful that you will get this passed?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Well, not passed, but modified by the government itself. So it’ll take care of it. So either we’ll get the corrections that we wanted, the modifications we wanted in the government’s bill, so that there’s no bail-in. Or if there is a bail-in possibility, then at least it will be honestly portrayed.

And so everyone can make up their own mind what to do, but we think a bail-in would be better ruled out because it then instils confidence in the banks. We’ve had something like $20 billion in notes go disappearing in the last 12 months because people are scared of what will happen to their cash if there is a bail-in.

Because they’ve had bail-ins in Greece and other countries, we see this as a magnificent opportunity to clarify and to make it very, very clear to people what is happening.

[Marcus Paul]

All right, you want more of us to drink Australian wine?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yeah. I didn’t know if you knew it, but 30% of our wine export goes to China.

[Marcus Paul]

Oh, yeah I knew it, well used to.

[Malcolm Roberts]

That’s double the UK, double the UK, double the US but an inter parliamentary alliance on China, our friends in parliamentarian and parliaments and congresses around the world showed support for Australia. And they’re really annoyed with the bullying of China against Australia.

So we actually saw a video that was made up of people from Japan, parliamentarians, from Japan, who said, you know, we like our saki better mate, but Aussie wine, go and buy a bottle of Aussie wine, and then the Italian saying we’re the number one wine exporters in the world, and we make the best wine, but go and get a bottle of Aussie wine.

So we’re encouraging Australians to go and spend a bit more time in the wine rose and liquor store and get stuck into some Aussie wine and show the Chinese that we will carry on regardless of their threats.

[Marcus Paul]

Well that’s right, there’s no 212% tariffs here at home with our domestic wine. I mean, we know that wine, the sector itself valued at $4 billion in September, 2020, before these ridiculous over-inflated tariffs were imposed. Maybe we can, I know we export around 15 and 14% respectively to the United Kingdom and to the United States of our wine products maybe we could up their share of exports and not worry too much about China.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Exactly, and I think this is a problem that’s coming home to roost Marcus, we’ve gone to China because it’s the easy way out. We haven’t done the hard yards in this country of fixing the tax system, reducing our energy costs. We’ve instead inflated our energy costs.

We’ve doubled in, some places tripled our electricity costs for example, instead of doing the hard yards to fixing that energy sector and stopping the rort on climate and the subsidies, and instead of fixing the taxation system to make manufacturing more competitive, we have taken a lazy way out and just exported iron ore to China, coal to China, raw materials to China, agricultural products to China and just bought, whatever we can from China, very lazy way.

We’ve destroyed our manufacturing, let China supply us, and we’ve got to stop that. We’ve got to rebuild this country, bring it back to basics.

[Marcus Paul]

You’re not still betting on a Trump win, are you?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Oh yes, definitely. Definitely.

[Marcus Paul]

Malcolm, you still haven’t woken up.

[Malcolm Roberts]

No, no. The fact they’re coming in now there’s clear corruption, Marcus. And I think that Trump has recognised this. In fact, one of the Republicans said that we know there’s been corruption from the Democrats, especially for many, many years.

And Trump, to his credit has set the eyes in motion and the monitors in motion. And now it’s all coming home to roost for the Democrats. There’s serious corruption out there. And there’s a path for Trump to the White House. He’s definitely in.

[Marcus Paul]

Not till 2024, though.

[Malcolm Roberts]

No, no, it’ll be this year. You watch.

[Marcus Paul]

This year?

[Malcolm Roberts]

So much corruption going on that the constitution and the laws in America provides for this kind of circumstance. And Trump is in the box seat. He knows what he’s doing.

[Marcus Paul]

You want to bet me a bottle of wine on this? Australian wine

[Malcolm Roberts]

I definitely do.

[Marcus Paul]

All right. Now the Australian federal integrity commission, you know, that toothless tiger that’s been suggested, the centre for public integrity called a press conference to highlight the extensive inadequacies of the government’s draught Commonwealth integrity commission bill, 2020.

There were plenty of people present, including previous members of the high court, former judges from the Victorian court of appeal and a former judge of the New South Wales court of appeal. Now, Helen Haines MP has introduced a better version. The Australian federal integrity commission bill 2020. What do you say to this?

[Malcolm Roberts]

We actually like Helen Haines’s version much better. We’ve had a couple of presentations on it. We listened to Helen herself, came over to Pauline’s office and I joined them. It’s quite good. The Australian centre for public integrity endorses it. And the government’s bill is a shocker.

It’s just a lazy well, it doesn’t even work properly because politicians are treated differently from everyone else. They’re treated far too softly. And, that’s, you know, that’s the worst thing you can do to restore public confidence in the integrity in parliament.

The second thing is that the government’s proposal has a very high threshold for referrals. You have to be, have a lot of evidence there before you can even get through. And the third thing is that the Attorney General has powers to limit information that can be considered by the corruption commission.

[Marcus Paul]

Well as I said, it’s toothless.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yes, that’s basically it, they can hide, they can still hide. And the other thing, Marcus, is it’s not retrospective meaning that we won’t be able to investigate any of the past dodgy dealings.

[Marcus Paul]

That’s right. And you know, we may never know why the government thought it was a great idea or a great investment to, you know, overspend on land at Badgerys Creek Airport, and the rest of it. Malcolm, I’ll have to leave it there today, but thank you very much, mate. We’ll catch up with you again next week.

[Malcolm Roberts]

I’ll look forward to drinking your wine.

[Marcus Paul]

He’s still in lala land over there. All right, mate. Good on you, we’ll talk soon.

[Malcolm Roberts]

See you, mate.

[Marcus Paul]

All right, there he is. Senator Malcolm Roberts.

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The governance of our country is appalling

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The governance of our country is appalling. My adjournment speech.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I draw attention to the Australian parliament’s failure to protect the interests of the Australian people. In the Senate yesterday, the Liberals, the Nationals and the Labor Party united in standing beside big banks against the interests of everyday Australians. Together they voted down my bill to prevent bank deposits being bailed in—meaning that when banks get into trouble they can steal depositors’ money.

Their madness is simple: Australia has the world’s safest banks; the only thing that could bring our banks down is a loss of confidence; that’s the very thing my bill was designed to stop. Not once has the Treasurer, the Prime Minister or APRA, the banking regulator, come out and said, ‘We will not bail in your deposits.’ It’s time the Australian people heard those words.

The right to use a banking service without losing our money is just one of many rights that everyday Australians have lost—another is the loss of property rights. Prime Minister John Howard’s government’s response to the UN’s Kyoto Protocol in 1996 was to use the deceitful trick of protecting junk vegetation from destruction. The carbon dioxide that this saved counted to our UN Kyoto targets and it still does.

It enabled his government to bypass its constitutional duty to compensate farmers for stealing their property rights. This is a perfect example of mad climate policies that are about bowing to unelected, unrepresentative foreign UN bureaucrats, rather than showing actual environmental outcomes. The land that John Howard’s capricious actions supposedly protected was not something worthwhile like an old-growth forest or repairing vegetation, no, it was agricultural land that was stolen.

John Howard’s government stole our farmers’ rights to clear junk vegetation that grows on a field not used for a few years. It prevents farmers making productive use of their land. To this day the general public think this ban on land clearing relates to actual forests. This conjures up images of evil farmers chopping down virgin forests and sending koalas of to their deaths.

The reality is this ban stops farmers clearing salt bush and junk vegetation that’s stopping productive agriculture on land that has been farmed many times. The old parties never let the truth stand in the way of virtue signalling. The Liberal-National government with John Howard as Treasurer is largely to blame for banking misconduct. It was John Howard who deregulated banking.

This exposed bank customers to the atrocious behaviour that was found during the Senate inquiry into rural and regional lending that I chaired. Our inquiry led to the banking royal commission finding even more wrongdoing. The Morrison government recently demonstrated another failure in looking after small business. Aussie company CuDeco operated the Rocklands copper mine near Cloncurry in Queensland.

It was driven into insolvency from the actions of the minority Chinese owners. The mine was sold to a local Chinese company who promptly onsold it to a Chinese government entity. China now owns an important Australian copper mine thanks to the ineffective Morrison government. The mine’s workers will never get their missing wages and local contractors are out of pocket $60 million.

The only way we will see CuDeco’s copper again is if we buy that copper inside Chinese manufactured electronics. Chinese corporations continue to cherrypick their way through our resources sector. China is buying mines, real estate, farms and even our water. I do compliment Treasurer Frydenberg though on his recent decision to block the sale of PURA milk to the Chinese, resulting in the Australian company Bega buying PURA.

It’s a welcome break after the Liberal-National and Labor parties selling Australia out for a generation. Since my return to the Senate last year the Liberal, Labor and National parties have been acting together and have voted down One Nation’s motions—many motions—to restore farmers’ water rights.

The 2007 Water Act takes their water rights and forces Aussie farmers, family farmers, off the land. Even now with all the rain this year farmers are on as little as 39 per cent allocation. Who passed the 2007 Water Act? Prime Minister John Howard. Who introduced the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in 2012? Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

The whole point of the Water Act was to remove family farms from the land, then to remove their water rights to new irrigation areas on cheap land belonging to corporate agriculture. Windfall profits all round. Australian farmers and local communities being gutted. The Australian parliament must decide whether it represents the interests of big business or the interests of everyday Australians.

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Questioning the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) over CuDeco

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This round of questioning occurred in the October/November Hearings of Budget Estimates, focusing on large concerns I had brought to my attention over the sale of CuDeco. FIRB provides recommendations to the Government in relation to the risk of certain foreign investments.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing today. My questions are with regard to the sale of assets of the delisted stock exchange minor CuDeco Limited. The receivers have claimed on 12 June 2020 that approval had been recommended by FIRB for this. Would FIRB confirm whether or not it recommended that Copper Resources Australia may purchase CuDeco assets, including its major copper mine, on or shortly before that date of 12 June?

Mr Hamilton: Certainly, we’ve been following media articles in relation to CuDeco, which, as you know, entered voluntary administration in July 2019 and, as you said, was delisted from the ASX in February 2020. As you know, we don’t comment on the specifics of individual cases, but we do understand that ASIC has looked into this matter. Questions about some of the concerns that have been raised in the public around allegations of phoenixing by CuDeco should be directed to ASIC.

Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware that this copper mine is reputedly one of the largest in the world—or the copper reserves, sorry?

Mr Hamilton: Senator, I was not aware of that myself.

Senator ROBERTS: Was FIRB aware that Copper Resources Australia was only incorporated on 20 May 2020?

Mr Hamilton: Senator, again, I’m not aware of these details. But, as I said, we would be limited in what we would wish to talk about in a public forum in relation to these entities.

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll just ask the other questions, because they raise important points, and whatever you can answer, you can answer, and whatever you can’t, tell me. Was FIRB aware that Copper Resources Australia is basically a shell company with no significant assets and lacks the funds to buy the firm, and that it had no mining experience or funds of its own to complete such a purchase?

Ms Kelley: I think that’s the matter that we said ASIC was looking into.

Senator ROBERTS: Was there a recommendation made by FIRB?

Mr Hamilton: Personally I’m not aware of that, but we would not comment on that in any case, as we’ve said.

Senator ROBERTS: Is FIRB aware that a change of beneficial ownership form 484 was submitted on 14 July 2020, shortly after the approval was given, assigning the beneficial ownership to Chinese controlled company Dragon Field International Ltd?

Mr Hamilton: I refer you to my previous answer.

Senator ROBERTS: Was FIRB aware that it has been suggested that collusion of the Chinese directors and their actions brought the company into liquidation through fraudulent conduct intended to make the company fail and make it a cheap buy?

Mr Hamilton: I refer you to my previous answer.

Senator ROBERTS: Is FIRB aware that the bid of $30 million from Copper Resources Australia promises to be paid to only non-Australian creditors when an Australian bid of $60 million—double the price—to purchase was declined by the receiver?

Mr Hamilton: Again I refer you to what I said previously.

Senator ROBERTS: Is FIRB aware that, if this purchase is allowed to proceed, Chinese interests will allegedly acquire more than $100 million of Australian assets for less than $30 million, leaving Australian investors and creditors unpaid, with reportedly the plant valued as scrap metal?

Mr Hamilton: Again I refer you to my previous answer.

Senator ROBERTS: Can you explain how this recommendation—if you made that recommendation—could be in Australia’s best interest?

Ms Kelley: We’ve noted in previous hearings that we’re very happy to discuss these sorts of matters in a private hearing. The legislation has particular constraints on us around sharing protected information, but we have previously discussed particulars of certain matters in private hearings with senators. We’re happy to consider making that offer. There is another committee looking at foreign investment. We’ve appeared before them and we anticipate we will appear before them again.

Senator ROBERTS: Could you tell me when that would be?

Ms Kelley: I’m not sure when the next one is, but I think we are scheduled to appear.

Senator ROBERTS: Can my office get a briefing from you at all? Ms Kelley: We can certainly put that to the Treasurer’s office.

Senator ROBERTS: So you’ll get back to my office?

Ms Kelley: We’ll talk to the Treasurer’s office about that.

Senator ROBERTS: And then get back, thank you.

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Aussie Manufacturing as Bad as Kazakhstan and Lebanon – 2SM with Marcus Paul

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Transcript

[Marcus] Minutes away from eight o’clock Senator Malcolm Roberts joins us on the programme, from One Nation, morning Malcolm, how are you mate?

[Malcolm] Good morning Marcus, I’m very well, how are you?

[Marcus] Yeah really good, look I’ve spoken a lot on the programme this week about our manufacturing sector. Look we need to make our economy capable of recovering from COVID-19, it’s, look it’s a complex issue I understand that but, I mean what do you think we should be doing mate?

[Malcolm] Well, you know it is a sad and scary story actually because it’s now recognised internationally that we’ve lost our economic security. We can’t make make protective equipment, we can’t get our supplies for handling the virus, we don’t make cars anymore, basic manufactured goods, tools, construction and mining equipment.

What we need to do is to harness the power we have in this country with our people and our resources. And to revive manufacturing and agriculture, the government needs to get back to doing its job to serve the people, and to create an environment for investing and making. Instead of just simple relying on digging and shipping

[Marcus] Yeah

[Malcolm] Which we need to continue to do, minerals and energy. We need to reform tax, we need to cut regulations, we need to build infrastructure, and we need to restore skills, particularly apprenticeships and restore the TAFE system.

[Marcus] Well absolutely, and what we do need to do Malcolm, is we need to value add the stuff we take out of the ground, otherwise we’ll fall further and further behind. I mean the latest indicator for manufacturing 2020 the manufacturing self-sufficiency index, ranks Australia almost, in fact, last among developed countries for God’s sake.

We’re ranked 59th, we’re somewhere between Kazakhstan and Lebanon, we’re not adding value to our primary production.

[Malcolm] Yeah you’re absolutely correct, and the reason why is in part because of the things I’ve mentioned, the tax that favours multinational companies, and also, that’s the company tax, and also the ridiculous regulations.

But what we’ve done is we’ve gutted our energy system, we’ve still got the world’s cheapest, high quality coal, very good, clean coal, and what we’re doing is we’re raising our energy prices artificially through these stupid regulations and this climate nonsense, and what we do now is we export our coal to China, and they sell electricity using our coal at eight cents a kilowatt-hour.

What we do here is we sell it at three times that price, our same coal that’s got less distance to travel. What we need to do is build coal fired power stations, end the ridiculous subsidies on intermittent energies, and that’s what they are, wind and solar, are intermittent, unreliable and expensive.

We need to remove these climate policies, we need to build a hybrid Bradfield Scheme in Queensland, because that comes with a hydro power system, and we need to stop the Queensland state Government for example, stealing one and half billion dollars every year, from every energy user, and that’s just basically a tax, they make that as a profit, and they just, it’s really a tax, so that’s crippling our manufacturing and crippling our ability to add.

We’ve now got aluminium smelter’s have shut, near your way down in Kurri Kurri and the Hunter. Looks like it’s under threat at Tomago, also in the Hunter, certainly in Geelong, and possibly now in Boyne Island. So what we’ll do is we’ll dig the bauxite out of the ground and then ship it off to overseas, and we won’t even get the aluminium out of our country, I mean it’s just ridiculous.

[Marcus] Well that’s right, that’s the value added that we’re talking about that we seem to be essentially either pricing ourselves out of, or basically because we’re lazy and we don’t want to look at any other way of perhaps taking advantage of this rich, mineral nation and land that we have here in Australia I mean, look manufacturing, back in the 1980’s, manufacturing was one of our biggest, if not the biggest employer at 17% of the total employment pie.

Now, it’s sadly just sitting down there at 6%, no wonder our economy’s hungry, I mean that’s how much less of the pie it’s getting.

[Malcolm] That’s right, 50 years ago, Marcus, and it’s so pleasing to see you using hard data. 50 years ago manufacturing was 30% of our gross domestic product, now it’s just 6%, and blue collar workers must be shaking their heads in absolute disbelief at what’s going on.

But I reckon every middle class person in this country, all blue collar workers, all small businesses, need to be very, very scared and worried about the Labor Party in particular, because it’s driving

[Marcus] Well hang on yes

[Malcolm] The agenda for renewables.

[Marcus] Well that was my next point, Labor are supposed to be supporting the blue collar worker, what are they doing about it?

[Malcolm] Well you know, Senator Sterle and Gallacher, Sterle, Glenn Sterle’s a wonderful guy and Alex Gallacher from South Australia, Sterle from Western Australia, they’re genuinely trying to stand up for workers like old Labor, and in One Nation, Marcus, we always give credit where credit’s due. But Fitzgibbon now, Joel Fitzgibbon

[Marcus] Yeah?

[Malcolm] A member for the Hunter, has stood up and said “the Green’s have infiltrated Labour.” Hello Joel, we’ve been saying that for decades, and what’s happening now is we’ve got new Labour, which is not like old Labor, and now we’ve got a confirmation of new Labor, because Albanese is rebuking Fitzgibbon,

And confirming that Labor will continue to abandon workers, in selling out to the Green’s, Labor has completely confirmed that it opposes coal mining jobs, opposes manufacturing jobs opposes blue collar jobs. They just want to go off and bend genders and all the rest of it, it’s completely absurd.

[Marcus] All right look, go easy on my mate Joel, I mean he’s the hope for the side. I think with Mr Fitzgibbon I’ve been very adamant, I mean I like Anthony Albanese but, I mean Anthony is simply too nice.

I really believe that, and Joel, perhaps I think he should have higher aspirations considering he speaks better sense than a number of his colleagues on the future of our energy sector and resources and mining and you know, he’s one of those that you’re right, will not be infiltrated by a Green ideology thank God.

That’s why I say that Joel Fitzgibbon is the hope for the side, and as soon as Anthony perhaps, realises this, he maybe needs to get out of the way.

[Malcolm] Well that’s the problem, that’s the problem you’ve identified Marcus, doesn’t matter what Joel thinks, because Anthony Albanese has gutted and cut the legs out from underneath Joel Fitzgibbon and no one stood up to support Joel publicly, no one, and they just let it all slide through.

So, basically what Albanese’s done is undermine the Hunter Valley, undermine all industry and undermine small business in this country, because he’s pushing absurd policies that are driving up energy pricing ridiculously.

[Marcus] Don’t hold back Malcolm okay? Don’t hold back, whatever you do. Tell me about this, a 23 year old university student is suing the government for failing to disclose the risk climate change poses to Australian super and other safe investments in government bonds, what?

[Malcolm] Yeah it’s ridiculous, you know this is just the ABC putting out another story, but unfortunately it’s true, but putting out another story in favour of their climate alarm crusade, but you know what Marcus?

You know where I stand on this, but I actually welcome this woman doing this, this young lady, 23 year old, because we need to bring this issue to court, because in court, they have to give hard evidence, empirical data, under oath. We’ve never had that in this country, and the second thing that she wants, she wants to change the way the government handles climate.

We want them to do exactly that, we want them to start using data, and you know, the third thing, so I actually support her getting into court, but what a ridiculous thing she’s doing because, it shows her entitlement mentality, she wants government to protect people from their own investment decisions, it’s just another stunt, again without the data.

[Marcus] All right and look I know you’re really chomping at the bit to get into this, the New South Wales police commissioner as we know, has fined BLM protestors.

It is pleasing, the law has been enforced, including Mr Patrick, who, the leader of the so-called BLM movement, here in New South Wales, at least, he was, well, I thought he was thrown in the back of a paddy waggon, but he was basically given a green carpet ride into the bowels of Parliament House don’t press, you know, don’t pass –

He certainly bypassed jail he got a thousand dollar fine, but I don’t know, what do we make of this Malcolm?

[Malcolm] Well didn’t he get the help from Green’s MP’s David Shoebridge and Jenny Leong to get into Parliament house?

[Marcus] Well I didn’t see Mr Shoebridge, but definitely Jenny Leong and she was there on the news last night, justifying this, well at least trying to justify it. It even had the New South Wales premier, who’ll join us on the programme soon, I mean, Gladys was even shaking her head, she didn’t quite understand how that could happen.

[Malcolm] But there is a wonderful positive side to this because the New South Wales police commissioner stood up last week and said that he will be enforcing the law and requiring police to enforce the law, and that’s exactly what the police force need to do. You know up here in Queensland, we have a premier Annastacia Palaszczuk who is soft on criminals, and hard on farmers and producers. And you know, she just invites people, and we got 30,000 people turning up to a black lives march protest last month, just crazy.

[Marcus] Yeah well, and then she closes borders, and worries about the importation, if you like, of COVID-19, meanwhile you’re right, that strange lily-livered, I guess mentality of preferring people’s civil liberties and their rights to protest over everybody’s health.

You know that’s, you’re gonna fester in your own nest I think up there, look I don’t know, maybe, I think as far as Queensland’s concerned, there needs to be a much stronger opposition Malcolm, because Annastacia seems to be able to be doing what she wants and she’s completely blocked out Sydney now as we know with the latest news that’s come through and off she goes mate, she’s on a tirade up there.

[Malcolm] Well we haven’t got any strong opposition here in the LNP because Deb Frecklington is really just the previous opposition leader Tim Nicholls with a skirt, you know, and what’s happening is the LNP are pushing similarly absurd policies to energy and climate policies as the Labor party.

And the Nationals are now following our lead, and pretending, we are actually opposing the UN and what it’s doing in this country, the Nationals realising that we’re stealing their votes are now pretending to oppose the UN. But the same people in the National Party are meekly following the LNP which signed the, which the coalition signed the Paris Agreement, which is gutting energy.

John Howard and the Nationals at the time, John Anderson, signed the, sorry committed to, committed our country to complying with the Kyoto Protocol, the UN’s Kyoto Protocol and that’s decimated farming

[Marcus] We’ve all been sold a dud, we’ve all been sold a dud on this climate change, we know that. Malcolm good to have you on the programme, let’s talk again next week thank you.

[Malcolm] Look forward to it, thanks Marcus

[Marcus] All right there he is Senator Malcolm Roberts

/by

Black Lives Matter with Marcus Paul on 2SM

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Transcript

[Marcus] Look, as you know this program is a PC and snowflake free zone. If you don’t believe in free speech well, feel free to tune out now. Senator Malcolm Roberts joins me on the program. Good morning, Malcolm how are you?

[Malcolm] I’m well thanks Marcus, how are you?

[Marcus] I’m okay. Look I know that you’ve been a little unwell of late and I’m glad that we could finally get you on to have a chat, ’cause there’s a lotta things to mull over. You’re well though?

[Malcolm] Yes, I’m very well thank you, very, very well.

[Marcus] Good, okay. There is a reason why the U.S. Black Lives Matter use the clenched fist. Their leaders openly admit they are Marxists, and they promote anti-capitalism, dismantling the nuclear family, defunding police. I mean this is almost like communism, hiding in plain sight, is it not?

[Malcolm] What do you mean almost like? It is, it is Marcus. And you know they don’t go off data, they go off ideology. Because they run off the same thing that people are doing here in Australia. What they do is they fabricate a problem. It contradicts the data, which I’m happy to go into if we have the time. They fabricate a problem, then they concoct a victim, and then they conjure an oppressor, and then they pretend a solution. And then what they do is they disarm minds, by invoking PC, so people are afraid to speak up. And they are afraid to think. And so many, many people disagree with what these Marxist mobs are doing in America. Trump has rightly called them out as Marxist, and wanting to destroy the country. What they then do is they anoint and align other beneficiaries to get them onboard and then they kill debate, stop discussion, it’s intimidation, and then what they do is they use gutless politicians to fabricate systems that put in place their policies. And their policies are Marxist, they’re communist policies. And all they’re interested in Marcus is control. They’re interested in control and nothing else.

[Marcus] And they do it as we know, through things like riots, protests, acts of vandalism, not only in the United States, but I mean gosh, this thing has been infected, well it’s infected Australia sadly. And we know that they’ve targeted a number of our cultural assets, including statues of Captain James Cook and the like. I mean yet many Australians still don’t realise that behind this tricky name BLM it’s ridiculous. It’s almost like they’re tryin’ to pull the wool over our eyes. I’m lucky, and we are lucky in our community that we have people like yourself and Pauline Hanson and others, that notice that this is going on and call it out for what it is.

[Malcolm] Well you’re absolutely correct. And I wanna compliment you Marcus because I saw a comment on your Facebook page, a quote attributed to you and you said, “I don’t want to tell you what to think, I just want to help you think.” So let’s get to the data. I’ve a strong belief in data, because the facts are the facts. So, I moved a motion in the Senate, about the Institute of Criminology, the Australian Institute of Criminology, the 2020 report into deaths in custody in Australia. Notice I said deaths in custody. I didn’t say black, white, indigenous, non-indigenous. Deaths in custody. Here are the facts. The 2017, ’18 rate of death in prison custody for indigenous people was 0.14 per 100 prisoners. And for non-indigenous persons was 0.18 per 100, slightly higher. Now because of the small sample size, you know we don’t have millions of deaths in custody, you can’t say that there’s a difference there. But you certainly can say that the non-indigenous is not lower than the indigenous. The indigenous are not higher. So that’s very, very clear.

[Marcus] Yes.

[Malcolm] There’s no difference. You want me to give you some more figures?

[Marcus] Well, just before you do, it’s important to outline these figures, because you can’t argue with facts. I mean you could try as hard as you can, but at the end of day, you won’t win an argument unless you produce relevant facts like you’ve just done, like Jacinta Price has done on this programme before, and of course like Pauline Hanson’s done. Look, I think what happens, and you’re right, you mentioned gutless politicians. Strong words, but it cuts to the core of really what the problem is. Why is it that here in this country, we only have people like yourself, or Pauline, or Jacinta Price, a few other commentators, who are happy to call it out for what it is and happy to speak their mind, and happy to stand up for free speech, and yet I guess some of the mainstream media, we saw what happened with Pauline last week on Nine Network. Maybe some of what she said was unpalatable Malcolm, but it was the truth.

[Malcolm] Correct.

[Marcus] A lotta the people that were holed up in these apartment complexes don’t speak English. Some of them do have drug addictions. And some of them haven’t been practising social distancing and you can’t argue with the facts. That’s why Daniel Andrews, he said the same thing, the health officer down there in Victoria, said virtually the same thing, But when somebody like a Pauline Hanson, or yourself, or Jacinta Price says it, you’re dragged over the coals for it. What happened to free speech Malcolm?

[Malcolm] Well it’s really simple, when people try to control, which is what the media does, and the media are doing when they’re telling lies, or when they’re misrepresenting things, always beneath control Marcus, there is fear. They’re afraid of facts. Now, you know those facts I just quoted to you, I tried to move a motion in the Senate, just simply to announce those facts. And the facts came from a 2020 Australian Institute of Criminology report into deaths in custody. The publisher of that report is the Australian government. Now this’ll shock you. And probably won’t shock, maybe not shock you because you’re aware of what the real problem is, gutless politicians. But I was stopped from that motion. I was not allowed to put forward the motion that would simply table the data, that’s all it did. All I wanted to do, I didn’t wanna say who was right or wrong, I just wanted to put the data out. The government and the Labor Party colluded to stop me putting out the data. And that’s the problem, we’ve got gutless politicians who are afraid of data, and what they do is they use their own emotions, their own biases to sway people. And people are sick of this because, I’ll make it very clear, I represent the people of Queensland and Australia. Every speech in the Senate I start with the words, “I am a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia.” I listen, I speak up, I push, and I pursue to support the people. I serve the people. That’s what’s wrong in this country. We have politicians thinking the people serves the government, the people serve the politicians. That is complete rubbish. And that is the fundamental error in this country now. We have got government controlling things instead of government serving things. Governments shouldn’t be fixing the economy. Governments should create an environment in which small businesses, large businesses, employees, individuals, can contribute. That’s how we were in the 1900s, right through the 1920s when Australia had the number one, highest position for gross domestic product per person. Highest per capita income in the world. And we have slowly decreased that until we’ve become a shell of ourselves early this year. And then we slammed that in the COVID response. We need to get back, not just to where we were in February, we need to get back to where we were in 1920s, in terms of being the leaders in the world for per capita income. Australians are capable of doing that. All we need to do is fix the damn systems that the governments have put in place over the last 80 years.

[Marcus] Why do the governments in this country kow tow to Beijing, China? And why is it that our economy isn’t set up to be more self-sufficient Malcolm?

[Malcolm] Well it’s really simple, We have number of things, I haven’t got time to go into all one at the moment, but I’m happy to do that one day in the future if you want. But we had a number of changes that have been put in place, under the global approach the elites are pushing, since the formation of the UN. I can rattle them off, there are many. If you just look at some of them. The Lima Declaration in 1975, that was signed by Garth Whitman’s Labour government. The following year his arch enemy Malcolm Fraser, the Liberal prime minister, ratified the damn thing. That destroyed our manufacturing markets. In 1992, we had the UN’s Rio Declaration, for 21st global governments. It was masqueraded supposedly under UNIDO, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation. Sorry that was Lima Declaration. But the Rio Declaration put in place an agenda to push climate change, which will get control, which is getting control of our energy which is fundamental, our water, which is fundamental, our property rights, which is fundamental. And that was signed by Paul Keating’s Labour government. In 1996, John Howard’s government said, we won’t ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but we will comply with it. And that stole our productive capacity, in that it took our property rights off our farmers. That’s what happened, and now we’ve got basically nationalised farming that is controlled by regulations over their imports, and sometimes the way they do their very farming. We have nationalised farming now. Then we have the Paris Agreement in 2015. And a lot of international trade agreements and other agreements that have destroyed our productive capacity, destroyed our governments, destroyed our sovereignty. We don’t control our country any more, foreigners do. They control some aspects of our immigration. This is why Liberal and Labour are pushing policies that are helping foreigners, and foreign entities, unelected bureaucrats, and we are opposing them. We need to get our country’s control back in the hands of Australians.

[Marcus] What will it take? The passion that you’ve garnered, I can hear it quite clearly, you and Pauline and others, who fight for the sovereignty of Australia. How do we generate more passion within the community? I know that obviously the One Nation Party, yourself and others, do have a strong following. But how do we make this go? I mean it should be mainstream. This thought pattern that you’ve so eloquently described for us the last couple of minutes, this thought pattern should be prevalent. It should be first of mind, top of mind for all Australians. How do we overcome the barriers, the obstacles, to get this front of mind for hard-working Australians, who basically just want their country back, wanna be able to go to work, want to see the hard work they’re doing pay dividends, be able to afford to buy their own property, to pay fair prices for things like fuel and energy costs, electricity, and utilities, and also, also more importantly, to be able to look back on the history of our country with pride and feel respect for our flag without being made so bloody guilty, or to feel so bloody guilty, the fact that we may be white and we may be Australian for God’s sake?

[Malcolm] Well I love your passion too. Have a look at these basic facts. Pauline Hanson came outta the Liberal Party. And Mark Latham came outta the Labor Party. Half of our voters are former disgruntled Labor voters. Half of our voters are former disgruntled LNP voters. And our votes are going up, every election we have a higher vote for One Nation. And what we need to do is to keep speaking the facts Marcus, keep using the data. Put more pressure on the Liberal, Labour duopoly, because fundamentally the bureaucrats run this country and they’re pushing policies that unelected bureaucrats from the UN pushed. Now Scott Morrison came out and said something in October last year, October the 3rd in Sydney at the Lowy Institute, he said, he will have a review into the unaccountable, internationalist bureaucrats. And we all knew that he was talking about the UN. But I also knew that he would not do anything about it. He was saying those words because he knew that we are resonating with the people over the UN destruction of this country. We also know that I came out first and called the Coronavirus what it really is. The Chinese Communist Party UN virus. The UN’s World Health Organisation colluded with the Chinese Communist Party to suppress the news of this virus, which enabled it to get a gallop around the world. Now Scott Morrison, after I did that, and after we continued to bash Chinese Communist Party, Scott Morrison came out and talked about the communist party and started to hold them accountable with words. But, he turned around and said we need to give the World Health Organisation, a UN body, more power, the power of weapons inspectors. They say one thing and they do another. That’s why he’s got the tag now Scotty from Marketing. We’ve got to get away from people who are marketing people, they build facades and then sell them and get back to the basics of serving the country. And that means we need to speak about the facts and use the data.

[Marcus] And less spin. Malcolm it’s been great talking to you this morning. Let’s do this more often please.

[Malcolm] I’d love to mate, love to.

[Marcus] Okay, we’ll talk soon, thank you.

[Malcolm] Thanks Marcus.

[Marcus] There he is, Senator Malcolm Roberts. What do you make of it, give me a call

/by

Interview: 2SM with Marcus Paul

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This morning I was interviewed by Marcus Paul on 2SM and discussed:

  • The US BLM movement and their openly Marxist agenda.
  • The war on free speech.
  • Why isn’t our economy self sufficient?
  • What will it take to restore our sovereignty?

Transcript

[Marcus]

Look, as you know this programme is a PC and snowflake free zone. If you don’t believe in free speech well, feel free to tune out now. Senator Malcolm Roberts joins me on the programme. Good morning, Malcolm how are you?

[Malcolm]

I’m well thanks Marcus, how are you?

[Marcus]

I’m okay. Look I know that you’ve been a little unwell of late and I’m glad that we could finally get you on to have a chat, ’cause there’s a lotta things to mull over. You’re well though?

[Malcolm]

Yes, I’m very well thank you, very, very well.

[Marcus]

Good, okay. There is a reason why the U.S. Black Lives Matter use the clenched fist. Their leaders openly admit they are Marxists, and they promote anti-capitalism, dismantling the nuclear family, defunding police. I mean this is almost like communism, hiding in plain sight, is it not?

[Malcolm]

What do you mean almost like? It is, it is Marcus. And you know they don’t go off data, they go off ideology. Because they run off the same thing that people are doing here in Australia. What they do is they fabricate a problem. It contradicts the data, which I’m happy to go into if we have the time.

They fabricate a problem, then they concoct a victim, and then they conjure an oppressor, and then they pretend a solution. And then what they do is they disarm minds, by invoking PC, so people are afraid to speak up. And they are afraid to think.

And so many, many people disagree with what these Marxist mobs are doing in America. Trump has rightly called them out as Marxist, and wanting to destroy the country. What they then do is they anoint and align other beneficiaries to get them onboard and then they kill debate, stop discussion, it’s intimidation, and then what they do is they use gutless politicians to fabricate systems that put in place their policies.

And their policies are Marxist, they’re communist policies. And all they’re interested in Marcus is control. They’re interested in control and nothing else.

[Marcus]

And they do it as we know, through things like riots, protests, acts of vandalism, not only in the United States, but I mean gosh, this thing has been infected, well it’s infected Australia sadly. And we know that they’ve targeted a number of our cultural assets, including statues of Captain James Cook and the like.

I mean yet many Australians still don’t realise that behind this tricky name BLM it’s ridiculous. It’s almost like they’re tryin’ to pull the wool over our eyes. I’m lucky, and we are lucky in our community that we have people like yourself and Pauline Hanson and others, that notice that this is going on and call it out for what it is.

[Malcolm]

Well you’re absolutely correct. And I wanna compliment you Marcus because I saw a comment on your Facebook page, a quote attributed to you and you said, “I don’t want to tell you what to think, I just want to help you think.” So let’s get to the data. I’ve a strong belief in data, because the facts are the facts.

So, I moved a motion in the Senate, about the Institute of Criminology, the Australian Institute of Criminology, the 2020 report into deaths in custody in Australia. Notice I said deaths in custody. I didn’t say black, white, indigenous, non-indigenous. Deaths in custody. Here are the facts.

The 2017, ’18 rate of death in prison custody for indigenous people was 0.14 per 100 prisoners. And for non-indigenous persons was 0.18 per 100, slightly higher. Now because of the small sample size, you know we don’t have millions of deaths in custody, you can’t say that there’s a difference there.

But you certainly can say that the non-indigenous is not lower than the indigenous. The indigenous are not higher. So that’s very, very clear.

[Marcus]

Yes.

[Malcolm]

There’s no difference. You want me to give you some more figures?

[Marcus]

Well, just before you do, it’s important to outline these figures, because you can’t argue with facts. I mean you could try as hard as you can, but at the end of day, you won’t win an argument unless you produce relevant facts like you’ve just done, like Jacinta Price has done on this programme before, and of course like Pauline Hanson’s done.

Look, I think what happens, and you’re right, you mentioned gutless politicians. Strong words, but it cuts to the core of really what the problem is.

Why is it that here in this country, we only have people like yourself, or Pauline, or Jacinta Price, a few other commentators, who are happy to call it out for what it is and happy to speak their mind, and happy to stand up for free speech, and yet I guess some of the mainstream media, we saw what happened with Pauline last week on Nine Network. Maybe some of what she said was unpalatable Malcolm, but it was the truth.

[Malcolm]

Correct.

[Marcus]

A lotta the people that were holed up in these apartment complexes don’t speak English. Some of them do have drug addictions. And some of them haven’t been practising social distancing and you can’t argue with the facts.

That’s why Daniel Andrews, he said the same thing, the health officer down there in Victoria, said virtually the same thing, But when somebody like a Pauline Hanson, or yourself, or Jacinta Price says it, you’re dragged over the coals for it. What happened to free speech Malcolm?

[Malcolm]

Well it’s really simple, when people try to control, which is what the media does, and the media are doing when they’re telling lies, or when they’re misrepresenting things, always beneath control Marcus, there is fear. They’re afraid of facts.

Now, you know those facts I just quoted to you, I tried to move a motion in the Senate, just simply to announce those facts. And the facts came from a 2020 Australian Institute of Criminology report into deaths in custody. The publisher of that report is the Australian government.

Now this’ll shock you. And probably won’t shock, maybe not shock you because you’re aware of what the real problem is, gutless politicians. But I was stopped from that motion. I was not allowed to put forward the motion that would simply table the data, that’s all it did.

All I wanted to do, I didn’t wanna say who was right or wrong, I just wanted to put the data out. The government and the Labour Party colluded to stop me putting out the data. And that’s the problem, we’ve got gutless politicians who are afraid of data, and what they do is they use their own emotions, their own biases to sway people.

And people are sick of this because, I’ll make it very clear, I represent the people of Queensland and Australia. Every speech in the Senate I start with the words, “I am a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia.” I listen, I speak up, I push, and I pursue to support the people.

I serve the people. That’s what’s wrong in this country. We have politicians thinking the people serves the government, the people serve the politicians. That is complete rubbish. And that is the fundamental error in this country now.

We have got government controlling things instead of government serving things. Governments shouldn’t be fixing the economy. Governments should create an environment in which small businesses, large businesses, employees, individuals, can contribute.

That’s how we were in the 1900s, right through the 1920s when Australia had the number one, highest position for gross domestic product per person. Highest per capita income in the world. And we have slowly decreased that until we’ve become a shell of ourselves early this year.

And then we slammed that in the COVID response. We need to get back, not just to where we were in February, we need to get back to where we were in 1920s, in terms of being the leaders in the world for per capita income. Australians are capable of doing that.

All we need to do is fix the damn systems that the governments have put in place over the last 80 years.

[Marcus]

Why do the governments in this country kow tow to Beijing, China? And why is it that our economy isn’t set up to be more self-sufficient Malcolm?

[Malcolm]

Well it’s really simple, We have number of things, I haven’t got time to go into all one at the moment, but I’m happy to do that one day in the future if you want. But we had a number of changes that have been put in place, under the global approach the elites are pushing, since the formation of the UN.

I can rattle them off, there are many. If you just look at some of them. The Lima Declaration in 1975, that was signed by Garth Whitman’s Labour government. The following year his arch enemy Malcolm Fraser, the Liberal prime minister, ratified the damn thing. That destroyed our manufacturing markets.

In 1992, we had the UN’s Rio Declaration, for 21st global governments. It was masqueraded supposedly under UNIDO, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation. Sorry that was Lima Declaration.

But the Rio Declaration put in place an agenda to push climate change, which will get control, which is getting control of our energy which is fundamental, our water, which is fundamental, our property rights, which is fundamental. And that was signed by Paul Keating’s Labour government.

In 1996, John Howard’s government said, we won’t ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but we will comply with it. And that stole our productive capacity, in that it took our property rights off our farmers. That’s what happened, and now we’ve got basically nationalised farming that is controlled by regulations over their imports, and sometimes the way they do their very farming.

We have nationalised farming now. Then we have the Paris Agreement in 2015. And a lot of international trade agreements and other agreements that have destroyed our productive capacity, destroyed our governments, destroyed our sovereignty.

We don’t control our country any more, foreigners do. They control some aspects of our immigration. This is why Liberal and Labour are pushing policies that are helping foreigners, and foreign entities, unelected bureaucrats, and we are opposing them. We need to get our country’s control back in the hands of Australians.

[Marcus]

What will it take? The passion that you’ve garnered, I can hear it quite clearly, you and Pauline and others, who fight for the sovereignty of Australia. How do we generate more passion within the community? I know that obviously the One Nation Party, yourself and others, do have a strong following.

But how do we make this go? I mean it should be mainstream. This thought pattern that you’ve so eloquently described for us the last couple of minutes, this thought pattern should be prevalent. It should be first of mind, top of mind for all Australians.

How do we overcome the barriers, the obstacles, to get this front of mind for hard-working Australians, who basically just want their country back, wanna be able to go to work, want to see the hard work they’re doing pay dividends, be able to afford to buy their own property, to pay fair prices for things like fuel and energy costs, electricity, and utilities, and also, also more importantly, to be able to look back on the history of our country with pride and feel respect for our flag without being made so bloody guilty, or to feel so bloody guilty, the fact that we may be white and we may be Australian for God’s sake?

[Malcolm]

Well I love your passion too. Have a look at these basic facts. Pauline Hanson came outta the Liberal Party. And Mark Latham came outta the Labour Party. Half of our voters are former disgruntled Labour voters. Half of our voters are former disgruntled LNP voters.

And our votes are going up, every election we have a higher vote for One Nation. And what we need to do is to keep speaking the facts Marcus, keep using the data. Put more pressure on the Liberal, Labour duopoly, because fundamentally the bureaucrats run this country and they’re pushing policies that unelected bureaucrats from the UN pushed.

Now Scott Morrison came out and said something in October last year, October the 3rd in Sydney at the Lowy Institute, he said, he will have a review into the unaccountable, internationalist bureaucrats. And we all knew that he was talking about the UN.

But I also knew that he would not do anything about it. He was saying those words because he knew that we are resonating with the people over the UN destruction of this country. We also know that I came out first and called the Coronavirus what it really is.

The Chinese Communist Party UN virus. The UN’s World Health Organisation colluded with the Chinese Communist Party to suppress the news of this virus, which enabled it to get a gallop around the world.

Now Scott Morrison, after I did that, and after we continued to bash Chinese Communist Party, Scott Morrison came out and talked about the communist party and started to hold them accountable with words.

But, he turned around and said we need to give the World Health Organisation, a UN body, more power, the power of weapons inspectors. They say one thing and they do another. That’s why he’s got the tag now Scotty from Marketing.

We’ve got to get away from people who are marketing people, they build facades and then sell them and get back to the basics of serving the country. And that means we need to speak about the facts and use the data.

[Marcus]

And less spin. Malcolm it’s been great talking to you this morning. Let’s do this more often please.

[Malcolm]

I’d love to mate, love to.

[Marcus]

Okay, we’ll talk soon, thank you.

[Malcolm]

Thanks Marcus.

[Marcus]

There he is, Senator Malcolm Roberts. What do you make of it, give me a call after seven, “Marcus Paul In the Morning.”

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Questions to Government: COVID19 Response

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In the Senate, I asked Senator Cormann three questions on the governments COVID19 response.

Transcript

[President]

Senator Roberts

[Roberts]

Thank you, Mr. President. My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. Southeast Asian nations like Taiwan quickly learned with regard to COVID that they just had to isolate the sick and the vulnerable.

And that allowed healthy and productive people in businesses to keep working and earning money. The result is that their economy in Taiwan and other Southeast Asian nations remained healthy, and they had far fewer deaths than Australia.

Minister, was there any consideration given in April to changing Australia’s COVID strategy when Taiwan and other Southeast Asian nations had already proved that their strategy worked and was far superior to your government’s strategy?

[President]

The Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann.

[Cormann]

Thank you very much, Mister President. When the crisis hit, there’s no question that we considered a whole range of alternative options on how best to respond to it, but in making decisions and in making judgements we were guided by the advice of relevant experts and in relation to how best to deal with the health threat,

We were guided principally by the advice of the Australian Health Principals Protection Committee, the chief medical and chief health officers from around Australia and the Commonwealth, and I think it’s fair to say for a range of reasons,

But the early decision to impose border restrictions in terms of non-residents who had spent any time of the previous 14 days in mainland China, not being able to come to Australia, and imposing quarantine requirements on Australians and permanent residents having spent time of the previous 14 days in mainland China, has demonstrably helped delay the spread of the virus,

Giving us time to prepare both in terms of the hospital capacity to deal with the potential inflow of patients, but also to prepare the risk management processes that would best equip us to save lives by suppressing, slowing down and suppressing the spread of the virus and helping to put, of course, the economic support measures in place.

While every single death is tragic and it’s one more than you would like to see, but again, I mean, comparatively speaking, comparatively speaking, the number of deaths in Australia is very low internationally. The number of infections is very low.

The number of community transmission is extremely low right now, and we believe that by and large, our strategy has worked. Now, I mean, this is not a perfect environment, you were presented with, we were presented with a rapidly evolving crisis situation.

We made the best possible judgments in the circumstances, guided by the expert advice. On balance, I believe

[President]

Order, Senator Cormann

[Cormann]

that we’ve made good decisions as a country.

[President]

Senator Roberts, supplementing question.

[Roberts]

Thank you, Mr. President. I acknowledge Senator Cormann’s statement, but he fails to acknowledge that the economy has been devastated as a result of the government’s strategy when other economies have not been devastated.

Minister, hasn’t your government’s COVID strategy put the Australian economy and many Australian small businesses and jobs at unnecessary risk and left us with a debt we had to have?

[President]

Senator Cormann.

[Cormann]

Thank you very much, Mr. President. It is certainly true that we were forced to impose significant sacrifices on many Australians. The restrictions that we had to put in place as a country on the economy in order to save lives by slowing down and suppressing the spread of the virus has imposed, of course, significant burdens on many businesses and on many working Australians.

That’s why we put in place the economic support package that we have, in order to provide, to keep as many businesses in business through the transition as possible, to keep as many working Australians connected to their employer during this transition as possible and to provide enhanced support to those Australians who, through no fault of their own, lost their job because of the Coronavirus crisis.

Now, you know, you can argue whether one decision or the other decision could have been made differently, but if you look at the outcomes, if you look at the actual outcomes, both on the health front and on an economic front, I think that Australia’s in a very good position, comparatively speaking

[President]

Order, Senator Cormann.

[Cormann]

to other countries around the world.

[President]

Senator Roberts, a final supplemental question.

[Roberts]

Thank you, Mr. President. Minister, everyday Australians want to know how the Prime Minister will ensure that if businesses do close or go into liquidation, that receivers and administrators will ensure that Australian jobs are preserved and that affected businesses can only be sold to Australians first and not be cheaply flogged off to foreigners.

[President]

Senator Cormann.

[Cormann]

Thank you very much, Mr. President. In relation to foreign investments, you’d be aware that the Treasurer’s put in place some temporary measures to ensure that Australian businesses dealing with the consequences and the impact of the Coronavirus crisis are protected as appropriate in the context of any attempt at foreign takeover.

But, you know, in a broader sense, in a broader sense, when we’re of course focused on doing everything we can to maximise the strength of the economic recovery on the other side, and then we also said that on the other side, in order to maximise the strength of the economic recovery we will need to rely on foreign investment into the future, to maximise our economic growth opportunity to the future.

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Lib/Lab refuse to investigate relationship with China

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Lib/Labs refuse to investigate our relationship with China – AGAIN. I would like to congratulate Liberal Concetta Fierravanti-Wells who crossed the floor to support the motion.

Transcript

[President]

Senator Roberts.

[Roberts]

Thank you, Mr. Acting Deputy President. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I would like to say that One Nation is very supportive of the motion that Australia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China, be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee for inquiry and preparation of a report.

We wish to commend Senator Rex Patrick, for his seventh attempt to have this or a similar motion, sixth, I’m corrected, to have this motion progress. Mr. Acting Deputy President, Senator Patrick, I can only guess must feel like he’s on the set of Groundhog Day.

And on each of those occasions, Liberal and Labour Parties have joined to defeat all five of his previous attempts. I wonder because, if it’s because Liberal Andrew Robb, when he retired received an $880,000 salary after selling a lease to the Port of Darwin or after Sam Dastyari’s bills were paid by the Chinese or after Liberal Gladys Liu’s contradictions of fact about her associations with China that were never resolved or about Labor’s ICAC revelations in New South Wales.

We keep seeing Liberal and Labor come together to defeat even looking at this very vital, important relationship. It is imperative that Australia and China maintain a mutually respectful and beneficial bilateral relationship.

China is Australia’s largest two-way trading partner in exports and imports representing 24% of total trade with a value of $183 billion. That alone shows significant influence on Australia. Australia is China’s sixth largest trading partner and fifth biggest supplier of imports.

25% of Australia’s manufactured imports come from China. Thermal coal represents 13% of all Australian exports to China, and recently they tried to blackmail us about that. In more recent times, China has embarked on the One Belt One Road Initiative.

This is the Chinese government economic and strategic agenda where Eurasia, Africa and Oceania are more closely tied along two routes, one land, and one maritime. It is intended to facilitate Chinese economic and strategic domination of smaller countries along the routes, indeed Chinese control.

For Australia, we see the growing Chinese involvement in projects from Northern Australia, right through to Tassie, all providing little benefit to Australia, yet substantial benefits to China. We need to understand this relationship. We don’t just let them have an open door.

Other examples of Chinese involvement have been in the funding and support of local academic conferences and seminars. The negative aspects of the Confucius Institute are only just being realised as some universities remove them from their offerings.

Australia has been a destination of choice for many Chinese students to further their education in an Australian academic institution. It’s important to our economy. In 2018, there were more than 166,000 enrollments of Chinese students in Australia representing 43.3% of the total international student cohort heading for half.

A concern noted in some Australian universities is the potential dependence generated by full-fee paying international students on the overall money pool available to university budgets. Should those numbers suddenly diminish, it may leave some of our universities destitute and many university staff unpaid.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, these concerns have come to fruition and Australian universities are bleeding financially. To make matters worse, the Chinese government has just warned Chinese students not to study or return to study in Australia suggesting they would face discriminatory attacks.

Australia has been a favourite destination for Chinese tourists and this is shown again by recent numbers. More than 1.3 million Chinese tourists visited Australia last year, representing 15% of our total visitors. One seventh, this is a clear positive for Australia.

At the same time, there has been a growing boom of Australian tourists around 700,000 heading for China. This may also change rapidly as the Chinese government has recently warned off Chinese tourists from visiting our country through recent directives to their people.

One of the ongoing issues of concern relates to regional and global security. The growing tensions between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China in terms of imposition of trade tariffs is placing Australia in a challenging position, given the importance of Australia’s relationships with both countries.

More recently, the Chinese government has imposed an 80% tariff on Australian barley without explanation, and refused to accept meat from four of Australia’s major meat abattoirs, again, causing concern to Australian producers.

These actions by the Chinese government appear to be in retaliation for being called on by Australia to allow an independent investigation into the cause of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan China, what I’ve referred to as the Chinese Communist Party and the UN virus.

How dare we want an independent investigation? The Chinese still denying being the source of the outbreak of the worldwide pandemic remain uncooperative in dealing with this just as Liberal and Labour remain uncooperative in dealing with any, any inquisition or any inquiry into our relationship with China.

The Chinese actions and or inactions likely indeed certainly made the pandemic far worse than it could’ve been. And their behaviour in China is responsible for the loss of tens of thousands of lives. Indeed, hundreds of thousands of lives.

The views taken of China’s growing military influence in the South China Sea remain of concern to our most important ally, United States of America and therefore, necessarily of concern to our country as an established ally of the US.

Regionally, China is having a growing influence by funding infrastructure projects for some of the Pacific Island countries, and our and very near neighbour, Papua and New Guinea, just over the horizon from Australia. This runs the risk of changing the whole dynamic between Australia and our near neighbours.

Given the potential for military and strategic use of these bases by China and the potential for resource extraction at some future time, there is need to consider this factor when examining our relationship with China.

We already feel this is at home with the outrageous decision to lease the Port of Darwin a strategic Northern gateway to China for 99 years. This is the home of our local naval presence. What on earth was the government thinking?

I point to Dutton, Mr. Dutton, Mr. Hastie, Senator Kitching who have raised valid concerns, both Liberal and Labor MPs and senators just as Senator Patrick mentioned.

Indeed it was reported, Mr. Dutton was reportedly stated as in 12th of October, 2019, one of the Morrison Government’s most senior figures has taken a direct swipe at Beijing accusing the Chinese Communist Party of behaving in ways that are inconsistent with Australian values.

The key points emerged, Mr. Dutton said that federal government would call out state actors if it was in the national interest. Well, let’s see an inquiry, Mr. Dutton said he wanted universities to be free from foreign interference. So let’s see an inquiry into that foreign interference that he acknowledges.

The Home Affairs minister, a very powerful minister, senior minister also criticised China’s Belt and Road Initiative and defended the ban on using Huawei to help build Australia’s 5G network. So it goes on to say in a newspaper article, “Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton warned Australia “would call out” quote “foreign and interference “in universities, as well as cyber hacks “and theft of intellectual property, “insisting it was the right thing to do.

“It represents,” the newspaper said, “some of the strongest language “yet from a federal government minister “on threat posed to China.” But we need more than language, we need more than inferences, we need an inquiry into the relationship.

The Chinese Communist Party behaves in ways that are inconsistent with Australian values and Western civilization. Recently in Queensland, my home state, a university student was suspended for daring to make pro-democracy statements about the suppression of students and demonstrators in Hong Kong by the Chinese government.

The University of Queensland appears now to be an agent of the Chinese government, which seems to have bought out an Australian university and is enabled by the university to oppress an Australian student for standing up for democracy.

And when I get to the point of quoting Clive Hamilton, then we know things are serious because Clive Hamilton to his credit has written a book calling out the issues that we have with China, raising serious threats and concerns to our country and our country’s security.

My issue, I must make clear is not with the marvellous Chinese people, including the amazing Chinese community we have here in Australia. We have the Chinese influence from North Queensland through the gold rushes in the 19th century, right through to the Southern parts and Western parts of our country.

And they made a marvellous contribution. My issue is with the Chinese Communist Party. The Communist Party of China and the policies that are inconsistent with our own values. And they have undue influence in Australian politics, values communities, and way of life.

Human rights is an area where China and Australia have vastly different views. Australia is the democracy and a signatory to many international agreements that preserve basic human rights. China is a Republic following a communist regime that is very rigid.

It is a controlling machine with little room to question the state and having limited rights for the individual. Watch the demonstrations for freedom happening in Hong Kong to see how that goes down? Many Australians remember the appalling and tragic events at Tiananmen Square where many people’s lives were sacrificed in the name of democracy.

A prime minister cried over that. And understandably so yet we can’t even have an inquiry into that relationship with China. Tiananmen Square was not merely an incident as recently reported in the media. It was one of the earliest signs in the West of this serial breaching of human rights and suppression of their own people in China.

The detention of those whose views differ from the regimes is a continuing disgrace and worthy of further review. The government and Labor have sold out Australia’s inheritance. No wonder they don’t want us to have a review of this catastrophic relationship, potentially catastrophic relationship.

Will the Liberal Party and the Labor Party will a Lib-Lab duopoly look beyond their Chinese donations to their parties and do the right thing by our country? These actions by China would appear to threaten the relationship of mutual respect between the two countries and are worthy of inquiry.

Actions of Lib-Lab MPs in governments handing control of essential services like electricity for goodness sake, our ports, our food producers to the Chinese Communist Party is insane. Why are we doing it? And why aren’t we bothering to look into it?

These deals threaten our honesty, fairness, and humanity, and our national security. One Nation supports the call for such an inquiry into a nation exerting powerful influences over our nation with potentially far more powerful influences on our nation’s future and on our people’s security. Thank you, Mr. Acting Deputy President.

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Senator Roberts calls to suspend University of Queensland funding

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Senator Roberts has called on the Government to suspend funding to the University of Queensland if it continues to be an agent for the Chinese Communist Party.

Senator Roberts stated, “The recent expulsion of a fourth-year philosophy student, based on his outspoken views against China, has exposed the influence of a communist dictatorship on an Australian university.” 

“This is another example of the recent worrying trend at Australian universities that is curtailing free speech and promoting left-wing ideology,” Senator Roberts said.

The University of Queensland is estimated to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and hired top tier legal and consulting firms in pursuit against the outspoken student.  The vast majority of the 186-page dossier of allegations by the University against the student has been labelled absurdly trivial and borderline hysterical.

“This is a classical David versus Goliath scenario and the University of Queensland, hiding behind the purse strings of the Chinese Communist Party, has smashed our Australian value of free speech.”

The University of Queensland received $989 million in government funding in 2018 and today receives between 20-30% of its income from Chinese students. 

Senator Roberts added, “UQ needs to remember where the bulk of their funding comes from and they need to assure the Australian taxpayer that they are an Australian university, and not an overseas agent of the Communist Party.”

“This is Australia; we are a free and democratic nation, and we will not be bullied in our own country nor in our universities by the Chinese Communist Party.”

200601_Calls-to-suspend-UQ-funding

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