I joined Andrew Gray on his Podcast – Healthy Leadership Mentor where we discuss many topics including the many ways the Australian people are being deceived.
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I support referring the native title system to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee because it’s hurting mainland Aboriginals. The current system is racist and is locking up land, preventing Aboriginals, especially in remote areas, from benefiting. Since the Native Title Act of 1993, 54% of Australia’s land has come under determinations of the Native Title Tribunal, yet Native Title offers no practical benefits to Aboriginal people. Instead, it empowers a few wealthy community barons – both Aboriginal and non Aboriginal (the Aboriginal Industry) and fails to meet the needs of individuals like Bruce Gibson, an Aboriginal leader who cannot own land in his community or use it to advance his business. Aboriginal people cannot use the land to build homes or support businesses, unlike non-Aboriginal Australians.
The Mabo decision, which was originally about land rights on Murray Island in the Torres Strait, recognised a system of land title that was passed down through generations, effectively preventing those without title from claiming the land. This system existed in the Torres Strait but did not exist on the mainland. The Mabo decision should not have been extended beyond this context, however it wasn’t the High Court that extended it; it was the Labor Party under Paul Keating that did so, creating something that was not grounded in reality.
We need to review the Native Title Act, introduce sunset clauses, and stop closing landmarks based on obsolete practices. It’s time to rethink the native title regime for the benefit of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, AND all Australians. This system is failing them, just like the Closing the Gap program.
Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (18:36): I support the referral of the native title system to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee because the native title system is currently hurting mainland
Aboriginals. In practice, native title is racist against Aboriginal people. I also support the reference because I support Australia and all Australians—one united nation, one nation.
Since the introduction of the Native Title Act into Australian law in 1993, more than 50 per cent of the Australian land mass has come under determinations of the Native Title Tribunal—54 per cent, to be precise. The legislation, though, is not a true reflection of what was in fact determined in the High Court, which considered the unique circumstances of Mr Eddie Mabo’s family and the situation on Murray Island in the Torres Strait. The Native Title Act, when drafted, relied significantly on United Nations declarations, which were mentioned six times in a 2½ page preamble. That’s what it’s all about—United Nations declarations and other agreements related to the rights of Indigenous peoples. Locking up land from private ownership is on the UN agenda.
What is not so well understood is the total failure of the Native Title Act to provide practical benefits to the lives of Aboriginal people living in remote areas of Australia. That’s why it is racist. It is hurting and holding back Aboriginals, especially those in remote areas of Australia. Less well known is that some native title claims grant exclusive rights which may allow the native title holder to exclude non-Aboriginals from accessing the land—fact.
This may prevent other Australians accessing beaches and landmarks of significance unless they pay for the privilege. More symbolic than practical, the act has effectively locked up large tracts of land from the use or benefit of individual Aboriginal people. It’s locked them out. The only ones who have benefited under the act are those wealthy community barons, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, who are part of the white and black Aboriginal industry and rip off needy Aboriginals. Instead, they divert much of the billions of dollars in Aboriginal funding to themselves, sucking it up and keeping it from the people in the communities. Those who benefit are the white and black Aboriginal academics, activists, Aboriginal community leaders, shonky lawyers and dodgy Aboriginal corporations, who do nothing to help individual Aboriginals.
I’ve travelled widely through Aboriginal communities across Queensland, including every Cape York community—sometimes three times through a community. I’ve been to all of the communities at least twice. When we were in Cape York, we met with local community leader Mr Bruce Gibson, for example. He’s one of many. He shared his views on native title and its impact on his community. And, by the way, we hear these
comments from Aboriginal elders in other parts of Queensland as well, in communities like Gympie and Maryborough—mainstream communities. Anyway, getting back to Mr Bruce Gibson, he said that native title was
important for the recognition of the Indigenous perspective of their relationship with the land and for recognising that Aboriginal people were the first inhabitants of Australia and that they had inherent rights to the land.
That’s fine. His view was that the Native Title Act was not providing Aboriginal people—and, remember, Mr Gibson is an Aboriginal from an Aboriginal community and a fine man—with something tangible, because they could not use native title to advance any individual interests. It’s racist, because white people in this country can go and buy land. They can use that as collateral for a business loan or for building their own family house. Aboriginal people in communities cannot. The land is locked up and given to the barons of the community. Land under native title cannot be mortgaged to help build a home or be used as collateral to support a business loan. The land is essentially locked up and not used to support small projects or family homes. It’s racist. It hurts Aboriginals.
This would seem contrary to the effective intention of the legislators. If the act is supposed to benefit hardworking Australian Aboriginals, it’s failing, just as the Closing the Gap program has failed. Because the land is not freehold, nobody is able to work towards owning their own home, and the property is now locked away out of reach. The Commonwealth government can reclaim land and convert it to freehold, and some compensation is then paid to the traditional owners. Yet this does not benefit any individuals. With individual landownership prevented, there is little incentive to work towards beneficial community or personal goals.
Bruce Gibson said that he wished to own his own place in his community. He cannot. Why? Because he’s Aboriginal on an Aboriginal community. That’s why. Native title doesn’t look after him. He wishes to build up and expand his small business as a shop owner, yet he cannot buy the premises. He must hope that he can lease the shop from the local traditional owners, if he says the right things. These comments were echoed across the Cape, from constituents to council mayors and council members. It was universal—every community. There was not one person to whom we spoke who had a good thing to say about native title other than it providing some recognition to them as First Australians. That’s why native title is racist. It hurts Aboriginals.
Coming back to the Mabo decision, the Mabo decision was based correctly on Mr Mabo’s island in the Torres Strait Islands—Murray Island, I think it is. But that was because there was a system of handing down title of land to succeeding generations. It was a means of keeping people who didn’t hold title to the land out of their land. That system was in the Torres Strait. It was not on the mainland. There was no system of land tenure on the mainland. That Mabo decision should not have been extended. It wasn’t extended by the High Court. It was extended by the Labor Party under Paul Keating. They made that up, and it’s a falsity.
I want to go to some key points that I’ve made in notes. With native title, there are no individual needs being met—no universal human needs. It’s just a feel-good policy to make a few people in the inner-city areas think we’ve handed land back to the Aboriginals, when we never took it, and it hasn’t been handed back. It’s been taken off whoever had it. It provides enormous uncertainty regarding development, which is holding back Aboriginal communities. There’s confusion between native title and the Aboriginal Land Act 1991 in Queensland. They’re two separate issues. They’re both taking up land in Queensland.
There are many uncertainties in claims of native title, like two families claiming the same land. In some cases, one family from interstate is granted the land when the local Aboriginal people are denied the land. It’s rife with these kinds of false claims. Look at Toobeah. Look at Deebing Creek near Ipswich. That hurts the Aboriginals. It also deflects and hides from Aboriginals’ core problems, and they have got problems in remote communities, not in all remote communities—they’re different; they vary—but there are problems. But they’re not being fixed by the white and black Aboriginal industry. The problems are being exacerbated exactly as Senator Hanson mentioned.
Let me tell you a story about my first time as a senator. I was walking up to the One Nation office in Brisbane, and three Aboriginal people approached me. I talked to them, and they said they were from the Northern Territory. I said, ‘What are you doing here then?’ They said: ‘We’ve come to see Senator Hanson because she’s the only one who understands our problems and the only one with the guts to tell the truth. She’s the only one.’ These are Aboriginal people from the Northern Territory who came down from the Territory to Brisbane to see Senator Hanson because she’s the only one who gets it and she’s the only one who understands.
There’s a flow-on from the guilt and grievance industry, the white and black Aboriginal industry that I mentioned, that’s hurting and suppressing Aboriginals, entrenching dependence and entrenching victimhood. The Aboriginal people are wonderful people, essentially salt of the Earth. Why are we keeping them down? Why are we suppressing them under a blanket of bureaucracy?
We need sunset clauses on native title applications, just like the Queensland Aboriginal Land Act of 1991. It had a sunset clause that came into force in 2006. We need a moratorium on native title allocations. We need to review the Native Title Act, and that’s why I support this reference. We need to reverse the closing of landmarks. Prominent Aboriginals in this country have admitted that the closing of landmarks is based on obsolete practices. The closing of Mount Warning was strongly opposed by an Aboriginal elder, a woman, but her voice was not heard. It was suppressed. Mr Marc Hendrix is doing a marvellous job of publicising the truth about Mount Warning’s closure. It was a bunch of gutless bureaucrats and politicians from the New South Wales state government that succeeded to rubbish. It succeeded to the stuff that comes out of the south end of a northbound bull, and it was spread by a small, tiny group and opposed by Aboriginals, including elders. Wise females were just ignored, just buried. The One Nation MPs, I’m sure, will review the Aboriginal Land Act of 1991 in Queensland, and also we need a review of the Native Title Act.
I’m going to make some comments about Senator Ayres. Labels are the refuge of the ignorant, the incompetent, the dishonest and the fearful. Senator Ayres put together not one single coherent point, just a lot of labels and lies. That was all we got from Senator Ayres. He retreated. He put forward no arguments. It was all just hollow words. Pauline Hanson is known for her love of Australia and her love of Australians, regardless of skin colour. Let me tell you a story from when we first came to Canberra in the Senate in 2016. We went to the Griffith Vietnamese Restaurant, where a lot of politicians have gone over the years and written on the walls. We couldn’t get out of the place because the Vietnamese people, the other Asian people, wanted autographs with Senator Hanson. Why? Because she protects the country. She protects the country and makes sure we keep our values in this country. That’s why Asian people, Indian people, Chinese people and Middle Eastern people come to this country—because they like the values of this country. We have got to protect that.
These concerns about native title are echoed right across Queensland and in other parts, including across the Territory as well. We know from prominent Aboriginals that they agree with Senator Hanson and with me. It’s way over time for this native title regime to be reconsidered, and I recommend its referral to this committee for the benefit of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and for the benefit of all Australians. Thank you.
Watching the sad events currently underway in the United Kingdom, one might be forgiven for thinking we’ve descended into the dystopian world long foretold by classic literature. One Nation agrees with Milton – free circulation of ideas is essential to moral and intellectual growth. To attempt to preclude falsehoods underestimates the power of truth.
Originally intended to prevent incitement to violence, hate speech laws have now devolved to the point where criticising the government has become a criminal offense, leading to the imprisonment of citizens in the UK. At the same time, the UK Government is failing to ensure the safety of its own streets. The UK clearly has 2-tiered policing.
As we face the next manufactured social or medical crises, there is no doubt that Australia’s law enforcement will commit the same abuses of civil rights that we are currently witnessing in the UK. Only by voting wisely will prevent Australia from following the UK’s path – turning into a communist state.
To conclude, let me be clear: there is no justification for violence from either side of a protest. Equally, the actions of a few should not result in the stripping away of rights from the many.
Watching the sad events currently unfolding and underway in the United Kingdom, one can be forgiven for thinking we’d descended into the dystopian world so long predicted in the classic literature. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is just one warning, which ironically appears to have been become an instruction manual for the political left. An interview with George Orwell recently surfaced in which Orwell thought there was a possibility Nineteen Eighty-Four could happen in the UK. He was right, again.
Orwell’s description of what looks like the UK under Labour’s Keir Starmer reads as follows:
In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement—
that’s porn and transgenderism by the way—
There will be no loyalty except loyalty to the Party. But always there will be the intoxication of power. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who’s helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever. The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is … don’t let it happen.
One Nation are doing everything we can to prevent this nightmare overtaking Australia. Sadly, the globalist Liberals, Labor, Greens, Nationals and teals intend to push ahead into hell.
Another futuristic story, written in 1961 and titled Harrison Bergeron, from American science fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut, predicted a future where human behaviour was controlled—physical movement and appearance and thought. High-IQ citizens were punished with earpieces that played loud sounds every 30 seconds to prevent them from thinking so they did not outshine low-IQ people. The strong were literally weighted down with ball bearings to reduce their strength to that of the worst weakling. The attractive were forced to wear ugly masks so nobody was made to feel uncomfortable gazing upon someone more attractive than themselves. A quote to explain his predication, which is often incorrectly attributed to Dostoevsky, simply reads, ‘Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.’
Vonnegut’s view was mirrored in an interview with a former resident of the Soviet Union that was described to me. It consisted of the fellow drawing three stick figures on a piece of paper, two at the same height and one taller, then saying, ‘In the Soviet Union everyone is equal,’ before taking his pencil and drawing a line across the top of the two smaller figures thereby severing the head of the third. ‘Such is life in the Soviet Union,’ he said. Keir Starmer’s communism is the victory of those who have lost their humanity, morality and faith or, as Orwell describes them, ‘those who thrill in the delight of the kill’. Perhaps UK citizens would agree it’s time to add a footnote to the famous quote from Descartes, ‘I think therefore I am—arrested.’
It’s just like the young man in Belfast who was recently arrested for observing a protest, only to have District Judge Rafferty and the Belfast Magistrates Court decide that someone’s presence, including as a curious observer, involves them in such disorder as to justify the refusal of bail. And off to jail he went. That young man had never been in trouble with the police before and had even left when the event became violent. There’s no provision in common or statute law that reads, ‘Injustice is allowed if it exists to make an example of one to intimidate others into disobedience,’ yet here we are.
Similar behaviour was observed in Australia during COVID. The conversation around events in the UK has so far missed an important element. The United Kingdom has been here before. Former Queensland premier Campbell Newman reminded the internet last week of the Areopagitica, which carries the full title: A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England. This was a pamphlet published in 1644 to protest a parliamentary order of the previous year requiring government approval and licensing of all published works and pamphlets. This measure was introduced after Milton’s treatise in favour of divorce upset the king, Charles I. History appears to be repeating—the uniparty’s misinformation disinformation censorship bill.
In Areopagitica, Milton defends the free circulation of ideas as essential to moral and intellectual development. Furthermore, he asserts, to attempt to preclude falsehood is to underestimate the power of truth, a lesson for our eSafety Commissioner, who clearly believes the reverse is true. While the immediate objective of the Areopagitica repeal of licensing was not obtained for another 50 years, the tract has earned a permanent place in the literature of human rights.
Repeal took 50 years because, as it turned out, each new government kept that power in order to protect themselves from criticism. Power freely given is never freely surrendered. Here we are 380 years later and Australia is making exactly the same mistake, but One Nation isn’t. The rest of the parties in this place are. Keir Starmer famously took the knee during Black Lives Matter riots and now puts English lives matter
demonstrators on their knees. The start of the trouble was the murder of three young girls at the hands of a suspected Islamic terrorist. If you want to look for the cause of the frustration being demonstrated among everyday Brits, look no further than a failure to keep the public safe. It is basic. Fear used as a weapon of control during COVID has bitten the hand that created it. There is an opportunity cost to arresting citizens for thought crimes like: praying in public; watching—but not participating in—a protest; making posts on social media critical of the government— posts which do not incite violence or incite the breaking of a law; posting up first-hand stories of vaccine harm; and of course, criticising the religion that can’t be criticised using nothing but their own words.
That opportunity cost is the policing of real crime. Over the last 10 years, according to the UK’s statistics office: assault with grievous bodily harm is up 100 per cent—doubled; assault with an injury is up 80 per cent—almost doubled; rape of an adult female up 370 per cent—almost five times; rape of a minor is up 100 per cent. In fact, the conviction rate of rapists in the UK is currently five per cent and not all of those even go to jail. Only last week a migrant was given a suspended sentence for raping a 13-year-old British girl. The court accepted his defence that he did not know that an adult raping a child was against the law in the UK. Imagine being that child’s parents. Imagine being that child. Is it any wonder the Brits are demonstrating this two-tiered justice system? The commentariat, who are denying the right of people to protest peacefully, including many of the usual suspects in here in Australia, are commenting on a world their wealth and their elitist lifestyles insulate them from.
A Merseyside chief constable made a comment last week, apparently unaware this is the exact upside-down policing, the exact two-tier policing, the public are protesting about. They said, ‘What I would say to those people who think they have gotten away with being involved in disorder, we are coming for you. We have hours of social media and closed circuit TV footage. I have officers working around the clock to identify you. We know who you are and we know where you live and where you work.’
Why is this relevant to Australia? Because our law enforcement have been equipped with the powers to do exactly the same thing. The Identity Verification Services Act together with the Digital ID Act, which Labor minister Katy Gallagher passed through the parliament this year, allows law enforcement to obtain the image of any person anywhere any time from traffic cameras, security cameras, closed circuit TV and main roads, even in supermarkets.
All this with a spurious ‘suspected of a crime’ justification. It then allows law enforcement to go through the video, one frame at a time, to extract a photo of each attendee and run them through the national identity database, which currently contains data on 17 million Australians. Our police will indeed know your name; address; where you work, live and visit, and, once fully implemented, the system will be able to locate you from traffic cameras, payment scanners in shops and public transport touchpads in real time.
Welcome to your digital prison. One Nation warned you directly, loudly and often. During the next manufactured social and medical crisis, there’s no doubt our law enforcement will commit the same abuse of civil rights as we see happening in the UK right now. One Nation believes human rights should not be made subservient to the greed and hubris of those who would stamp on the face of their fellow citizens in the acquisition of wealth and power or, perversely, in the name of social justice. Measures to facilitate this censorship and destruction of human rights are winding our society back to the time of Milton, 380 years ago. The irony is this is the same Left who accused One Nation of wanting to wind the clock back!
As a closing remark, let me make it clear there’s no excuse for violence on either side of a protest. Equally, the actions of a few do not justify the removal of rights from the many. The actions of the few do not justify the removal of rights from the many. Human rights are universal, part of being human, inherent in each and all of us from birth.
Since November, I have been trying to get a very simple answer out of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO): How many potential foreign buyers are they detecting?
The ATO runs a data matching program that checks the details of more than 2.4 million sellers and buyers to detect if they might be foreign.
The ATO claims only 1% of purchases are foreign, but they won’t tell me how many of those 2.4 million matches they get are flagged as potentially foreign. Watch as they again refuse to tell me how many foreigners they identify in the 2.4 million records.
They claim to have manually checked over 230,000 records every year that can’t be automatically matched to confirm whether they are Australian. With other evidence like the NAB property survey indicating up to 11% of new housing stock is purchased by foreigners, I believe the ATO figures are completely understating the level of foreign buying in the country.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again tonight, and congratulations to you, Mr Heferen. I don’t think we’ve seen you since your appointment. My first question is about foreign buyers of real estate. Radio 2GB reported in April that foreign buyers accounted for 11 per cent of newly built homes in the final quarter of last year. This is a disaster for Australian homebuyers. Can you please provide that data for each quarter over the previous 12 months—the proportion of newly built homes bought by foreigners?
Mr Thompson: I think the 2GB article would have been using the National Australia Bank—
Senator ROBERTS: That’s my understanding.
Mr Thompson: As I think I’ve talked about at the committee before, there are a number of differences between the National Australia Bank survey and our data. So the National Australia Bank’s data is from a survey,
so it asks real estate and other real estate professionals to estimate. I think the exact question in that survey is about overseas buyers. Our numbers are coming from state and territory land title offices, which are matched
against Home Affairs data and Australia Electoral Commission data. There is a very significant gap between the numbers that appear in that survey and the numbers that we get. Our numbers are based on the definition of a foreigner under the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act. I think last week we released the 2022-23 numbers, which would put the estimate at around one per cent.
Senator ROBERTS: Moving onto the first home super saver scheme, I’m quoting from the eligibility requirements in guidance note 2018/1: There is no requirement for you to be an Australian citizen, Australian resident or an Australian resident for taxation purposes. Why are we allowing foreigners—not even residents for taxation purposes—access to this scheme, which is meant to be for getting Australians into their first home?
Mr Heferen: That would be a policy question for our colleagues at the Treasury.
Ms Brown: It is a policy question for Treasury, but the appropriate group for it to be directed to is markets group. That is administered by our Retirement, Advice and Investment Division in markets group. We can take it on notice and have them provide a reply.
Senator ROBERTS: I want to come back to foreign ownership again. I refer to table 3 of the answer to question on notice SBE106 from the November estimates. Through the Department of Home Affairs visa data-
matching program, how many of the real property transfer report entities records that are automatically matched to ATO records are foreign?
Mr Thompson: As we’ve answered previously, we’re not able to—the question was, ‘How many do we automatically match?’ and ‘How many do we have to go away and do additional things to match?’
Senator ROBERTS: I’m coming to that.
Mr Thompson: If you think about it coming through the system: if it’s an exact match, that’s all automated. There would be a range of circumstances where we don’t get an automatic match. It could be that the date of
birth’s the wrong way. It could be a maiden name. In those circumstances, we have additional processes to match. We work down through every record. In the automatic matches, there will be some foreigners. In the ones we can’t automatically match, there will be some foreigners.
Senator ROBERTS: What percentage?
Mr Thompson: At that point—
Senator ROBERTS: You can’t tell us?
Mr Thompson: The numbers in that answer to the question on notice were addressing how many we automatically match versus how many we perform additional—
Senator ROBERTS: Correct. How many that were matched were foreigners?
Mr Thompson: If the question is about the compliance results that we get, they’re published—
Senator ROBERTS: My question is: what percentage of buyers are foreigners?
Mr Thompson: One per cent.
Senator ROBERTS: Could you provide to me on notice the numbers of foreign buyers for the last five years.
Mr Thompson: We publish that. I’ve got the latest public—
Senator ROBERTS: Okay, if you could take it on notice for the last five years.
Mr Thompson: I’ll take it on notice.
Senator ROBERTS: From table 4, immediately below that from the same question on notice from November estimates, how many of the entity records that were not able to be automatically matched to ATO records remain unverified or unresolved?
Mr Thompson: None.
Senator ROBERTS: How many unmatched records from the data-matching program remain unresolved from 2018 to date?
Mr Thompson: I think that’s the same question.
Senator ROBERTS: I want to go right back to 2018.
Mr Thompson: I’ll take that one on notice.
Senator ROBERTS: How many residential properties in Australia are owned by foreigners today?
Mr Thompson: I think that is the question around the register.
Senator ROBERTS: I just want to know how many foreigners own real estate. We’ve got a housing crisis. We’ve got people in Brisbane and all up and down the east coast of Queensland in major provincial cities sleeping under bridges and in cars, taking families home.
Senator Gallagher: Yes, but I think it’s very simplistic to say that that housing shortage is a result of foreign investment in residential housing. We’ve had a number of hearings where you’ve been told how relatively low that level is in comparison to non-foreign owned.
Senator ROBERTS: I’d like the exact numbers.
Senator Gallagher: And we’ll provide that number to you, but the link that you are saying—that foreign ownership of properties equals some of what you’ve been talking about and is a real issue in Brisbane—is not
right. The issue is supply. We’ve got to build more houses for people, not blame foreigners for it.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ve never said it’s entirely due to foreigners, but that is one—
Senator Gallagher: We need to make sure that the rules are tight, that there are restrictions in place, which there are, so that that arrangement works properly. But it’s not fair to say that the housing crisis is because we’ve got some small foreign-owned investments.
Senator ROBERTS: I didn’t say that. I said that’s one contributing factor.
CHAIR: I’ll just do some committee administration here. I’ll table three documents—the three articles referenced by Senator O’Neill earlier. The committee has agreed to a time management plan to conclude
questions, so last question, Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: I’d like to make the point that the witnesses have provided answers so late, in the past, that they’ve been distributed at 8 pm on the day before they appear in Senate estimates, 100 days after the last
hearing, and failing to raise any public interest immunity claims on answers they don’t give. That’s a clear frustration of the committee’s work.
Senator Gallagher: We will try and do better, Senator Roberts. We have had a long discussion about the number of questions on notice which are coming in and having to be managed by departments, but I agree: it’s an important accountability measure, and departments should work to meet the timeframes.
Senator ROBERTS: When it’s 100 days, it’s way late, and then it suddenly comes in at 8 pm on the night before.
Senator Gallagher: Yes. I understand your frustration.
In the event a war breaks out or our shipping routes are blocked, Australia is screwed with practically all of our local refineries out of business.
At the May Senate Estimates, I asked the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) for a detailed breakdown of current fuel stocks, specifically how much is finished liquid fuel versus crude oil. Ms Svarcas indicated she will provide these figures on notice and at the same time, will clarify how crude oil is reported under the Minimum Stockholding Obligation (MSO).
I then inquired about the latest figure for Australia’s crude oil stock relative to the International Energy Agency (IEA) requirement of 90 days. Ms Svarcas confirmed that the current figure is 53 days and includes all fuels and refined products in Australian waters. This stock does not include the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) stock, avoiding double counting between IEA and MSO measures. Ms Svarcas noted that “consumption cover days” are reported monthly on their website and are publicly available. She added that these figures indicate how long the stock will last based on average consumption, giving a clear view of Australia’s fuel supply.
It was a big surprise to discover that Australia had sold its 1.7 million barrels of oil from the US strategic reserve. While it was never a good idea to have a national reserve held on the other side of the world, the secrecy with which the sale was done in response to Ukraine is concerning.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Let’s move to fuel security. We covered the minimum stock holding obligations for petrol, diesel and jet fuel at some length last Senate estimates. You gave to me on notice, in SQ24000046, that the refineries may also report crude oil and unfinished stock as liquid fuel. Do you have a breakdown of how much of the reported stock holding is actually finished liquid fuel versus crude oil—not a projected conversion of existing crude into future petrol, diesel or jet fuel, but the actual quantities of the four measures, as it exists now?
Mrs Svarcas: Just so I’m really clear, for the MSO obligation, you’re asking how much of the crude oil do we count as petrol, jet fuel and diesel?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes. Can you also provide to me the actual amount, right now, of crude oil as it is, jet fuel as it is, petrol as it is and diesel as it is, and not projected conversions of crude oil into those things?
Mrs Svarcas: I will have to take on notice the projected for crude oil into those things. The MSO does allow, under the reporting obligations, for an entity to effectively say they’ve got a bucket of crude oil, and they will be converting X amount of it through their normal operations—and how much of that is going to be diesel, how much of that is going to be jet fuel et cetera. I would have to take on notice how much of the crude is crude, if you will, and how much is fuel.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. That’d be good. You explained previously how there’s the domestic minimum stockholding obligation for petrol, diesel and jet fuel put in place by the government then there’s the International Energy Agency agreement for 90 days of crude oil. Last estimates, you told me we were at 55 International Energy Agency days of crude oil. What’s the latest figure for that, and is all of that stock in Australia’s exclusive economic zone here?
Mrs Svarcas: The actual figure of that today—the last report was from March 2024—is 53 days and that figure captures all of the things. It might be helpful if I describe what’s captured in that. It’s crude oil as crude oil. It’s diesel, petrol and jet fuel. It also includes other refined products. For example, the oil that you would put into your car is included under the definition provided to us by the IEA. It’s those stocks that are on land in Australia and in our domestic waters. But, importantly, the difference between the IEA days and the MSO calculation is that it does not include the product that’s in our EEZ; it’s just the product that’s in Australian waters or physically in Australia.
Senator ROBERTS: So is there any double counting then?
Mrs Svarcas: No, there’s no double counting. There’s a difference between a vessel that is in Australian waters—how it’s included in the IEA days—and stock that is in the EEZ that is counted in the MSO days. It might also be useful, if you’ll indulge me, to explain the difference between the measures that we have in place so that you can get an idea of what we use it for. As I described, the IEA days are one single calculation of all of the fuel and fuel products as defined by the IEA. We also have our consumption cover days. They’re the days that we report every month publicly, and you’ll find those on our website. They are a measure of how long the stock will last. So they give us a really good indication of what we’ve got every month, and how long, based on average consumption, that will last. That’s all publicly available. Then we also have the MSO, which is slightly different, and the purpose of that measure is to set that minimum stockholding obligation to give us the insurance policy of making sure, from our perspective, how much fuel, liquid fuels and things we should have in Australia should there be a market disruption. So the purpose of each of those reportings is slightly different, which is why what goes into them—what we count and how we count them—is also slightly different, because they have different purposes.
Senator ROBERTS: I look forward to the numbers that you’re going to give me. Our strategic reserve—
CHAIR: If you’ve finished that line of questioning, we will need to rotate.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ve just one more question on strategic reserve. You told me at last Senate estimates that Australia has sold all of the oil reserves in the United States’ strategic reserve?
Mrs Svarcas: That is correct.
Senator ROBERTS: That was 1.7 million barrels—nearly two years ago—in June 2022. That hasn’t been reported anywhere, as I understand it.
Mrs Svarcas: No, I believe it was publicly reported. I’ll be happy to table that report.
Senator ROBERTS: Did anyone at the department announce that the 1.7 million barrels had been sold?
Mrs Svarcas: Like I said, I believe it was. I’m happy to be corrected if my evidence is wrong but I do believe it was made public at the time.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.
Telstra and Optus’ two-month delay on the 3G mobile network shutdown is a failure of the Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and defies recommendations from a Senate inquiry.
A two-month delay is nowhere near enough time to fix the million mobile and non-mobile devices the shutdown is still estimated to seriously affect. The telco companies have been let off scot-free.
There will be no consequences if Telstra and Optus flick the switch and leave hundreds of thousands of Australians in danger.
The 3G shutdown is only being done to boost the profits of Telstra and Optus at the expense of Australians living through a cost-of-living crisis.
The government wants to drive us off a cliff as we speed towards Net-Zero dictates from the un-elected United Nations and World Economic Forum.
None of it is based on proper data and all the evidence we have is that it will destroy our energy grid and our economy.
With inflation re-emerging, we have to put a stop to the billions being poured into climate policy making Australians pay more.
Every time you see a wind turbine or an industrial solar complex, think one thing: your energy prices are going to increase. That’s what those things mean. We’ve been promised that energy prices will decrease, but wind turbines and industrial solar complexes mean higher prices for people, for families, for small businesses, for larger corporations and employers, for the whole community. And they mean trillions of dollars in waste in our economy. In every country around the world, as the percentage of solar and wind has increased, the cost of electricity has increased. That’s a fact—everywhere, consistent. And now, after nearly 30 years of pushing solar and wind, which started with John Howard’s renewable energy target, we see the ridiculous situation of the Labor government offering energy price relief. Why? Because they’re driving up the cost of energy to make it unaffordable; that’s why. So let’s have a look at why. Let’s see why killing the environment in the name of supposedly saving it is costing us so much. Let’s turn to the terms of the motion for an inquiry. So many people want us to have an inquiry, not just rural people but urban people, because they’re worried about the cost. This is what the inquiry is looking into:
… the importance of ensuring that the National Electricity Grid has the capacity to provide a reliable and secure supply of energy to Australians as the economy transitions to new and more dispersed—
and we’ll talk about that—
methods of generations and storage, and acknowledging that transition will necessarily transgress on agricultural, Indigenous and environmental lands and marine environments …
The environment and our productive capacity are suffering.
I’ll cover some key concerns that are key to the inquiry because the uniparty has not thought about this—from when John Howard, the Liberal Prime Minister, started the renewable energy target to this ridiculous situation we’re in now. By the way, John Howard started that and did three other things, which we might have time to discuss, that laid the foundation for the crippling of our energy supply in this country. Six years after he was booted from office, he admitted that, on the matter of climate science, he is agnostic. He didn’t have the science. This whole thing is based not on science; it’s based on contradictions of science.
Let’s start with solar and wind. The amount of steel needed per megawatt of electricity from a coal-fired power station is 35 tons. For wind turbines it’s 542 tons of steel. That’s 15 times as much. Straightaway, wind is suffering a cost penalty. It’s a huge cost burden. Then, when you look at the energy density of coal, it’s very high. It’s not as high as uranium, but it’s very high. For solar and wind, it’s very low.
Secondly I see the government throwing barbs at the coalition, and well it should over aspects of its nuclear policy, but the government is accusing the opposition of uncosted policy. Where are your costs, government? Where are your costs on solar and wind? Where are your costs on solar and wind, Greens? We even see some solar and wind complexes, massive complexes in the Kennedy electorate in Queensland and in western Victoria, not connected to the grid. They have been built but not connected. That’s how much thought has gone into this. It’s bloody ridiculous.
Solar and wind have an inherently high capital cost plus a low energy density, which means low energy production and very high cost per unit of electricity. Plus the amount of land needed for solar and wind is enormous. And then we see that the average capacity utilisation of solar and wind is 23 per cent. That’s less than a quarter of what the nameplate capacity is. Now we see the latest figures just released on wind, which show that it’s 21 per cent. That’s one-fifth of the capacity. What does that tell you? For a given capacity of a coal-fired power station, you’ll need a certain capacity of solar and wind. Multiply that by four, because you’re getting less than 25 per cent. Multiply it by five in the case of wind. Five times makes it prohibitive. Four times makes it prohibitive. Then think about this: at peak hour, when we need maximum electricity, the average utilisation and the average capacity is 10 per cent, which means that, to get the equivalent of that coal-fired power station, we need 10 times the solar and wind capacity—10 times. Then, for sizeable periods, we have the sun not shining brightly because of clouds or we have the wind drought. That means we need a further multiplication to make sure we can store up enough in energy and batteries. But the batteries to store that amount of wind and solar energy have never been thought of, never been considered and never been developed. It’s impossible. The cost if we don’t have them will be blackouts and outages in hospitals, businesses and family homes.
Plus there are the transmission costs. Transmission costs, many years ago, used to be 49 per cent of the cost of the electricity bill. I don’t know what it is now, but it’s certainly substantial. Solar and wind have to be located a long way from the major metropolitan areas, which means straightaway that transmission costs are even higher than for a coal-fired power station, which can be located close to the metropolitan areas. Then, because of the dispersed nature of solar and wind, we have even more transmission lines. Then, because of the capacity factor that I just mentioned, we have even more transmission lines. This makes it prohibitive, not just in terms of the installation of solar and wind but also in terms of transmission lines. Plus, the transmission lines will barely be used because of the capacity of solar and wind not being utilised. And then we have the 15-to 20-year life, at best—12 to 15 years more likely—of solar and wind industrial complexes. That means that over the life of a coal-fired power station or a nuclear power station, they have to be replaced four times, so multiply the cost again by four. What have we multiplied it by so far? We’ve multiplied the cost by five, then by 10 and now by another four. Yet the CSIRO considers not one piece of that puzzle—not one piece. They say that it’s all sunk cost; just ignore it.
That’s why solar and wind can compete. And they still need subsidies. Then you’ve got to add batteries and pumped hydro. Pumped hydro itself is an admission of failure. You cannot have pumped hydro without a disparity between peak hour prices and off-peak prices, and that’s due to the failure of the grid and solar and wind. And then we need firming, another cost, because coal, nuclear and hydro are stable, synchronous power supplies. Solar and wind are asynchronous—unstable—so they need firming. And they need backup gas or backup coal because solar and wind are unreliable. There’s a doubling. Look at the multiplication that we have got there.
None of this is included in the GenCost report from the CSIRO. It assumes no transmission cost because they’ve already been built. That’s rubbish. We need far more new transmission lines. We have an inherently higher cost from solar and wind, plus low capacity, plus regional, plus dispersal, plus backup, plus stabilisation. Think about this: for a business, you need a stable, reliable, low-variation input. When variation occurs, it costs enormous amounts of money. At industrial and manufacturing plants, farmers are using backup, so they have to pay twice for their electricity. We also have a huge footprint in terms of land. Solar complexes and wind turbines use far more land and are far more scattered than a concentrated coal-fired power station or a nuclear power station. They’re taking up huge quantities of resources. The resource footprint of solar and wind is enormous.
We have agricultural land being sterilised. We have poisons and toxins potentially going into the Brisbane water supply, into their drinking water—lead, cadmium—which feeds Brisbane, Beaudesert, Gold Coast, potentially Toowoomba, Ipswich, Logan and other areas in the south-east of Queensland. We also have the future cost yet to be added—Snowy 2.0. By the way, when they first did the costings of Snowy 2.0, thanks to Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership and poor leadership, they forgot about the transmission lines. They forgot to add the transmission lines. Whoops! We better add a few more billion to that. Now look at it. It was originally slated for $2 billion. We could see this, and I’m not an energy expert. We could see it when Malcolm Turnbull first released it. We told them, and no-one took any notice. Now they’re putting in all these additional costs, and Snowy 2.0 is heading for $14 billion and perhaps $20 billion—if it moves! This is not about having an alternative energy supply; it’s about less energy and control of energy.
We also have Mr Albanese and Mr Bowen, ‘Blackout Bowen’, talking about us being a renewable superpower. It means economic and environmental suicide, resource sterilisation, and displacement of Indigenous. No costings—a huge catastrophe! We’re talking about billions of dollars and impacts worth trillions of dollars. We must have this inquiry. They’re building in a high-cost overhead and a huge environmental legacy. When some of those farmers who are looking at the money now—some aren’t selling out, but some are selling out because of the money coming in—think about the environmental legacy. No bonds. The energy company owning the wind turbines and the solar complexes can just walk off and leave it. There’s no requirement to fix it. Farmers will pay for that. They’re already paying in many cases, as are rural towns, with the slow thrum, thrum, thrum of infrasound, which is proven harmful to humans. So they’re killing the environment to save it. We’re seeing human progress being reversed.
The No. 1 message from the last 170 years since the industrial revolution started was that we have a higher standard of living and all the benefits that brings because of a relentless reduction in energy prices. What we’ve seen since John Howard come to power is a reversal of that. As energy prices increase, productivity falls, wealth falls and prosperity falls. We see a reversal of human progress. So what if we spend billions on solar and wind, what if it costs our economy trillions of dollars—and it will—and what if China does not? What happens then? Now do you get what’s going on? Now do you see it?
I want to turn to two other points. As I said, John Howard introduced all the problems we’re seeing now: the Renewable Energy Target; the stealing of farmers’ property rights to comply with the UN Kyoto protocol; and the National Electricity Market, which is really a national electricity racket. He also introduced an emissions trading scheme as policy—not as fact, but as policy. That’s a carbon tax. He was the first major leader of a major party to have that. The CSIRO has never provided any empirical scientific data and logical scientific points that prove the need to cut carbon dioxide from human activity. The CSIRO admitted that to me when I held them accountable, and they gave me three presentations, each 2½ hours long. In the first presentation they admitted that they had never given the advice and had never said that carbon dioxide from human activity is a danger and needs to be cut. In the second presentation they gave me, they admitted that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented; they’ve happened before—many, many times. In fact, the scientific term for periods of high temperature is ‘climate optimum’, because they’re beneficial for humanity, for civilisation and for the environment. The temperatures are not unprecedented.
The second point is that I’ve asked many government departments in this federal government for their basis of policy. To have a basis of policy you need to have the impact of carbon dioxide from human activity on some climate factor. No-one has given us that. We have amassed 24,000 datasets on climate and energy from around the world, from legally scraped websites and research institutions like the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, and we’ve never found any change in any climate factors at all, so there’s no basis for policy. You need that quantitative impact of carbon dioxide from human activity on a climate factor so that you can then study the alternatives, if you want to get rid of the carbon dioxide production. You’ve got to have that to track progress, but there’s none of that. There’s no basis for policy. We are flying blind. We’re heading for a cliff.
Then we see there’s no environmental impact statement for the use of solar and wind—none at all. What impact is the energy we’re taking out of the wind going to have on our climate? What impact is it going to have on the natural environment? Yet they say that 0.03 per cent of the carbon dioxide is coming from humans, and 1.2 per cent of that from Australians. No impact quantified—the absurdity is enormous. And who will pay for all this mess? We, the people. You are foisting this on the people. We need an inquiry now. (Time expired)
If you enjoy your petrol or diesel car, the government is trying to make sure you won’t be enjoying it for long.
Looking through this word salad I got from the Department, the reality is the government is placing fines on manufacturers who sell too many petrol and diesel cars. Australians prefer cars that are useful for a weekend of camping, spacious enough to fit the whole family, and capable of doing long road trips without frequent refuelling or needing to stop to recharge.
The government thinks you’re enjoying your cars too much and is going to forces manufacturers to progressively phase them out, leaving only useless electric vehicles available.
Senator ROBERTS: Can I turn to cars and utes, as mentioned by Senator O’Sullivan. Car makers must comply with regulations that you are about to introduce. They must also comply with customers’ needs. My understanding is that the demand for sedans—for example, a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Civic—is decreasing, and the demand for the corresponding SUV—which in the case of Toyota would be a RAV4 or a Honda Civic—is increasing dramatically. The SUVs are heavier, they’re more utilitarian, but they’re preferred. But they chew more fuel and they produce more carbon dioxide—which to me is not a problem, but anyway. How does that affect the manufacturer? On the one hand they have a government that says, ‘Decrease the size of the car, the weight and the fuel efficiency.’ But customers say, ‘No, do the opposite.’ The customers don’t think in terms of carbon dioxide because they know it’s crap.
Ms Purvis-Smith: As I mentioned in a previous answer, manufacturers are able to make commercial decisions as to what their fleet looks like. The standard looks at their whole fleet. There are a range of ways that manufacturers can meet the standard. I think Mr Kathage went through this before. I’m not sure if you were here. He could go through that again. If they get credits in one year they can hold them over to meet debits they may get in a following year. They can also trade credits. They can look at the fleet, change the fleet and make commercial decisions about what they import into the country and offer consumers.
Senator ROBERTS: Before Mr Kathage does that, perhaps you could tell me: if customers want SUVs over sedans, will that company be penalised?
Mr Kathage: I can point you to appendix A of our impact analysis, where we set out the sales volumes of various types of vehicles. Your question is actually quite difficult because, as Ms Purvis-Smith mentioned, there’s actually quite a lot of things that vehicle suppliers can do to improve the efficiency of the vehicles they sell and their fleet overall. The first thing I’ll mention is that there are changes to the vehicles themselves that they can make—improving the aerodynamics, changing the drive train—
Senator ROBERTS: I accept that. But an SUV compared to a sedan—they can make improvements on both but the SUV will chew more fuel and is heavier—full stop, end of story.
Mr Kathage: That’s right. So one of the features of the policy is to include a few flexibility mechanisms. The first one is to include two targets. One target is for passenger vehicles and a higher target for light commercial vehicles. The second flexibility mechanism in the scheme is to adjust the limit by weight. So you might have a Toyota Kluger, for example, which will have a particular mass in running order. Therefore, the target for that vehicle or the fleet of vehicles—that weight—will be adjusted. The third thing is that in any given year a vehicle supplier might bring in too many vehicles that are too polluting. They’ve got two years after that point to bring what’s called their ‘initial emissions value’ down to zero. So they do have some time.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Looking at electric vehicles, for example, this policy, these regulations, are to make petrol and diesel vehicles less attractive and to make electric vehicles more attractive. That’s clearly what’s going on. But the efficiency of resources in electric vehicles is quite low, because the vehicles are inherently heavier, as Senator O’Sullivan said—needing heavier brakes, more resources; heavier suspension, more resources; heavier components all through, more resources. So we’re actually driving an economy to use less efficient vehicles and less efficient use of resources. That doesn’t make sense to me.
Mr Kathage: I’m sorry; what was the question?
Senator ROBERTS: The question is: are you aware that that’s happening?
Mr Kathage: I’d probably say the purpose of the new vehicle efficiency standard is to improve the efficiency of new vehicles. It’s not to drive a particular type of vehicle or particular type of outcome, except for reduced emissions. That’s the purpose of the policy.
Senator ROBERTS: You talked about reducing emissions. Have you done any work on the life cycle production of carbon dioxide from a diesel and a petrol vehicle, compared to the electric vehicle—
Mr Kathage: We have—
Senator ROBERTS: Particularly right through the mining sector as well, because there are extra resources that need to be mined for an EV.
Mr Kathage: Yes, we have. We included some evidence in our impact analysis, which is now published on the Office of Impact Analysis website. Section 4.2.1 sets out a range of different estimates that have been made. The first one is from our own Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics, which finds that while manufacturing an EV may produce more GHG emissions than an internal combustion engine, that is more than offset after about one year if the vehicle is charged from renewably sourced electricity—that is, home solar—and two years if charged from the grid using a mix of electricity generation sources. In that section—I won’t read it all out—we do have, I think, four other sources that support the same contention.
Senator ROBERTS: There’s an assumption there that they’ll be using renewables—solar and wind. That’s a big assumption. Thank you, Chair.
Australia’s real wages have collapsed to levels not seen since before 2010, wiping out 15 years of hard-earned pay rises. Both the Labor and Liberal governments have fueled this crisis.
While the government wastes billions on net zero projects and supports foreign companies, inflation continues to rise.
The solutions are simple: cut subsidies to foreign-owned, net zero parasites and use Australia’s oil, coal and gas for our benefit. Let farmers freely use their land to grow affordable food and adopt One Nation’s housing policies to get Australians into houses. Only One Nation is putting Australia first and has the policies to bring inflation under control.
It’s time for the government to stop looking after their mates and start putting the country first.
If you feel like you’re going backwards, you are. Inflation is running out of control and way too high. Wages haven’t caught up to cost-of-living increases. When adjusted for inflation, Australia’s real wages have collapsed to a level not seen since before 2010. That means that government caused inflation has wiped out 15 years of hard-earned pay rises. The government has its foot on the accelerator now, making it worse, while the Reserve Bank is stomping on the brake for mortgage holders. This coalition motion claims $315 billion of Labor government spending is unhelpful in the inflation fight. The coalition’s $508 billion spend on its mismanaged COVID response was just as unhelpful. That created the inflation that Labor is now prolonging. The Liberal-Labor uniparty cannot fix the cost-of-living crisis when both are committed to net zero insanity, making inflation worse. While government subsidises foreign-owned, Chinese-dominated companies to put up environment-destroying wind and solar complexes, inflation will continue. While farmers are restricted from using their land to grow fresh food, inflation will continue. While government crushes small business and lets multinational companies get away with economic murder, inflation will continue. While 40 per cent of the cost of building a new house continues to be taxed, inflation will continue.
The solutions are simple: cut the subsidies to the foreign-owned, net zero parasites, and use Australia’s abundant oil, coal and gas reserves right here for the benefit of the people in this country. Let farmers be free to use their land to cheaply grow the world’s best food so Australians can afford to eat. Finally, adopt One Nation’s housing policies that will get Australians into affordable houses. Only One Nation policies will put Australia first and bring inflation under control. To the Labor-Liberal uniparty, stop looking after your mates and start putting the country first. Adopt One Nation’s policies on housing and immigration.
I recently joined Melinda Richards on TNT Radio to discuss pressing issues facing Australia today. I emphasised the importance of independent media.
Our conversation turned to the Digital ID bill, which echoes the Australia Card proposal from the 1980’s—a proposal Australians firmly rejected.
We also discussed the erosion of conservative values within the Liberal Party and the urgent need for strong leadership to uphold these conservative principles.
Melinda Richards: I’m joined by Senator Malcolm Roberts, one of the few politicians in Australia standing up for Australians and puts Australians first and his country first. Thank you again, Senator Roberts for joining me today.
Senator ROBERTS: You’re welcome and thank you for doing what you do on TNT because we need an independent news media. Part of the problem is that the governments are owned by major corporations who are in the media and that the messaging is false.
Melinda Richards: Yeah, it’s interesting. I just spoke about that this week that the government has now invested nearly $33 million into Channel 10 and had a little bit of a rant about that. And having government owned media is the worst idea that could possibly be put forward to a supposed free society. Senator Roberts, I wanted to talk to you about also the Australia card. You’re of the age, and I’m of the age, where we can remember the Australia card being proposed by Bob Hawke back in 1985 and he was intent on doing what the digital ID is going to do now. Of course, the digital ID would be 1000 times worse because we have the technology now, but back in the 80s, Australians said a resounding no to the Australia card and then they talked about it again a couple more times and Australians said a resounding no each time it came up. So of course, Australians probably would say a very loud, resounding no to the digital ID. Should this have gone to a referendum to the people? Because of course, this is going to be the biggest change that society’s going to have in the next coming decades.
Senator ROBERTS: Well, that’s one way certainly of doing it. We’ve got a One Nation policy – Citizens Initiated Referendum, which means that the people – it operates in some countries, Switzerland for example, and it brings accountability to the federal parliament. That’s where a citizen can say I don’t like a bill, he or she can make a petition, get sufficient signatures. Then the bill is put to, even if it’s been passed by the parliament, is put to the people and the people can say go to hell, remove the bill.
They can also hold politicians accountable and say we don’t like what you’re doing, Melinda, you’re out. You know that’s what we need, accountability. So yes, it should be put to the people. But the Australia card is a really important lesson because I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time. But as I understand it, Melinda, that was about making sure that people receiving welfare payments from the government, which is really from the taxpayer, were accountable and there’d be no cheating. And we see a lot of cheating on welfare these days. So that’s the intent. But even with that intent, the taxpayers say no, I’d rather lose my money than have the government watching over us.
Melinda Richards: We’d rather have people cheat then have people track US, have people follow, follow the ID number, have our ID number continuing to go through different aspects and parts of our society. The people of Australia at the time understood the implications. Are we a little bit more apathetic now or is it just that we are not really understanding what is being passed through parliament because it’s not being talked about much in the mainstream media?
Senator ROBERTS: You’ve, you’ve nailed it. The mouthpiece media, the legacy media, the Big Brother media, whatever you want to call it, do not talk about it because their masters are wanting this Digital ID to go through because they’ll be part of the corporations that it’ll be widened up to in the future.
Melinda Richards: I mean, we’re still looking at the money train then. We’re still looking at the people that are going to profit from this by controlling us and then pushing through different things and different subsidies and different parts of bills and ideas and things that we won’t even have a say in either.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s correct. Remember the three words, two points – control and wealth transfer. This is what it’s about. We’ve got the identity verification, which is a bill that went through earlier, a couple of months before, or a few months before the digital ID bill – that was about enabling biometric data to be used. Digital ID bill came up. The Misinformation-Disinformation bill was introduced by the Morrison Government, and it has been retracted or withdrawn – paused in its process through this parliament. So that’s coming up as well. That’s where they will control what you say and what you then do. So, this is all heading for control and enabling wealth transfer. Because we also know, thanks to my questioning at Senate estimates, that the Reserve Bank of Australia has been working on a digital currency and has been tying that up to work overseas on a global digital currency. I mean the Reserve Bank admitted it. So, this is putting everything in place for social credit score. And there were several amendments considered in the – it wasn’t a debate – in the passage of the bill through – the hijacking of the bill through the parliament. And not one word of debate was allowed on any of those amendments.
Melinda Richards: That’s incredible.
Senator ROBERTS: Yeah. And then the media doesn’t even report this going on. But this is typical of what the UNI party is doing. It’s not just the Labour Party. All of these bills, including the Digital ID bill, were introduced by the LNP, the Liberal National Party government.
Melinda Richards: I mean, do you think this is a really big problem for the conservative movement in Australia? I just had Andrew Cooper on earlier today talking about CPAC, talking about where the conservative movements going in Australia, particularly in light of what’s just happened in the UK election. I mean, the digital ID has got to be something, hasn’t it, that that the politicians, the conservative politicians in Australia and the conservative citizens of Australia should now be rallying behind almost as strongly as they did with the Voice referendum. I mean we know with the positive outcome that happened there that when we do rally, when we do understand things, when we look a little deeper into what’s going on, we can actually get a great result.
Senator ROBERTS: You’re absolutely correct. And there are a few conservatives, true conservatives in the Liberal Party, but most of them are in One Nation and Libertarians these days.
Melinda Richards: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Alex Antic, for example, he drafted a bill that’s called, I think the Repeal Digital ID Bill. He invited genuine conservatives to cosign it and co-sponsor it. So, he invited me, Pauline Hanson, Ralph Babet, Gerard Rennick and Matt Canavan. And so, the six of us are all co-sponsors of the bill. And the bill’s very simple. It just says repeal the Digital ID bill – that’s it. And then there’s the consequential amendments, which is repealing any changes of the digital ID caused in other legislation. So, it can be done. You look at the Liberal National Party, Gerard Rennick is one of the best senators and he’s been put in an unwinnable position pre-selection. You look at the true conservatives, Kevin Andrews from Victoria – gone, not pre-selected. You look at the senators they’ve appointed recently, they’ve been from the left wing of the Liberal Party. You see Connie Fierravanti-Wells, Eric Abetz – genuine conservatives sidelined and taken out of federal politics. So, what we see now is a Liberal Party that is a clone of the worst parts of the Labor Party. You’ve got factions now within the Liberal Party, you’ve got very, very few Conservatives and so what we’ve got now is a Uni-Party and we know that every major energy bill, for example, climate and energy policy was introduced by the Liberal National Party, not the Labor Party. The Labor Party came in and ramped it up and that’s what they’ve done across the board.
Melinda Richards: Yeah, that’s right. And it’s been a shocking revelation for a lot of conservatives over the last probably 15 years or so that the conservative movement is not being represented by the Liberal Party, the Liberal National Party and this has been a bit of a wake up call for the conservative movement in Australia and certainly in the UK – they’ve woken up. It took them 3 elections. I think we need a strong conservative leader in this country to bring us back to some of our core values. And there are things that the conservative movement is going to have to, as I said earlier, grab a hold of and fight back pretty strongly. And the group of politicians you mentioned, Senator Roberts, you are the true heroes of our political movement at the moment in Australia because you are putting Australians first.
Thank you so much for joining me today, Senator Roberts. I certainly hope we can talk again very soon. You’re listening to Melinda Richards on TNT.
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