I’ve got a very simple goal – make it as cheap as possible to turn the lights on. Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese say we should comply with the Paris Agreement instead.
You can only trust One Nation to put Australia and your power bills first.
A pleasure to join Chris Smith on 2SM radio network to talk about putting more money back in Australians’ pockets.
One Nation has always stood up for making policy in the interests of Australians, not foreign unelected organisations.
Beware of false promises made by Liberals and Labor parties in an election campaign.
Only One Nation can be trusted to make the tough decisions needed to cut immigration so that Australians are put first.
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is currently struggling to attract young recruits. This issue has multiple facets. In this discussion, we discuss these challenges, along with topics like immigration and more.
Transcript
Mike McLaren: The ADF have problems, it seems, getting young people who want to join up the forces, whatever they are. Now, there’s various aspects to that, but I want to discuss it now with One Nation Centre for Queensland, Malcolm Roberts. Malcolm, good morning. Thank you for doing this.
Malcolm Roberts: Good morning Mike. Thank you for having me.
Mike McLaren: Now, one of the issues, it would seem, is that the idea of joining up the forces has been lumped into one, whereas experience shows with other countries, including our own, that it would be better to build on the traditions that the Navy has, the Air Force has, the military have. What do you think?
Malcolm Roberts: I agree with you. The Australian military, all the forces, the Navy, Air Force and Army have a fantastic record, each of them. And I learned from a couple of, very well, senior officers some time ago, that the key to the Australian Armed forces, each of the three departments separately, the key to each one of them is mateship and Australian values and that’s really important that the sense of tradition that comes with that. When you have that sense of tradition and the culture being reinforced, especially by leadership at the top, then you have that culture propagating itself and people want to come in. Now Mike, there is another problem. In addition to not being able to attract younger people, they’re losing a lot of older people.
Mike McLaren: Oh, yeah.
Malcolm Roberts: And the key is morale and the morale is low and why is the morale low? Because we are focusing on too much of this diversity, equity, inclusivity, nonsense and people can see that not everyone’s equal, but you’ve got to have some basic skills before you can get onto the front line. And the key to the Australian mateship is that everyone has a fine training standard and when they’re past that, you know that if you are next to me in the trench, you can count on me and I can count on you, the skills and the mateship, and that’s vital. But when you’re concerned about some of the people around you not being up to scratch because they went through, based upon DEI, not on merit, then that’s going to destroy that mateship. It’s going to destroy the reliability and that’s destroying the culture and it’s coming from the top of the armed forces. They’re eating away at the culture. They have no clue what they’re doing.
Mike McLaren: The whole concept of DEI does seem to be fading, particularly in the US. Whether it will fade as sharply here, I don’t know. But are we going to change do you think? Is the realisation upon us that DEI sounds nice but doesn’t deliver the result really?
Malcolm Roberts: DEI in the case of companies like Boeing and Qantas spells D-I-E, die, and it’s death. So merit has to be restored. In the United States, they’ve had some incidents and they’re waking up to that. And of course along comes Trump and says, “That’s it. No more.” What we’ve been doing with some of that DEI in the Senate is just ridiculing it and smashing it and people are starting to wake up. The Greens who are the foot soldiers for that international concept from the UN and the World United Forum, they’re now getting embarrassed when they push that DEI. So the tide is changing. Trump is going to be one foot on the accelerator and I think it’ll come the same with so many other things in society. Trump has said it’s okay to say that wind turbines are terrible. It’s okay to say that climate change is rubbish. It’s okay to say so many things now that only a few of us have spoken up about.
Mike McLaren: Yes, indeed. We were discussing the other day why it is that the ADF is having trouble recruiting and one of the elements that came into that discussion were patriotism, is it lacking? Somebody told me yesterday that the Gen Z’s don’t support the indicators of patriotism, for example, Australia Day, ANZAC Day. But I had a good look around and it seems to me that might’ve been the case a year or two ago, but that has turned and young people now really are supportive of, well, I guess, indicators of patriotism is the way I see it.
Malcolm Roberts: I think you’re spot on, Mike. There are two things that are fundamentally the foundations for organisation of human societies, human civilizations, and that’s the nation state and the family. The United Nations, as some of the senior people, admitted that they’re on a move to a long, decades-long move to put in place of one unelected socialist global governance. They want to destroy nation states. You can see it in immigration policies they’re pushing. You can see it in some of the other policies they’re pushing, their economic policies.
And we don’t have any need, any responsibility to comply with the UN. We should be sticking with standing up for Australia and sticking up with standing for families. We talked to men ago about the DEI. That is about breaking up families. The UN has admitted that. Now coming back to that, what we’ve seen is the people that are waking up to the fashion and the nonsense and truth is starting to come back to Australia in so many ways. People are realising it’s all crap.
Mike McLaren: Just on the business of how young people feel about the country, I think you make a good point when you say one of the reasons why young people might want to join one of the forces is because they want purpose in their life. And you can see that even with a lot of people that I think are misguided with the causes they pursue, they do that because they want some purpose in their life, don’t they?
Malcolm Roberts: Yes. Everyone wants purpose in our lives. The most switched on age and group in my opinion, from my experience, is the adolescent male. They are really switched on. The delinquents we see in most of our cities, and I mean all of our cities, in Queensland, provincial cities including Brisbane, the crime that we see being committed by young people and across the races and across the demographics, it’s not a racial thing, it’s not an income thing, it’s not whether you come from a rich family or a poor family, it’s a lack of meaning, lack of purpose. I mean, young children, they really are children. Young men, when they’re told that the world is going to end in five years because of global boiling and so many other things, and Covid is going to destroy you, all of this nonsense that, what’s to live for? What’s the purpose? So they go and have a bit of what they call fun. But what we’ve seen time and time again, the success rate of helping these people to find some meaning, find some purpose in life, is phenomenal. And once they find that meaning, find that purpose, then it really changes their lives and brings them back into society as contributors and caring. And that’s really far more powerful. A person who cares and considers other people is far more powerful and contributes to society is far more powerful than a delinquent smashing a car.
Mike McLaren: Oh indeed. And it’s much more satisfying for the individual.
Malcolm Roberts: Yes, much more. And one of the other things is that we’re bringing people in record numbers. At the moment when I say we, the Albanese government, and it’s something that the liberal party has done too. Liberal and Labour both pushed hard, heavy, massive immigration since John Howard doubled immigration during his term and he puts this on the big immigration agenda. The Labour Party has brought in close to one and a half million people in the last two years and kept about 1 million people, after you take away the people who’ve left. Now, we had 1.9 million people on temporary visas before Covid. We now have two and a half million people on temporary visas. And then Albanese said, you would only have high immigration. It’s actually catastrophic and massive migration. Young people, that migration has driven the demand for houses through the roof. Rents, people building new houses and people paying off an existing house, are becoming unaffordable, not becoming, they are unaffordable for young people and young people cannot see any possibility quite often of getting a house. How do you start a family when you haven’t got a house?
Mike McLaren: Indeed.
Malcolm Roberts: When you can’t even afford rent. It’s not just meaning and purpose, it’s also looking after family because the age to have a family is strong in most of us.
Mike McLaren: Indeed, yes, that’s a whole story in itself. In fact, if you want to come back on the programme, in the future, we might go into that a bit more because I’ve been looking at that myself, the replacement rate and what’s expected. And of course in the big cities, the story today is that everybody’s going to live in a shoebox. But I don’t know about you, I’m not Nostradamus, but I’ve seen that coming for quite a while now. Anyway, Malcolm, I do appreciate your comments and thank you for coming on the programme this morning.
Malcolm Roberts: You’re welcome, Mike and that’s why we’re advocating a pause, a cut in immigration and actually deporting lawbreakers, sending them home and deporting those who break the law. So I’m happy to come in and talk about immigration anytime you want. It is one of the major serious problems that are affecting housing prices in this country.
Mike McLaren: Oh, absolutely it is. And it’s very clear that the people do not want what the government is doing, but they keep doing it. Anyway, Malcolm, appreciate your time today. Thank you very much for that.
Malcolm Roberts: You’re welcome, Mike. Keep going.
Mike McLaren: Malcolm Roberts, One Nation senator for Queensland.
The evidence is in – protect our children from being given life-changing drugs and surgeries and make a ban on gender affirmation permanent and national, not just for a year.
Newspaper Article
BOVAER is a chemical additive that has been approved in Australia for feeding ruminants, including cows.
Bovaer is a trade name. The active substance is 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP), which is diluted in propylene glycol and adsorbed on silicic acid. The chemical suppresses methane production by 99% in laboratory trials, but only 45% in field trials, and 28% when used for 12 months. This suggests that either the animals develop resistance to the chemical, or the chemical degrades in storage.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030224005009
3-NOP is not approved for use in organic beef or milk in Australia, so those wishing to avoid the chemical can purchase organic products.
Bovaer itself is harmful if it comes into contact with human skin, and the Product Safety Sheet requires the use of personal protective equipment.
The amount of Bovaer used in cow feeding is very small. If used as directed, the product does not affect the animal and does not appear in meat or milk fat. Additionally, the animal consumes 5% less feed for the same output.
However, food.gov.uk conducted testing at levels above the recommended dose and found that at (double) the dose, effects identified included decreased ovary size. At five times the dose, the chemical WAS found in milk fat. Further research at higher levels was prevented by the premature slaughter of the animal, which is a red flag to One Nation.
Long-term genotoxicity testing concluded there was evidence of carcinogenicity in female rats. However, the makers hired “experts” to contest the result. There has been no attempt to determine the happiness of the animals, i.e. does consuming this chemical cause them any discomfort?
The primary purpose of the product is to reduce methane emissions. However, ruminants have been part of the ecosystem since time began and bovine methane actually helps the environment.
There is no reason to add this chemical to stockfeed, regardless of its safety. This product is nothing more than a fundraiser for climate carpetbaggers to create a billion-dollar industry for themselves where none existed and none is needed.
For these reasons, One Nation opposes the use of Bovaer.
Dengue fever is a viral illness spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito (known as the dengue mosquito in north Queensland). The dengue virus is not endemic in Australia, meaning the virus is not normally present in Australia.
Dengue fever outbreaks begin when someone is infected with dengue overseas and arrives with the virus in their blood. This is referred to as an imported case. When a local Aedes aegypti mosquito bites an infected person, it in turn becomes infected with the virus and can then transmit it to others through subsequent bites. These instances are known as locally acquired cases.
The dengue virus does not spread directly from person to person.
Catching different types of dengue, even years apart, increases the risk of developing severe dengue. Severe dengue causes bleeding and shock, and can be life-threatening. There have been deaths in Queensland from severe dengue. This is why a vaccine is problematic, because that relies on giving the subject the disease.
About Oxitec and Their Process
Oxitec’s genetically modified mosquitoes work by releasing sterile males into the wild to mate with females, which results in offspring that die in the larval stage. Oxitec’s mosquitoes are engineered with a self-limiting gene that produces a non-toxic protein that prevents their offspring from surviving to adulthood. The protein, called tTAV, disrupts the cell’s ability to function and prevents the insect from developing normally.
The gene can be switched off using amoxicillin, which allows the factory to breed the mosquitoes, then once in the wild, the amoxicillin wears off and the gene starts producing the protein again.
In short – it’s gene editing, hence the need for the application to the Office of the Gene Technology regulator.
Our CSIRO is a proponent | https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2024/december/csiro-oxitec-to-tackle-disease-spreading-mosquitoes-threatening-mainland-australia
“Launched today, Oxitec Australia is a collaboration between CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, and UK-based Oxitec Ltd, the leading developer of biological solutions to control pests.“
And look who is running the show – “Professor Brett Sutton, Director of Health & Biosecurity at CSIRO, said Oxitec Australia is now seeking partners to accelerate its activities and product development in Australia.”
When I said it was a template, this is confirmed in the CSIRO press release:
“This technology platform could also be used to develop solutions for a wide spectrum of pests that threaten livestock and crops and our food systems.”
Oxitec are running field trials on a fall armyworm with the same gene added, which is a moth not a mosquito. And it’s our money going into this so Estimates is fair game:
“Oxitec Australia is also developing an Aedes albopictus (Asian tiger mosquito) solution, with funding from CSIRO, to help prevent a major invasion risk to mainland Australia. “
Mosquito Performance in Brazil
Oxitec launched a year-long field trial in Indaiatuba, Brazil in 2018. The trial involved releasing Oxitec’s Friendly™ Aedes aegypti in four communities. The trial’s results included an average of 89% peak suppression in two communities treated with a low release rate of mosquitoes according to Oxitec. Brazil’s Dengue rate was low in 2018, and jumped up in 2019 and later. The locals are claiming a connection but there is no science around what that connection could be.
Gates Foundation however washed their hands of the Brazil Dengue escalation with this statement:
“A spokesperson at the Gates Foundation told AFP that the foundation ‘does not fund any of Oxitec’s work involving Aedes aegypti mosquito release in Brazil.’
NOT exactly a debunking of the controversy.
People are asking if the explosion in Dengue in Brazil the year after the trial was related, especially when the same thing happened after a similar trial for Zika. It is a question that should be addressed, although I do think it is not connected.
Florida 2021 – Nothing Went Wrong
Oxitec ran a controlled release in Florida in 2021. A kill rate of 90% was proven, with no known unintended consequences. HOWEVER, there was an increase in Dengue the following year and the same thing happened with the Zika test in Brazil. The reason this isn’t related is the genotype:
“We documented an unprecedented number of travel-associated and locally acquired DENV-3 cases in Florida during May 2022–April 2023; circulation of the DENV-3 genotype III was recently identified in the Americas. Our investigation illustrates that local transmission and spread in Florida was limited, despite multiple introductions from outside the country. Sequencing and phylogenetic analysis revealed that cases were from the same DENV-3 genotype III lineage and were highly related to one another and to cases identified in Puerto Rico, Arizona, and Brazil.”
So the outbreak was not spontaneous in the area of the trial, but was introduced from outside.
Dengue Vaccine and the Philippines Scandal
Sanofi Pasteur owns the Dengvaxia® vaccine – the first licensed dengue vaccine and available in more than 20 countries. It is registered with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia, but is not currently marketed here.
WIKIPEDIA: “The Philippine Department of Health began in 2016 a programme in three regions to vaccinate schoolchildren against dengue fever, using Dengvaxia supplied by Sanofi Pasteur. On 29 November 2017, Sanofi issued a caution stating that new analysis had shown that those vaccinated who had not previously been infected with dengue ran a greater risk of infection causing severe symptoms. On 1 December 2017, the Philippine DOH placed the programme on hold, pending review. Over 700,000 people had received at least one vaccination at that point.[11][12] Since the announcement by Sanofi, at least 62 children have died, allegedly after receiving a vaccination. The victims’ parents blamed the dengue vaccine for the deaths of their children.”
Most of the deaths were caused by internal bleeding in the heart, lungs and brain, which are symptoms of haemorrhagic dengue.
Sanofi announcement confirms facts:
Wikipedia with references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengvaxia_controversy
Is this an Attempt to Create a Disease Just to Sell the vaccine?
Comparison of death rates from the vaccinated and unvaccinated suggests the vaccine offers some benefit, but that is mostly based in areas and demographics where health services are poor. It is best answered by offering mobile health services in affected areas. This Australia can do, whereas maybe the Philippines can’t.
The vaccine is listed in Australia – but hasn’t been used. The Philippines incident was the last known use of the vaccine, and the victim’s court case is still underway. Given Sanofi’s admissions around the vaccine and WHO’s advisory that a serology test is needed before giving the vaccine to a person to ensure they haven’t had the disease before, I doubt this is a vaccine play.
The mRNA version of the vaccine was trialled and rejected in 2014 because it didn’t work. It’s not an attempt to feed work to Pfizer’s new mRNA factories in Australia. There are new vaccines coming through but they have the same problem – making the disease worse in people who have had it before.
Some Mosquitoes Replicate
4% of the mosquitoes in the Brazil test lived and replicated. No work appears to have been done on what happened to the offspring – were they normal or were they mutated and if so, what is the effect of that mutation?
Could a mutated progeny cause a mutation in the virus (Dengue, Zika, Yellow Fever, Malaria) which causes it to become more dangerous, infectious, etc. This is a major question to be answered – capturing and testing mosquitoes in the wild to look for mutations, and that work has not been done. It must be an element of the OGTR approval.
Mosquitoes have a life cycle of 7 – 10 days. Fall army worms (FAW) live 6 – 8 weeks, so they are present in the environment longer but not significantly so.
Cane Toad Disaster at Risk of Repeating
Australia desperately needs housing and population policies that prioritise Australians FIRST. Both the Liberal-Labor uni-party have been implementing massive immigration, opening the floodgates despite making Australians homeless.
Australia has reached a record 2.43 million temporary visa holders, excluding tourists, which translates to a need for up to a million extra houses.
During COVID, when our borders were closed, rental vacancies near universities increased, showing that fewer international students mean more homes for Australians. The truth is, some universities and private education/training providers are abusing the system, using student visas as a backdoor for work rights, and eventually staying in Australia permanently. Many on student visas work full-time illegally and send money back home, with remittances hitting a record $11 billion in 2023. The claim that international students are a major export is a lie, as most work to support themselves here.
Until housing and infrastructure catch up, immigration needs to be dropped to zero and we have to ban foreign ownership. You can only trust One Nation to put Australians first.
Transcript
Thank you to Senator Pocock for raising this issue. Australia desperately needs housing and population policies that work for Australians. The Labor government has no coherent or practical policies. Both chiefs of the Liberal-Labor unity party have been implementing massive immigration. It’s essentially: ‘Open the floodgates to arrivals, no matter how many Australians are made homeless.’ We need a policy that does the opposite and puts Australians first.
Australia just hit a record level of temporary visa holders. Excluding tourists and other short-stay visitors, temporary visa holders in the country now number 2.43 million people. This blows the previous record of 1.9 million out of the water. That’s up to a million extra houses needed for these people. And 680,000 of these are international students—another record. This is putting untold pressure on the housing crisis. When the borders were closed during COVID, nearly all suburbs close to universities experienced higher rental vacancy rates. That means that when international students couldn’t come into the country there were more homes available for Australians. Now, who would have thought?
The truth is that some universities and private vocational education and training providers are completely abusing the system. A student visa is more often seen as a backdoor way to get working rights in Australia and eventually staying here forever. Hundreds of thousands of people on temporary student visas end up illegally working full-time hours and sending the money back to their home country. Personal remittance flows out of Australia almost perfectly correlate with the number of student visa holders in the country. On the latest figures in 2023, the transfer of money out of Australia hit a record $11 billion—out of the country. We can only assume that it has increased since then.
A particular lie is being peddled in this debate. That lie is that international students are one of Australia’s largest exports, at $40 billion a year. That figure assumes an international student arrives here on day one with all their money for course fees, rent, food and transport bills, and other spending already saved in their bank account. In reality most students end up working here for the money to support themselves and sending the remainder back home. The claim that international students are one of our biggest exports is simply not true because it is does not align with reality. Until housing and infrastructure catch up, One Nation will drop net immigration to zero.
There’s only one party that can be trusted to put Australia first.
Don’t believe the pretenders in the Liberal-Nationals who want to let unelected foreign organisations tell us what to do under net-zero.
At the recent senate estimates in November, I spoke with Dr Antonio Di Dio, Director of Professional Review Services, asking why the current system was still biased against doctors. He denied this was the case, even though the agency maintains a 100% conviction rate of doctors in a system that does not allow merit appeals or the ability to challenge the facts used against a doctor.
Dr Di Dio conceded that the agency had not undergone a review, despite it being suggested many years ago during an inquiry. Senator Gallagher added that a review was unnecessary, asserting that the system was functioning well, despite evidence to the contrary.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Thank you for being here. Annual reports of the PSR, directed to the health minister, make no attempt whatsoever to disguise the fact that PSR operates in part as a debt recovery system from doctors of Medicare funds. Given that admissions have earlier been made before Senate estimates that committees are not chaired by a judge, that merit review on appeal is not allowed, and that no cross-examination of the committee’s case ever occurs, why is it not reasonable to conclude that PSR operates similarly to a robodebt scheme for doctors, with doctors who’ve come before it having as little meaningful defence as did robodebt’s victims?
Dr Di Dio: That’s certainly not my view. When a practitioner is referred to PSR, a small minority of them are referred to a PSR committee. Last year it was 12 out of 109 referrals. When a practitioner appears before a PSR committee, the committee process is one in which peers interview and discuss with the practitioner under review whether or not, in their view, inappropriate practice has occurred. At every stage of that committee process, numerous times per day, the committee may say, ‘We have found preliminary concerns with this matter and invite your response.’ In other words, the entire process is made up of taking into account the practitioner’s response, over and over again. Furthermore, the practitioner, of course, is invited to bring their legal representative. In terms of a merits review, there is no formal merits review process as that term is commonly known. However, there are opportunities during and after the committee process to respond to the committee’s findings. For example, at the end of a committee, despite having opportunities to respond verbally all through the process, the practitioner under review also is invited, either themselves or through their legal representative, to make final comments about anything that has come up during the committee process. Furthermore, after the committee process is completed, there is a draft report issued by the committee to the practitioner under review, inviting comment and submissions to that draft report. So those committee findings are still deemed preliminary findings, because they are still awaiting further response and information from the practitioner under review.
Senator ROBERTS: That sounds wonderful, but it does not discuss the fact that the PSR’s case cannot be scrutinised in terms of evidence. You omit that. Why do you repeatedly omit that? Every time we come to Senate estimates, you omit that. That’s fundamental to justice.
Dr Di Dio: The PSR process is one in which, in order to elicit whether or not inappropriate practice has occurred, people’s medical records are reviewed.
Senator ROBERTS: But your data is not open to scrutiny; your case is not open to scrutiny. The facts cannot be disputed—cannot even be challenged.
Mr Topperwien: There are no facts found until the end of the committee process. There are no findings of fact until after the committee process, after all of the evidence has come in. Yes, the committee receives billing data from Medicare, but that’s open to inquiry and investigation as to how accurate that is, and that comes up often in hearings as to whether that data is accurate. And it’s open, then, for the practitioner to put on evidence to counter that data. And that happens regularly at committee hearings. The hearing is an investigation. It isn’t a prosecution. So the committee is inquiring into the information that the committee has already received in the way of the billing data and gets the patient records to see how they match up to what’s been billed as to whether the doctor has fulfilled their obligation to keep adequate and contemporaneous notes of what they did, and to then investigate, ‘What was this practitioner’s conduct in connection with the provision of these services?’ It’s only after they’ve conducted a full inquiry investigation, asked lots of questions, and looked at all of the evidence, that they then may find facts, which may show that the doctor has engaged in inappropriate conduct.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll come back. I don’t want an answer to this just yet, but I want to say that there has never been a comprehensive review of the process, despite a 2011 Senate inquiry saying there should be a comprehensive review within 12 months. So let me continue. Many of the annual reports of the PSR director, to the health minister, contain the assertion that the goals for care planning must accord with the acronym SMART, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based—notwithstanding that no explicit allusion to specific SMART goals appears in the care planning MBS descriptor. Given that, essentially, all doctors who appear before PSR committees who do care plans are found guilty, and given that merit review of the committee’s case is never allowed, how can the committee’s finding of all doctors’ care plans as being unacceptable be valid?
Mr Topperwien: The committee examines random samples, usually, of the practitioner’s care plans. The practitioners who are examining those are practitioners who themselves do care plans. They are experts in what the general body of their specialty or profession do in their practice. And the reality is the law requires adequate records to be kept, and care plans that are meaningful. And, quite often, the sorts of care plans that committees see are blank templates. There’s nothing in them other than the patient’s name with goals that are totally meaningless. And so those sorts of care plans are ones on which they will find, ‘This is not a care plan that’s adequate and of any use to this patient. It is not a clinically relevant service that’s been provided.’
Dr Di Dio: Senator, if it helps, I do care plans every couple of weeks in my practice. I could take you through what one should like. But I think what you really want to know is: this is a peer review scheme, and so what the people on committees determine is what the general body of peers would be considering is appropriate or not.
Senator ROBERTS: This is an apparent peer review scheme, but it’s not. You claimed in the past that it is peer reviewed, and we’ve given examples where it’s not. Your predecessor, I think, offered to have a conversation with me—on the basis that it was not to discuss a specific doctor’s case; he made that clear. I accepted that offer straightaway, and I said, ‘That’s no problem at all.’ Soon after, he left. So we’ve never had that. Would you be willing to give us a briefing and have an exchange on that?
Dr Di Dio: I think you’ll find that the person who had that conversation with you was me, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: No, it wasn’t.
Dr Di Dio: Right. Well, Senator, I can further discuss—
Senator ROBERTS: Are you willing to have a meeting with us and give us a briefing?
Dr Di Dio: Senator, in order for me to do that, I need to get the appropriate permissions from my own minister, but, should that be the case, I would be very pleased to discuss with you or anybody else how the PSR system works—on the condition, of course, that it does not discuss any particular case or any particular practitioner. I can refer to some correspondence that I’ve had with you about this in the past, if you wish.
Senator ROBERTS: Sure.
Dr Di Dio: We most recently corresponded with you on 21 March of this year and confirmed that we’d offered to meet with you in the context of providing general information about the PSR scheme and would happily provide that general information, and additionally on any questions you may have on procedural fairness. We said the discussion would not be able to include any specific matter or case before us and that I was not able to meet with any other person being reviewed or their legal representative or anyone else.
Senator ROBERTS: Does that still apply?
Dr Di Dio: Well, yes, because—
Senator ROBERTS: Good. Okay, let’s accept it, and we’ll set up a date.
Dr Di Dio: Well, nice to hear back from you, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: Good. Many doctors, and all the medical defence organisations, complain emphatically that committees routinely make up rules in passing their judgement. Why is this not solid evidence of dysfunction, injustice and systemic injustice?
Dr Di Dio: I meet regularly with the medical defence organisations, most recently less than two weeks ago, and I present regularly to thousands of doctors in toto, various colleges and representative groups. That is not the impression that I get, talking to hundreds of doctors around the country. We attempt to do what we exist to do, which is to protect the Commonwealth from paying from inappropriate health care and to protect citizens from potential harms from inappropriate health care through a process that we consider to be as fair as possible.
Senator ROBERTS: And we applaud that. We just want procedural fairness and justice. Minister, when will this government review this broken system? It’s got to be changed.
Senator Gallagher: Well, I don’t accept that it is broken, Senator Roberts. That’s your assertion. The department provides advice to the minister about the operations of all parts of the health portfolio, and we are very confident in the processes and the leadership that’s being provided through the Professional Services Review system.
Senator ROBERTS: There’s been no review since the 2011 Senate inquiry saying there should be a comprehensive review within 12 months—no review. Clearly, it was a problem back then.
Ms Shakespeare: Senator, there have been reviews of aspects of the PSR scheme on several occasions since then. I am happy to—
Senator ROBERTS: Could I have, on notice, those reviews and the dates, please, and the topics and the scope?
Ms Shakespeare: Certainly.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair.
Malcolm’s Fight
Casual Coal Wage TheftFebruary 21, 2024 - 2:09 pmOver $30,000 a year being stolen, and it’s been signed off by the union and the government. Find out about the largest wage theft from casuals in Australia.
My Other IssuesFebruary 16, 2021 - 12:08 pm
Murray Darling BasinMarch 23, 2020 - 3:05 am
Foreign OwnershipOctober 16, 2019 - 4:58 am
Property rightsOctober 16, 2019 - 4:39 am
United Nations #AUSEXITOctober 16, 2019 - 2:31 am