Labor has been caught red-handed with a cheat sheet to circumvent democracy. The media has received a leaked copy of a manual from the office of the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. This clearly shows more damning evidence that Labor is seeking ways to side-step the responsibility and accountability of government.
Instead of respecting the role and powers of the Senate, the Prime Minister’s Office sends out a secret manual on side-stepping senate estimates’ questions.
This is nothing less than contempt of the senate from the PM’s office and reveals premeditated attempts at concealing the truth from the Australian people. This is a government that talks up transparency while writing the ‘How-To’ guide on hiding the facts. We will review this in more detail and will provide a detailed response on the manual.
Transcript
I speak to this motion to take note. I have yet to read the document in full and in detail, yet its existence is very disturbing, as other speakers have already said. At Senate estimates, Anthony Albanese’s office is putting words in the mouths of department heads. How can we trust their answers? We cannot trust this government. Repeatedly we’re getting the suppression of democracy—repeatedly—and we’re seeing arrogance. Let’s have a look at some data, and then I’ll come back to talking more about this document.
As of the end of December 2023—7 December, specifically—after 94 Senate sitting days in the 47th Parliament, Anthony Albanese’s parliament, 14 guillotine motions have been agreed to. Under the previous Morrison government, in the 46th Parliament, 14 guillotine motions were agreed to. Now we start to see the difference. A total of 87 bills have been subject to the guillotine in the 47th Parliament under the Labor-Greens-teals-Pocock coalition led by Anthony Albanese. In the 46th Parliament, under the Morrison Liberals, there were 59. So we have seen almost 50 per cent more under this government, under the coalition that Labor formed with the teals, Senator Pocock and the Greens, quite often with Senator Jacqui Lambie’s support.
They promised transparency and accountability. Instead we get the suppression of democracy, repeatedly. Arrogance—that’s what we say it is. Arrogance. We see that the suppression of democracy is a form of control.Always beneath control there is fear. Of what is the Albanese Labor-Greens-teals-Pocock coalition afraid? It’s afraid of truth and afraid, fundamentally, of an informed citizenry. They don’t want people to know.
The media has seen copies of the document. ‘The PMO’s secret manual on sidestepping Senate estimates questions’—that’s the headline in Capital Brief. The article says:
Capital Brief has seen a document sent by Anthony Albanese’s office advising departments on how to handle questions on notice from Senate estimates. Current and former senators say the edict represents contempt of the Senate.
Contempt of the Senate is a very serious matter. Another article in Capital Brief says:
Current and former senators, lawyers and a former top judge have said the drafting of the document could result in contempt of the Senate. … …
Anthony Albanese’s office has stood by a document it issued to senior bureaucrats which advised them how to sidestep Senate estimates questions on the basis that inquiries have “skyrocketed” since Labor came to government.
Well, that’s your job! I don’t care if they have skyrocketed. We’ll keep asking questions. I’ll get to the Prime Minister’s office’s manual—what we’ve seen of it so far; I haven’t dissected it.
When the interests of several departments are involved, the Government Guidelines for Official Witnesses before Parliamentary Committees and Related Matters call for departments to consult with other departments as part of the drafting process. This includes instances where the same or similar Senate estimates questions on notice are asked of all or multiple departments and agencies. Why are you worried about different answers from different departments? Look at some of the topics covered—well, we’ll go through that another time.
I know this is not a motion by leave to seek a variation of standing orders, but One Nation normally opposes them because the Senate should be focused, firstly, on Senate responsibilities and, secondly, on government business. We want the government to govern. Senate estimates, though, are a vital part of holding governments and bureaucrats accountable for taxpayer funds. Why do you hide from that? Anthony Albanese’s department wants to hide the truth from the people.
We have seen the Fair Work Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman stumbling through an answer to my questions attempting to get to the bottom of their complicity with the CFMEU and major multinational labour hire firms in stealing $30,000 to $40,000 per miner each year from thousands of casual miners in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley. They hide the facts wilfully. The Fair Work Ombudsman office relies on fraud, repeatedly.
The Labor minister for workplace relations ignores and diverts. It’s embarrassing for departments. We look forward to reviewing the formerly secret document in detail, because democracy is at stake.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/ki6XPZvIIyo/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-05-24 11:55:032024-05-24 11:55:06Labor’s Guide on How to Avoid Answering Questions in Senate Estimates
What happened to having vision for the future in this country?
You won’t get it from the Liberal and Labor Uni-party whilst they’re beholden to their donors.
Check out One Nation’s breakdown of the budget and how we would return Australia to leading the world.
Transcript
This is One Nation’s response to Labor’s Budget.
My comments will be in two parts.
Firstly, an analysis of what Treasurer Jim Chalmers has put into and left out of the budget.
Secondly, what a One Nation budget would look like to return Australia into a prosperous country again.
Starting with the measures in Labor’s budget for next year, 2024/25.
Treasurer Chalmers wants everyone to know about his surplus for THIS year 2023/24.
Yet his budget released two days ago for this coming year starting in less than two months aims to be a DEFICIT for 2024/25
Many Australians might not even know what a surplus is.
A surplus simply means that within a given year the Government is spending less than it’s income. It spends less than what it takes off Australians.
Usually that’s a good thing.
Like any Australian household, government shouldn’t be spending more than it has – that’s a deficit.
Treasurer Chalmer’s surplus of $9.3 billion isn’t a happy story, though.
It sounds like a big number until you compare it to the total budget spend: $683 billion dollars.
Unfortunately, given Treasurer Chalmers’ amazing run of good luck this budget surplus is terrifyingly small.
It would be like a family winning division 1 of Powerball and having $100 left over at the end of the year—and calling it a win!
There should be rivers of gold flowing into the budget.
Instead, we have a miserable trickle because Labor can’t resist spending every bit of its lottery winnings.
Commodity prices for our exports like oil, gas, coal, metal minerals and agricultural produce have all been near or at record highs over the recent few years.
That means huge amounts of extra money flowed into Treasurer Chalmers’s budget.
‘Oil’, ‘gas’ and ‘coal’ are all dirty words to this Labor government and its Greens partners. And they’re too embarrassed to admit mining and agriculture have, largely, saved the budget.
The second lottery win for the government is Australian workers.
They’re working more jobs, longer hours and harder than ever.
All of the extra work shows up in the record-low unemployment rate.
That means more taxes from hardworking Australians are going into the budget coffers than ever before—a record. RECORD tax taken from Australians.
That’s the story of this budget: three years of some of the largest tax intakes government has ever recorded, yet Labor can only squeak out the tiniest of surpluses.
From this year on the deficits return. Tens and tens of billions of dollars in the red each year as far as we can see. Going deeper into debt.
The Federal Government’s debt is due to reach nearly 700 billion dollars in coming years.
At the rate this government is going our children’s children will not repay it.
Despite working multiple jobs for more hours helping the government’s bottom line, Australians are still going backwards because of inflation.
Inflation is the secret debilitating stealth tax on all Australians.
It’s the reason Australia had the largest collapse of disposable income in the OECD.
If you feel like you’re going backwards, it’s because you are.
Inflation is leading to tax bracket creep.
That means you’re earning more while your money is worth less yet you’re paying more tax overall.
As your income rises with inflation, it takes you into a higher tax rate bracket.
The government takes more money from you through bracket creep because of inflation.
No wonder they voted against my amendment that would have removed bracket creep. My amendment would have removed the stealth tax.
The government is fudging the inflation numbers, making it appear better than the price increases you’re actually paying in the real world.
When they hand out energy and rent relief, it artificially lowers the inflation figures.
This is just papering over the inflation. It does nothing to actually fix it.
Economists across the country have slammed Treasurer Chalmers trickery on this.
Without rent assistance the CPI for rents would haver increased 9.5% in the 12 months to March.
Instead because of Treasurer Chalmers’ trickery it was recorded as just 7.8%.
The cost of electricity has gone up 15% in just a year. The bill relief is papering over that, showing up in the CPI as just 2%.
This is a clear, huge admission of failure of the net zero pipe-dream
With the most amount of wind, solar and batteries on the grid than ever before in history, Treasurer Chalmers must hand out another round of power bill relief – because prices are too expensive.
The inflation fight isn’t over for Australians who are still going backwards.
This budget will pour more fuel on the inflation fire.
There are only a few ways to genuinely reduce inflation:
First, never repeat the mistake of printing $500 billion out of thin air over COVID.
That created much of the inflation we’re fighting – as the former head of the Reserve Bank agreed to me.
Second, reduce the cost of energy: Abandoning the net-zero pipe dream.
While net-zero is pushing up power prices we’ll never get rid of inflation.
Thirdly, cut the amount of visa holders in the country now driving huge demand.
That’s not just a cut to the rate of immigration as this budget proposes, it needs to be negative, and people need to leave. As I’ll explain later.
Finally, make investments in productive infrastructure to increase the productive capacity of our country. Assets like dams, power infrastructure, ports and rail lines.
That’s called supply side economics. Improve productivity.
That’s how inflation can be cut. Not with trickery. Improving real productivity.
The next feature item of the Labor Budget is their Future Made In Australia plan.
This is a vague, unclear collection of weird policy ideas like a billion dollar computer and outright scams for a total of $22.7 billion dollars.
This will supposedly turn Australia into what they call a Green Superpower for wind, solar, so-called green hydrogen and other scams.
The government will use that money to pick losers that have failed to attract any investment from anyone with common sense in the real world.
This is a “Disaster made in Australia” Plan.
China manufactures and tightly controls more than 90% of all of the critical parts of wind and solar power.
Wind and solar make us completely reliant on China for our energy needs, Labor’s Future Made in Australia will only make that reliance worse.
There’s no reason to become reliant on wind and solar due to our abundance of oil, gas, coal and uranium in this country.
We’re the most resource rich country in the world.
Why would we spend tens of billions ignoring that and handing over control to China?
The Future Made in Australia plan is really a Future Made in China plan.
This effectively sets up an unsustainable model of business practice which relies on taxpayer subsidies for any meagre profit.
What a waste of Australian taxes.
Next the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the NDIS.
If left unchecked, the NDIS is going to eat this entire country alive.
Originally budgeted to only cost $25 billion a year, it will reach $90 billion a year within a decade.
Minister Bill Shorten says he can cap the growth at 8% a year. Yet it’s been growing at 14%.
Providers often charge NDIS double or even triple the price for the exact same services.
This draws carers to NDIS and drives huge worker shortages in aged care and childcare.
The huge NDIS money sink has certainly contributed to this.
The NDIS program has been a national shame with unconscionable budget blowouts, widespread rorting, use of taxpayer money for prostitutes and cruises and other scandals, And causes neglect of genuine disability cases.
At some point it’s time for Australia to agree this scheme can’t be fixed and it’s time to start fresh. Send it back to the states to enable competitive federalism that is proven to drive efficiency and accountability.
Let’s move on to the Future Drought Fund – $519 million dollars. Again seems a great headline. Just don’t read the detail.
That money will be split over 8 years meaning just a tiny $65 million for an industry worth more than $90 billion a year to Australia.
There’s only one real form of drought relief: WATER.
There’s not a drop of money in this budget towards a real dam.
To get cheaper groceries, we have to grow more of them.
We have some of the best farmers, in combination with the best soils and climate in the world.
Add water, and Australians won’t have to worry about grocery bills again.
A vital part of this budget is the forecasts for net overseas immigration.
That’s how many new people the government expects to take into the country.
Australia’s net overseas migration was 528,000 in the 2022 to 2023 financial year, a historic record, nearly double the previous record. Double.
That’s like adding a new Canberra to Australia, in one go. Without the political swamp.
That’s almost one and a half (1.3) Sunshine Coasts imported into Australia in just 12 months.
The Labor government claims this figure will decrease to 260,000 a year in 2025-2026, still far too much.
It’s a prediction, and like any Labor prediction, don’t bet your house on it.
Back in October 2022, 4 months into the 12 months they were predicting, the government said net overseas migration would be 235,000.
Just 8 months later, the 528,000 figure blew their forecasts out of the water.
Way more than double. Was it supreme incompetence? Or a lie?
We’ll wait and see if their prediction of 395,000, an entire Sunshine Coast added to the population, for this financial year turns out to be true.
If it’s not clear, no Australian should trust what a government says when it comes to immigration numbers.
It’s claimed that the country is ‘just catching up’ after a slow down in immigration. That’s a lie.
It’s a lie that’s causing a housing crisis, making Australians homeless and feeding inflation.
Prior to COVID, there were 1.9 million foreign temporary visa holders in the country likely to require housing.
Today, there are 2.3 million. That’s 400,000 more people in the country that are fighting Australians for a roof over their head and groceries at the supermarket.
Why? To inflate GDP to get out of the per-capita recession. To look good not do good. Labor doesn’t care about the homeless its causing.
That’s driven the massive crisis in the rental vacancy rate and huge increases in rents.
This Labor government wants to keep adding to that, another 395,000 predicted this financial year, plus 260,000 the following.
We don’t have enough houses to put these people in.
We don’t have enough houses to put Australians in.
We don’t have enough tradies to build enough houses to keep up with this many arrivals.
We need to start deporting some visa holders.
Net immigration needs to go negative until Australians have got an affordable roof over their head.
Perhaps the most important item is something that’s completely missing from this budget.
There’s not a single dollar allocated for a Royal Commission into the COVID response.
Millions of Australians were forced to lock down in their homes. Forced to take an experimental medical product. Businesses were ruined. Children’s educations ruined.
What’s the Labor government’s response? Silence.
One Nation will continue to fight for a COVID Royal Commission and for perpetrators of human rights abuses to be thrown in jail.
That covers some of the things that are in, and aren’t in, Labor’s budget.
Now I want to talk about a better way, what Australia could look like as a prosperous nation under a One Nation budget.
Here are things you won’t hear from anyone in a budget, except One Nation – because we’ve got the guts to say what you’re thinking.
Firstly, guarantee affordable power: turn the coal fired power stations back on. Build more of them and remove solar and wind subsidies.
It’s the only thing that can save us right now.
Cheap power is a matter of life and death for Australians as many of them are facing the wall in this cost of living crisis.
Nuclear should be on the table and we should simply let the cheapest power win – no handouts or subsidies.
$500 billion dollars was concocted out of nowhere during the COVID response.
That’s a major cause of the inflation we’re still fighting today.
The Former Governor of the Reserve Bank, Phillip Lowe, the culprit behind that money printing, even agreed with me on that.
Thirdly, we’ll guarantee cheaper houses, cheaper rents, and get young people into their first home.
Don’t just cut net overseas migration – start deporting some visa holders.
Prior to COVID there were 1.9 million visa holders who needed housing, fighting Australians for a roof over their head.
That’s now increased to 2.3 million today, plus 400,000 tourists and others.
And, we’ll ban foreigners from buying Australian property. They’re currently snapping up nearly 1 in 10 new Aussie homes.
We’ll convert the Labor government’s designed-to-fail Housing Future Fund and turn it into the People’s Mortgage Fund, issuing fixed rate 5% mortgages.
Fourthly, get cheaper groceries: build dams and help farmers produce tonnes of fresh, healthy produce for Australians.
Give farmers water and the right to use their land – we’ll never have to worry about grocery bills again.
Fifthly, use all of our natural resources we have right here for Australians first.
There’s no need to become a green superpower, and we never will.
We’re already an oil, gas, coal and uranium superpower.
Government won’t do this because some foreign unelected organisation in Zurich will claim we’re not ‘complying with our international obligations’.
Governments of both sides have forgotten that their first obligation is to AUSTRALIANS. No one else.
One Nation knows this.
Finally, we must have comprehensive tax reform.
The current system is highly destructive to our country and wholesale change must be made.
We’ll put our trust in Australia’s people, release them from the nanny state that tells them everything they can and can’t do, and enable people to abound and flourish.
That’s our promise of what would be a One Nation budget:
Putting truth, Australia, and Australians first to ensure prosperity like we’ve never seen.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/otIbhjj4iLk/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-05-23 16:36:002024-05-24 08:18:06This is What an Actual Vision for Australia Looks Like
Queensland residents can’t find a home because there are simply more people than homes. Our hospitals are ramping because there are too many patients and not enough healthcare staff, and the number of kids in Queensland classrooms are rising not falling, despite many parents opting to home school.
The COVID response era actually provided a great opportunity to catch up on building infrastructure while immigration was frozen and people were out of jobs. Instead the government paid people to stay at home and NOT contribute to or build social infrastructure.
I asked Minister Watt, who is a Queenslander himself, if the Government opened the floodgates on immigration without the necessary social infrastructure being ready. His answer confirmed the government has not done the sums on the impacts of our record level of immigration and, quite honestly, is not fit to govern.
Transcript
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Senator Watt) to a question without notice I asked today relating to social infrastructure.
For three years, from 2020 to 2022, with the nation mostly out of work, we had an opportunity to catch up on social infrastructure: hospitals, schools, transport, water and housing. Instead, we paid money that could have been used to build those things to people to sit at home and not build those things. It was a trillion dollar wasted opportunity. With a new Labor government in power, the immigration floodgates then opened without the social infrastructure to accommodate the new arrivals. What’s worse is that there are not enough land re-zonings, building applications, approvals and starts to ever make a noticeable improvement in housing.
The Albanese government created a problem it cannot solve. Australia needs to get a refund on that plan we heard so much about from the Prime Minister in the last election because it’s a dud. It’s not up to the minister in his answer to blame the previous government repeatedly. For three years a so-called National Cabinet of Liberal and Labor leaders ran the country, so failure is on both your hands. It’s true that the neglect of social infrastructure goes back through 30 years of Liberal and Labor governments—the uniparty.
The message from the last two weeks of elections in Queensland and Tasmania is simple. Voters worked out the link between immigration and social infrastructure and voters are not happy. Voters are angry with Minister Watt and the Albanese government for creating a housing crisis that’s rapidly escalated to now be a human catastrophe. The public are noticing the disparity between those benefiting from the property market and those falling behind. It now takes everyday Australians on a median salary up to 14 years to save for a deposit for their own home. The housing crisis the Morrison government started and the Albanese government multiplied is disenfranchising the young. The irony is that the Labor government—supposedly, once the party of the workers—is making inequality of wealth far worse. Before the thread of social cohesion unravels in this country, this government must turn off the immigration tap and start building social infrastructure.
As a Scientist and former vet school Dean, Professor Rose became concerned that critical information about SARs-CoV2 virus and COVID-19 vaccines was not being reported by mainstream media.
We discussed how the world and particularly Australia changed with the arrival of COVID and how the population seems to have forgotten the drastic restrictions that were put on our freedoms. We also discussed what, if any, lessons were learned.
Reuben received a notice from YouTube that he had “breached community guidelines” and the link to his channel can no longer be accessed.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/yxRWoySJHOY/hqdefault.jpg360480Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-05-23 16:34:182024-05-23 16:34:23A Chat with Emeritus Professor Reuben Rose | Sons of Issachar
Finally! After 5 plus years of calling out dodgy CFMEU union bosses, Labor and the Fair Work Commission, the Senate has backed my call for an investigation into the biggest wage theft in the coal sector.
The industrial relations community was staggered last week when Australia’s senators voting on a show of voices – no one asked for a formal vote – decided to demand that the government investigate what is potentially the nation’s biggest wage underpayment scandal.
If shown to be correct, the alleged underpayment of New South Wales and Queensland coal miners will involve repayment of more than $100 million.
When I first disclosed this scandal, I called on ALP politicians and other supporters of the CFMEU and Fair Work Commission in the parliament to set aside their links and think of what happened to the coal miners. And that’s exactly what the senators did. Full marks. Now the Senate must make sure the government carries out their instructions in a proper manner.
Some years ago, a small group of coal miners came to me telling him that they believed they were not being paid correctly. I have worked tirelessly to discover that thousands of NSW and Queensland coal miners had worked long hours underground for over a decade as casual labour, but did not receive the 25 per cent “casual” premium workers all over Australia receive.
Why? That’s one question that I want to ask repeatedly in this speech. I see the government’s changes as a welcome step, but it’s a tiny, tiny step and we need many, many more. It could be one of my footprints, Senator Ayres! We see the government’s previous tax changes. They weren’t cuts; they were changes. As a result of those changes, we will see the government increase revenue by about $38 billion over the next four years—so much for tax cuts. They’re tax changes that will lead to an increase in tax for mums and dads.
Why are politicians scared of tax reform, and why do they place the burden on families and individuals to pay tax and let multinationals off the hook? Why are politicians scared of tax reform, but they continue tinkering with the system to affect mums and dads, who end up by paying, by far, the lion’s share of tax in this country? Why did Senator Sharma, in a very good speech, say that he wants to end bracket creep and the Liberals want end to bracket creep, yet, three weeks earlier, they voted against ending bracket creep with my amendment? They want enduring bracket creep. Why do the Labor Party say they want to end bracket creep—I remember Senator Gallagher said at the time, ‘We want to end bracket creep’—but vote against it? My amendment to abolish bracket creep once and for all was defeated.
Why is taxation not transparent? I’ll tell you why. It’s so that governments can continue to steal money from families to pay for their uncosted bribes. The Senate and the House of Representatives have turned into auction blocks using taxpayers’ money to buy votes. That’s what they’ve turned into. That’s how the governments of this country work, the uniparty of Labor and the Liberals. Why is the uniparty looking for new ways to tax people? Cars and utes—the foundations for tradies—are now going to be taxed. Clothing is going to be taxed under the Labor Party. Food will be taxed with a new biosecurity levy. Inflation was caused by the Labor and Liberal uniparty during the COVID response—the COVID mismanagement. State premiers were largely Labor, and the federal Prime Minister was Liberal-National. Inflation is a tax, especially on the poor and those with low incomes. Inflation is a huge tax burden. Greenwashing requires corporations to buy carbon dioxide credits. How do they pass the costs on? They pass them on in the form of higher prices.
Why do they require diversity, equity and inclusion and ESG reporting, which are ridiculous and unfounded? No-one has provided the evidence for that policy. It’s a compliance tax. Where will the cost of that compliance tax go? Onto the things that mums and dads and families pay for. Whole departments have been created in corporations, and that adds to the prices families have to pay. Why more tinkering? Why more complexity and less productivity? Think about the behaviours this drives with regard to allocation of resources and the behaviour of executives and decision-makers. Why is it that every problem in this country comes out of this building, like housing and excessive immigration, which is putting inhuman catastrophic pressures on people now? People are living in tents, cars, caravans, out in the street and under bridges in Brisbane in one of the richest states in the world. This is happening in our regional cities right up and down the east coast of Queensland. It’s a long coast. The Murray-Darling Basin is a disaster. It’s climate fraud, a lie and a scam. It’s a hoax. Stealing farmers’ property rights—the Liberal-National government did that from 1997 to 2007.
We’re still living with COVID mismanagement. I had a gentleman in my office today who is vaccine injured. It’s been stated by doctors We had to turn the lights off because of the glare. He couldn’t look straight at the windows. He had to look down. This was a vibrant healthy person now with COVID vaccine damage. He’s almost incapacitated. This was a lively human being now pulled up.
We’re still living with the COVID mismanagement. There’s inflation from the money supply, as I mentioned. There’s inflation from crippling the supply chains during the COVID restrictions. Crippling our supply chains led to higher prices.
Senator Bilyk: President, I raise a point of order on relevance. We’re here to speak about the Treasury Law Amendment (Making Multinationals Pay Their Fair Share—Integrity and Transparency) Bill 2023. Not once has the senator mentioned anything to do with that bill, and it’s been five minutes. I’m just wondering if you could draw to the attention—
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Polley): Thank you, Senator Bilyk. I will remind Senator Roberts of the topic, but as you and other senators know, it’s a broad-ranging debate.
Senator ROBERTS: For those senators with poor hearing, let me say again: we support this bill. That’s what I opened with. We support this bill—I’ll repeat it. I said that.
I’ve just laid down a litany of problems that are coming from this building in betrayal of the people in this country, my fellow Australians. I’m now getting to the point of that betrayal. The most destructive system in government under the uniparty for the last 70 years has been the taxation system. It focuses our brightest and best people, some of our lawyers and accountants, not on serving our country in competition with foreign companies overseas—the Koreans, the Japanese, the Taiwanese, the Chinese, the Europeans and the Americans—but on screwing the government and getting away from complex, ridiculous taxation systems. They’re focused not on competing with foreign owned corporations but on competing with our government. Think of the behaviours that are driven at the corporate level, the allocation of resources, the inefficiency of resources and the behaviour of executives.
Taxation is highly complex. How many pages are there in our taxation act? It’s highly inefficient directly in terms of allocation of resources and indirectly in terms of the behaviours that are driven. It’s directly inefficient in terms of the way taxation is levied in this country. James Killaly was a former deputy commissioner of taxation in charge of large companies and foreign matters. He said in 1996 and 2010, ‘Ninety per cent of Australia’s large companies are foreign owned and, since 1953, have paid little or no tax.’ This bill does go a little way towards addressing that, but we need to address it full on.
Why does that happen? Why are foreign companies getting let off the hook? I’ll tell you why. It’s because many of even our large Australian companies are part-owned and controlled by foreign corporations. The major predators are Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and First State. They own 10 per cent of the four banks combined and they own the controlling interest. They tell the banks what to do—BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, First State and others in that little cohort of multinational predatory organisations. We don’t have four main banks. We have one main bank that is hiding behind four logos. That’s what we have. They have the same policies, principles, strategies, products and services.
Coles and Woolies, again, are part-owned by BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard. If you go right through our corporations in this country, the corporations we thought were Australian owned, they’re foreign owned and controlled, and where does the money go? The profit goes overseas. What did the Morrison government do, along with the state premiers? They loaded it up so that foreign multinationals that own the large companies in this country made a killing out of COVID at the expense of small companies and small businesses.
On the other hand, look at Qatar and Norway. They have bountiful natural resources, just like us—not as much as we have, in fact, and yet they make so much more. Qatar made $78 billion out of its gas exports. We export more and we made a tiny fraction of that, around one per cent of that.
So why are we doing this? What I’m saying and have been saying for many years, ever since I got into the Senate, is that we need comprehensive, proper and honest tax reform. Let’s have a look at the person who introduced GST into this country. Paul Keating was the Treasurer and, I think, Deputy Prime Minister under Bob Hawke. He came so close to introducing the GST, and, at the last minute, the Prime Minister at the time, Bob Hawke, fell over and lacked the courage to do so. Paul Keating was very upset with that. A few years later, John Hewson introduced the GST as part of Liberal Party policy, and who smashed him over it? Paul Keating, the man who introduced the concept of GST to this country.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Polley): Senator Roberts, I will remind you to use people’s correct titles when referring to former prime ministers.
Senator ROBERTS: He was the Treasurer at the time. What I’m saying is that the taxation system was mooted for change, and the person who introduced the GST actually smashed the GST, for purely political reasons.
On another aspect of comprehensive tax reform, Treasurer Peter Costello—who has been admired as a Treasurer—found out that Senator Pauline Hanson, who at the time was a member of the lower house, was keen on the transaction tax. As a way of trying to destroy her, he destroyed the transaction tax, even though he had previously said publicly that it had a lot of merit.
The point I’m getting to is: taxation has become a political football. It’s not an honest debate anymore; it’s about smashing a system. So what I propose is that, instead of proposing a system, we should look at basic principles. We should first of all agree that the taxation system is one of the most destructive systems in this country, if not the most destructive, which is my opinion of it. Once we get agreement on that, we should then put forward a set of principles that we can agree on.
I’ve been putting some thought to principles. First of all, a fair, efficient and honest taxation system would enable us to receive far more income because the multinationals would be paying their fair share of tax. It should be fair and equitable to all people and to all economic entities, including Australian businesses, and with no exemptions for foreign companies, which are now largely exempt. Making foreign companies and speculators pay their fair share of tax would quickly end the budget deficit and overseas debt and fund future infrastructure without borrowing. The second principle: it should be in the national interest.
The third principle—and this is very, very important for a country, and the reason why I went through the problems that are coming from this building: it should be incorruptible and impossible for politicians to fiddle with. A major source of political power is the ability of politicians to make legislation that punishes or advantages particular groups. This ability gives politicians from the uniparty enormous power over others because they can enact, for example, taxation provisions that assist their supporters or hurt their supporters’ competitors. An honest tax system removes this blatant abuse of power.
The fourth principle: it should comply with and support our Constitution’s intent and written provisions—not contradict our Constitution but comply with it. The fifth principle: there should be simplicity in understanding, administration and accountability. It should be completely transparent, unlike the current taxation system, which is deliberately opaque. There should be an objective basis for levying tax. Instead of assessing tax on profit and loss that can be fiddled, use objective measures. These do exist and include, for example, market sale price or straight-out unit cost.
The taxation system needs to be constructive, not punitive. It needs to be efficient to administer, with low administration costs, not the unwieldy behemoth that is administering, or mismanaging, tax at the moment. It should increase people’s purchasing power. A good taxation system, an efficient taxation system, will increase people’s purchasing power so people are economically far better off, because the burden will be shifted more towards multinationals.
The next principle is: there should be minimal disruption to the economy, with no ability for politicians to manipulate the tax system across industry sectors or industry groups. The taxation system could be a wonderful way of getting aggregate economic data and detailed data.
The next principle is arguably one of the most important: accountability. When properly designed, a tax system develops accountability in the government and in the people, through being a restraint on the cost of government. Taxes are necessary to pay for the cost of government, but what happens at the moment, because politicians from the uniparty can ratchet taxation up freely, is that they tend to abuse it and neglect their accountability to the people for managing costs. Politicians will have to manage within the country’s means. The next principle is: it should help people to become independent of government.
What I want to do in wrapping up is say, again, to the senators who didn’t hear me in my opening comments: we support this bill. But it is far too little. Why is it too little? We have got plenty of money in this country for investment. We have got super funds holding enormous sacks of gold, from rivers of gold. I’m asking the government to change your ways. Put families before large, foreign multinationals—Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, First State. Put national interest before large, foreign multinationals. Reclaim our national sovereignty, and put it before large, foreign multinationals. Put Australia and Australians first.
I asked this question at the start: why? I ask this question now: why not?
It’s time for a Royal Commission into COVID – as recommended by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee Inquiry.
Before the last federal election, Anthony Albanese promised to hold a Royal Commission into COVID, yet once elected into government, he changed his attitude and now seeks to cover up government actions during COVID.
One Nation secured a Senate Inquiry to write Terms of Reference for a COVID Royal Commission. I am proud to say the Committee agreed this was the right course of action and recommended a Royal Commission be called. The Committee also set out an appropriate terms of reference – which are excellent – covering all aspects the public would expect to be examined.
It is time for the Prime Minister to stop shielding bureaucrats, the media and multinational pharmaceutical companies. The Prime Minister is making a mockery of the Labor Party’s legacy. PM Gough Whitlam initiated thirteen Royal Commissions during his tenure, and PM Bob Hawke called for eight. This current Labor government has only called for one, despite public opinion polls indicating over 70% support for a Royal Commission.
It’s time for the Labor Party to prioritise people over its donors in the pharmaceutical industry.
It’s time for the Labor Party remembered who they are.
It’s time for a Royal Commission into COVID now!
Transcript
On behalf of One Nation, I thank the committee and the secretariat for their marvellous work during this inquiry into a COVID-19 royal commission, work that resulted from a One Nation motion. Many submissions were received and witness testimonies taken. The report that Senator Scarr has just tabled is a faithful representation of their evidence and reflects some amazing work by the secretariat, him and the committee.
Australia now has the recommendation that a royal commission into Australia’s response to the COVID pandemic be called, and it has appropriate terms of reference. So what happens now? To this point, the process has been one of which I’m proud. This Senate has held true to its fundamental function as the house of review. The Australian Parliament House website says of the powers of the Senate:
Democratically elected, and with full legislative power, it is generally considered to be, apart from the Senate of the United States of America, the most powerful legislative upper chamber in the world.
It’s time to use that power. Indeed, it’s our duty to use that power. It’s time to remind health care, the military and the bureaucracy: they do not run this country; the Australian people do. It’s long overdue to remind the crony communist establishment: they do not run this country, the Australian people do. And it’s time to restore trust in government and confidence in our healthcare practitioners, hospitals and medications. A royal commission is the only way to get to the truth, punish wrongdoing, praise the noble and set a future direction for pandemic preparedness in which the public can have complete confidence.
Support for a royal commission came from every witness at the inquiry—a rare and overwhelming display of consensus and unity in what has been until now a highly contentious debate. The inquiry submission from Professor Scott Prasser was most helpful in guiding debate around a royal commission. He said:
As then Justice Holmes, who chaired the 2011 Queensland Flood Commission of Inquiry observed there is an expectation in Australia for such inquiries following disasters:
… contemporary society does not countenance a fatalistic approach to such inevitabilities, even if their occurrence is unpredictable. There is an expectation that government will act to protect its citizens from disaster, and that all available science should be applied so that nature and extent of risk is known, and appropriate action taken to ameliorate it—
to protect people. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Remember these facts on Australia’s COVID response: half a trillion dollars was spent, economy and family livelihoods were smashed, freedom and human rights were stolen, and there were tens of thousands of deaths from injections approved yet not tested in Australia, with approval based only on Pfizer’s trial that was cut short after thousands of deaths and without the TGA seeing the patient-level data.
The AstraZeneca vaccine was withdrawn last week. How the hell do the injected withdraw it from their bodies? The department of health still approves AstraZeneca now. Overnight, a peer reviewed journal published proof that the Pfizer vaccine was contaminated with mutant DNA at levels that are hundreds of times higher than safe levels. The Pfizer vaccine must be withdrawn on safety grounds immediately. This is all for a virus which the Chief Medical Officer advised me in writing in March 2021 was of low to moderate severity, less than some past flus, and had transmissibility similar to that of flu. That was in writing. Australia will not stand for repeating our COVID mistakes and COVID deceit.
As I travel through Queensland and listen to everyday Australians, I continue to hear of COVID harms. It’s clear that COVID may be over, yet the harm from our response continues. Businesses weakened during COVID and kept alive with JobKeeper payments are now failing in the recession that inevitably followed the big spend. Victorians have been hit with a COVID tax to pay for the state’s response, a tax making it harder for homeowners to keep their homes in the face of rising interest rates. In turn, rising interest rates are a function of the inflation caused when the Reserve Bank printed $508 billion to fund COVID measures.
Our COVID response affected every life in this country and every corner of our economy. A quickie cover-up whitewash pseudo-inquiry into bureaucratic performance during COVID will not get to the truth of matters into which it’s not even looking. issues like unexplained deaths, which have started to increase again and are currently sitting at around 13 per cent, or 25,000 deaths a year. These are people who should not be dying—young people. In part, these people are dying of the side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine that Craig Kelly specifically called out in 2021. Our health authorities claimed it was safe and effective until court cases caused AstraZeneca to withdraw the product worldwide, citing a fatality rate of 3.8 per 100,000 cases. Australia bought 56 million doses.
The official death figures from COVID injections are a fiction. Evidence of this is the TGA’s refusal to provide independent verification of their case analysis. Reports of deaths and serious injuries from COVID jabs stopped being made in full early in the rollout. Medical practitioners who reported adverse events were inevitably harassed and threatened with punitive action from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, who acted as the pharma police. Their actions in suppressing the truth of vaccine harm must be of special interest to the royal commission.
Pfizer conducted aborted safety testing on a version of the vaccine they never used. The shots they did use were never safety tested, and this was the big lie: that the vaccines were tested and proven safe—a lie. ‘Safe and effective’ was not one lie; it was two. Pfizer are currently settling their lawsuits out of court, but for how much longer, as one successful lawsuit leads to another? Australia offered taxpayer funded immunity on these products. Remember: if criminal behaviour is detected from Pfizer, the immunity can be voided—behaviour like baiting and switching the test vaccines, covering up adverse events in the testing phase and erasing anyone with a serious adverse event from the trials as though they were never a participant. Ghost test sites were used, along with ghost participants who, miraculously, never had an adverse event. Window shifting was employed. Adverse events in person that was single dosed were counted against the unvaccinated, because one is not classified as fully vaccinated until after the second dose. How’s that for deceit? Likewise, even a person who was double dosed had their adverse event counted against the unvaccinated if it occurred within the first seven days for Pfizer and within 14 days for Moderna.
Behaviour like this is why we have royal commissions with powers to compel witnesses and obtain documents that have been hidden behind redactions. There have been 54 royal commissions since the Menzies era. The Hawke-Keating government called eight and the Whitlam government called 13. The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government called eight. After so long in opposition, the Albanese Labor government has only found cause to call one. What a compliment to the quality of the last government! In all of that time, only one thing was done badly enough to call a royal commission. You on this side must be so proud!
Prime Minister Albanese has turned his back on Labor Party history and seeks now to cover up for bureaucrats, multinational pharmaceutical companies and crony capitalist companies like Woolies and Coles. These companies implemented onerous staff vaccine mandates, required customers to behave like they were diseased and blasted out pro-vaccine anti-human propaganda over their PA non-stop for three years. It’s no surprise that their share register includes names like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. These same names appear in the share register of the pharmaceutical companies that profited from killing people in this country.
These foreign predatory wealth funds appear on the share register of Australian media that contributed unending fear to drive the pharmaceutical response to COVID. The media also policed public opinion, destroying the careers of presenters, medical professionals and politicians, despite those opinions now being proven correct. Even worse, their opinions were known to be correct at the time these brave people were speaking out against the official narrative during COVID. Was COVID an evil exercise in crony capitalism, in racketeering for the benefit of foreign predatory wealth funds, or crony communism? Yes, it was. Those funds have ripped $5 trillion—trillion—from the pockets of everyday citizens around the world in the name of keeping us safe. What an eye-watering transfer of wealth, unprecedented even in wartime. Thanks to COVID, the rich are richer, while everyday citizens struggle with reduced wealth, unprofitable businesses and poor health.
And yet the Labor government refuses to call a royal commission. You don’t care! Is this who the Labor Party has become—protectors of racketeering wealth funds and their parasitic, predatory billionaire owners? Is that it? One benefit of misinformation laws is that they may stop you calling yourselves the party of the worker when you are clearly the party of predatory billionaires—parasites.
Prime Minister Whitlam called 13 royal commissions, Prime Minister Hawke called eight and this Labor government has called one. Talk about not being able to handle the truth. Your position defies history, it defies the will of the Senate and it defies the will of the people. Talk to anyone in the street; they’ll tell you they want this. Your position defies history. I urge the Senate to send a clear instruction to the Prime Minister that his quickie cover-up inquiry has fooled nobody—nobody. It’s time to begin the royal commission; it’s time to care about people, not corporate profits; and it’s time for this Labor Party to remember who they should be. I seek leave to continue my remarks.
When discussing coral bleaching, the assumption these days immediately defaults to blaming mythical “climate change” instead of looking for the real cause.
There are many causes of bleaching, including changes in salinity, UV radiation, sedimentation, and pollution. Coral bleaching is a response to environmental stress, not just temperature fluctuation.
Studies have shown evidence of bleaching dating back centuries, long before any “claimed” influence on the weather was caused by humans. Coral has shown resilience and adaptability to different conditions and reefs have recovered from bleaching events for millennia.
It’s time the climate carpetbaggers were called out for their selective pseudo-science that is designed to protect their taxpayer funding. It’s time to recognise the resilience of our coral reefs and bring the tourists back to Queensland.
When discussing coral bleaching recently, the assumption defaults to blaming claimed human climate change instead of asking what actually caused it. Coral bleaching in simple terms is a loss of colour in coral, most often due to symbiosis dysfunction, a severing of the join between the coral polyp and the host tissue—the calcium carbonate that gives coral its white colour. Bleaching is a response to environmental stress. It has many causes, including changes in salinity, ultraviolet radiation, increased sedimentation and high nutrient levels after flooding or pollution.
Kamenos from the University of Glasgow found evidence of Great Barrier Reef bleaching in the 1600s. His paper has been contested, yet the many citations used to support his paper have not been. Hendy documented two hiatuses in coral skeleton growth, associated tissue death and subsequent regrowth in eight multicentury coral cores collected from the central Great Barrier Reef accurately dated to 1782 to 1817. This period was before humans are claimed to have influenced the weather.
Dunne recorded bleaching on the reef in 1928. Woolridge documented the bleaching caused by floodwaters carrying nutrients impacting on the reef. Kenkel found coral has plasticity to adapt to different environmental conditions and is more resilient than previously thought. Maynard found that coral adapts to bleaching by becoming more resilient. During the past 2.5 million years, there have been 40 glacial maximums and 40 interglacial periods. Eighty times, coral has had to rise or fall by up to 140 metres, and our coral reefs are still there. How resilient they are.
Our reefs have been subjected to bleaching for millennia, and they always recover, as they did in 2022, when the Greens were telling us the reef was dead, and tourists believed them. Tourist numbers are below the long-term average, COVID excluded.
It’s time climate carpetbaggers were called out for selective pseudoscience designed to protect their taxpayer funding. Bleaching is a part of nature. It recovers. It’s cyclical.
Regarding the government’s not so voluntary National Digital Identity – you are not alone. We’ve been receiving many similar messages and emails from across Australia.
Three bills were rammed through the Senate, creating dangerous legislation for Australians who value their privacy, security, and civil liberties. The Identity Verification Services Bill, which permits the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens was passed into legislation. The Digital ID Bill was also passed in the Senate with almost no debate and was rubber-stamped in the House of Representatives. The Combatting Misinformation/Disinformation (Censorship) Bill received strong pushback and has gone quiet for now. Instead, we saw an attack on free speech from Australia’s eSafety Commissioner.
Labor is forging ahead in lockstep with other countries to implement the World Economic Forum’s digital economic agenda.
There have been many different digital identity systems floating around in the government. The Digital Identity Bill was designed to create one Digital Identity to rule them all. Among some last-minute concessions in the legislation, the government has said that its new Digital ID can be deactivated. That’s irrelevant however when banks and other institutions will make it mandatory. In fact, Section 74 of the bill states that Digital ID is voluntary, but sub-sections 2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8 list a series of exceptions. All of which means it can be mandated under the flimsy provision of “appropriate to do so”.
The Australian Government’s proposed ‘Trusted Digital Identity Framework’ (they actually used the word ‘trusted’ in the first draft of the bill) is not a stand-alone policy. It sits inside the extensive Digital Economy Strategy 2030 worth $1.2 billion at the time of the 2021-2022 Budget. It will be accessible and used both in government and private settings. This legislation relies on legacy identification mechanisms which guarantee a role for Big Tech companies in the Government’s proposed ‘identity ecosystem’.
Unfortunately, the interests of ‘Big Tech’ and ‘Big Government’ are becoming increasingly aligned. Both parties have a vested interest in pervasive surveillance, data mining and matching: one for profit and the other for control. This represents an unhealthy alignment of State and Corporate interests, with everything that entails.
The new raft of identity legislation creates a brand-new identity record for Australians, originated by Government and validated by Government, and commercial entities. This legislation goes much further than the MyGov digital ID. It puts all your identity eggs into one digital basket and will place more Australians at risk of being hacked.
A much better alternative would be an identity system based on the user owned and operated technologies developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that rely on cryptographic tools and decentralised identifiers to prove ‘trustworthiness’ online, as well as identity – if that is what’s needed. These tools allow for direct, peer-to-peer proofs of trustworthiness and identity verification, without the need for Government or Big Tech involvement. So why is the Australian Government persevering with such a poor-quality identity solution? You might ask yourself, “Why do we need another digital identity system when we already have myGov ID?” The short answer is that this legislation is not designed to serve the interests of ordinary Australians. It’s been designed by foreign Big Tech firms and international governance bodies like the WHO, UN, IPCC and WEF to serve their interests. These organisations profit handsomely in terms of money and power from the capture and exploitation of personal data, and they don’t want that model to change.
The most serious risk associated with this legislation is scope creep. Like Australia, most developed nations around the world are implementing Government Digital Identity systems that are remarkably similar to those already operational in China and India. Over-identification is a feature of both the Chinese and Indian Digital ID legislation and there is a real risk that biometric mechanisms of identification will become a mandatory aspect of every transaction Australians make online and off.
I first drew Australia’s attention to this dangerous and dystopian legislation in 2021 “1984: the Bill” – The Trusted Digital Identity – Malcolm Roberts (malcolmrobertsqld.com.au). I’ve been opposed to the government’s digital identity since it was first proposed under the coalition, when Australia aligned with the World Economic Forum’s goals for a global digital economic strategy. This is the reason government-legislated Digital Identity was created in the first place. Read my article in the Spectator (click here) for more about the bureaucratic bungling behind this legislation.
The government did not come up with the Trusted Digital Identity on its own to solve the issue of outdated government databases. As stated by the policymakers in their accompanying documentation, the Trusted Digital Identity is the brainchild of the World Economic Forum and their global digital identity roadmap. Unlike the Voice, which sought to change the constitution, legislation can at least be undone with a change of government.
It’s important to keep pushing back against these authoritarian measures. The best remedy will be at the ballot box during the next federal election.
If One Nation had had just one more senator in parliament, many of those abhorrent, dystopian bills that were rammed through the Senate with little or no debate would not have been passed.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Iphone.jpg?fit=843%2C438&ssl=1438843Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-05-16 08:34:572024-06-06 08:36:58The Tyranny of a National Digital Identity
The Albanese government is legislating to prohibit vaping for recreational use, as an aid to quitting smoking and to sustain smoking cessation efforts. I’ve been receiving numerous messages from Australians who have successfully kicked the smoking habit through vaping. They now either vape a herbal solution to combat the physical habit of smoking, or have completely quit. The Labor government’s move to ban vaping contradicts the international vaping experience.
Health authorities in the UK have found that vaping is a safer alternative to smoking and provides an effective pathway for smokers to quit.
The measures in the bill will, however, allow individuals wanting to quit or who are in the process of quitting, to obtain a prescription from their doctor for a vape. The use of this provision is being disingenuous, as many Australians who are attempting to access vapes to aid them in quitting are finding that either their doctor refuse to prescribe a vape, or the pharmacy does not stock them.
Additionally, the costs have surged as demand s gone up exponentially as volume has fallen, and as medical establishments take a much larger share of the sale than a tobacco/vape retailer did.
Although there’s concern about children, it’s always been illegal for minors to vape, just as it’s always been illegal for children to smoke cigarettes. While vaping poses less risk to minors than smoking, the ideal scenario is for parents and guardians to prevent their children from engaging in either. The idea that vaping serves as a gateway to smoking is wrong and is not supported by experiences in many other countries like the UK that have legalised vaping.
The Minister’s actions will force vaping underground, evidenced by recent incidents where two vape shops were targeted by organised crime. Illegally supplied vapes will likely be adulterated with addictive substances, manufactured cheaply and with little regard for safety.
This is a health disaster waiting to happen and is entirely foreseeable.
One Nation supports the regulation and licensing of vapes and vaping products exclusively for adult consumers.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for being present today. Professor Buchanan, can I confirm your involvement with the University of Wollongong School of Health and Society?
Prof. Buchanan: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. The University of Wollongong school of health receives substantial grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council year on year. Is your testimony today completely independent of the people who fund you?
Prof. Buchanan: I am not funded, Senator Roberts, by the University of Wollongong. I have an honorary position and I receive no funding from the University of Wollongong.
Senator ROBERTS: The university is associated with the Global Challenges Project, which is funded by Open Philanthropy, an organisation that campaigns against smoking specifically by taxing it out of reach of everyday Australians. Do you support increased taxation rather than vaping as a means of smoking reduction?
Prof. Buchanan: Sorry, Senator; in the last part of your question I got a bang on the microphone and I didn’t catch it.
Senator ROBERTS: Sure. Do you support increased taxation rather than vaping as a means of smoking reduction?
Prof. Buchanan: We support a comprehensive approach to reducing tobacco. Excise is one of those approaches, and there is a range of others. They are all outlined in the National Tobacco Strategy and we support all of the measures in the National Tobacco Strategy.
Senator ROBERTS: Cancer Research UK have a 100 per cent opposing view to yours. Their analysis of the use of e-cigarettes, ones that are registered with the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the equivalent of our TGA, states this: Lots of people want to know about the health effects of e-cigarettes … Many studies show that vaping is far less harmful than smoking. This is because e-cigarettes don’t contain cancer-causing tobacco, and most of the toxic chemicals found in cigarettes are not in e-cigarettes. … … … There is no good evidence that vaping causes cancer. … … … Because vaping is far less harmful than smoking, your health could benefit from switching from smoking to vaping. And you will reduce your risk of getting cancer. Who is right — Cancer Research UK or the Australian Cancer Council?
Prof. Buchanan: What we are all saying is that we want to see people who smoke stop smoking, because it is incredibly risky. If some smokers can benefit in quitting by using e-cigarettes then we would support that. We have never not supported that. But we would like to see that support provided through a healthcare professional who can enable that person to make the right clinical decisions to manage their nicotine addiction and then to move forward by helping them to quit vaping. In many of the studies where people have used vaping to quit, we’ve seen an increase in the number of people who dual use rather than quit products altogether, and that is not a good outcome.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll come to what you’ve said in a minute. Johns Hopkins Medicine also maintains that: Vaping is less harmful than smoking. … … … Regular cigarettes contain 7,000 chemicals, many of which are toxic. … … … … vaping exposes you to fewer toxic chemicals. Professor Buchanan, why are you supporting a bill that exposes smokers to more toxic chemicals than vaping?
Prof. Buchanan: We are not supporting a bill that increases people’s exposure to anything. What we are supporting are ongoing comprehensive tobacco control measures in this country which have proven to be incredibly effective in reducing smoking rates. At the same time, for those smokers who are struggling to quit— and we need to remember that it is a very small percentage of the population—we want them to get the help that they need under the care of a healthcare professional.
Senator ROBERTS: We are on the same track now, then. Professor, the United Kingdom National Health Service says of vaping: Nicotine vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking. It’s also one of the most effective tools for quitting smoking. That is what I think you want. It says: Vaping is not completely harmless and we only recommend it for adult smokers, to support quitting smoking and staying quit. Is the Cancer Council of Australia out of step with the science?
Prof. Buchanan: I think we have already addressed that. What we want to see for people who are looking to quit smoking are evidence based approaches to quit. We know that most Australian people who are looking to quit smoking will quit unaided. For those who need support and cessation aids to quit—and that is not the vast majority of smokers; in fact, the vast majority of smokers who quit smoking do so unaided—there is a strong evidence base of safe, effective, regulated medicines in Australia. E-cigarettes are not one of those and so people should be receiving support for using those products under the care of a healthcare professional.
Senator ROBERTS: My electorate office has been receiving many contacts from real Australians complaining about this measure and saying how much vaping has improved their lives, reduced their nicotine dependency and even helped them quit smoking entirely. Are these people lying or are you protecting the $500 million ‘quit smoking’ industry from a product internationally proven to reduce smoking?
Prof. Buchanan: We have not said anywhere that this product will not help some people to quit smoking. We do believe that it well. But because the nature of the product is that it is not a safe product people are best placed to work with their healthcare professional—
Senator ROBERTS: It’s stated that two out of three—
CHAIR:We need to let the witness finish.
Prof. Buchanan: I do take objection to your implication that we are somehow protecting an industry. We are actually about preventing ill health from smoking and also associated with vaping.
CHAIR: Thank you, witnesses, for staying longer than you were allocated. We appreciate your involvement in our committee. If you have taken questions on notice, we are asking for answers back very quickly—by COB Monday 6 May.
