Strengthening Financial Access in the Bush

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During this session with Australia Post, I raised concerns from local outlet operators like Kylie in Agnes Waters, who face increasing operational pressures.

Australia Post confirmed that while they are not actively cutting over-the-counter services, telecommunications companies, government agencies, and banks are driving down physical transactions by raising manual fees, pushing digital channels, or pulling services like Western Union.

Addressing the abrupt closure of the Coleambally Post Office, Australia Post explained it resulted from a licensee walking away without notice. To maintain local parcel, mail, and expanding financial services, they partnered with the town’s pharmacy, a co-location model now operating across 82 locations nationwide.

I confirmed that ANZ officially joined Bank@Post on October 1st, bringing the total number of participating financial institutions to 81.

There is a need for physical over-the-counter banking in the bush. One Nation we will establish a People’s Bank to provide a full range of banking services to everyday Australians using the Bank@Post system. This will make Post Offices profitable again and improve banking options for all Australians.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Here’s an email from the Agnes Waters Post Office in Queensland: ‘Hi, my name is Kylie. I managed this outlet for 14 years before buying it 18 months ago. We are 1½ hours from the next nearest full-service post office. In my community, our post office is the only practical point of access for banking, bill payment, retail, parcel services and government related business. This business is under significant pressures from several areas of operation’—which I’ll now ask about. Are BPAY options being reduced inside Bank@Post?  

Mr Graham: No, they’re not. What we are finding is that telecommunications companies are encouraging their customers to digitise payment as opposed to going into a branch and paying over the counter—indeed, people are now incurring penalties or higher costs. One telco in particular has increased its fee for those people paying manually over the counter, which is a deterrent to those customers, because they’re trying to encourage them to pay online.  

Senator ROBERTS: Is Western Union being withdrawn? I think you said it is because—  

Mr Graham: It is being withdrawn. After a thorough review in relation to the risk of that product, we have decided, with the support of the licensees, to withdraw that product. But we have done an arrangement with Western Union that the individual licensees can have an agreement directly with Western Union to continue providing those services. We’ve also highlighted to those licensees the risks in relation to that service.  

Senator ROBERTS: Are government and agency services available over the counter reducing in number?  

Mr Graham: They are reduced in number, through no action of Australia Post but through the actions of those agencies or those governments by making it available only through a digital channel, or increasing fees for over-the-counter transactions, or, indeed, removing the service altogether. For example, in the Northern Territory, the NT government has removed the ability to provide that service over the counter at a post office. That service is only available at a Northern Territory government office. We are continuing to work with the NT on reintroducing those services to an over-the-counter service.  

Senator ROBERTS: The retail structure that once supported LPOs has been replaced with a new system, I’m told, that provides less profit for the post office. We’ve spoken about this before. They must have lost revenue. When I go into a post office, no matter where it is, there’s less merchandise available for sale. Do you accept that change has cost LPOs revenue and profit.  

Mr Graham: No, I don’t. The LPOs have a licence to go and sell whatever product they think is appropriate for their post office. In our corporate post offices, yes, we have reduced the range quite a lot. We no longer sell air fryers or electric guitars or whipper snippers or flat-screen TVs. When we did sell them, we sold them at significant loss. We have focused on five key categories, based on significant surveys from our customers about what they want to buy in a post office, including greeting cards, and travel is a big one because we obviously provide passport renewal. We provide travel insurance and other things related to travel, cheap mobile phones and SIM cards, and then a small range of general merchandising. But we continue to provide the licensees with access to Australia Post products. As I said in my earlier statement, with things like photocopy paper or our greeting cards, we have dramatically increased the margins available to licensees through our collective purchasing power and are making those available as an Australia Post branded product. The product’s called JoyUp—that’s not my choice; I’m not a marketing person—but the licensees have the ability to put whatever product they feel they can sell within their Post Office. Indeed, I’ve been to many licensed post offices where there’s a broad array of products that they make money on.  

Senator ROBERTS: There’s nothing to stop them putting their own arrangements in place?  

Mr Graham: Provided it complies with Australian safety standards and Australian copyright standards, correct.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’ve got Kylie’s letter in front of me. I was going to read some out, but in the interests of time I won’t do that. Kylie talks about uncertainty around contract terms making it hard to plan for the future. Is this something you’re familiar with?  

Mr Graham: No. Again, if it’s a licensed post office, it’s a perpetual licence. As I said, we have been in consultation with the licensed post office council and both licensee associations to look at modernising the agreements we have in place around commissions. These were set up many, many years ago and, again, aren’t really fit for purpose, and both licensees agree. We continue to be in consultation as to how we can modernise those agreements and look at things like creating a larger fixed fee to provide greater sustainability and greater certainty. However, I go back to the previous comments—the nature of a post office, and how it is used today, is dramatically different from how it was 10 years ago, even five years ago. We continue to work with licensees in relation to the sustainability of these outlets, but it is challenging.  

Senator ROBERTS: Well, I’ve been watching, in the last 10 years—since I’ve been in the Senate—just how dramatically your letter traffic has gone down. Your parcels are picking up, but you’ve got increased competition. So your traditional services are now a small proportion of your overall services.  

Mr Graham: Correct. As I said, 60 per cent of the reason someone goes into a post office today is parcel related; next is Billpay, then Bank@Post and then things associated with passports, but all three of those are in decline.  

Senator ROBERTS: And there’s a huge community impact from a post office being shut.  

Mr Graham: Indeed. I’ve been to regional towns where the licensee has handed back the post office. Again, as Senator Henderson mentioned, in the case of Tathra it’s been in place for 123 years. It’s been in place for that long because it was one of the stops where Cobb & Co used to refresh the horses. That’s how we ended up with post offices in these small country towns. But, again, that community is using that post office for eight transactions a week.  

Senator ROBERTS: So why did Coleambally Post Office close? I understand it was out of the blue, sudden, and now the only service is the pharmacy, running the mail service—with no attempt on your part, apparently, to reopen the location. I checked, and the population at Coleambally in 2016—that’s the latest figure I could get— was 1,330. So it’s not a tiny town, and it’s an irrigation area, which means there should be good money around.  

Mr Graham: Yes, I agree. We literally had no notice, nor did the town. The licensee literally walked away— put a lock on the doors and didn’t come back—and we continued to pursue that licensee. We immediately set about ensuring that people could get access to mail and parcels, because that was the priority for the town. We worked with the local pharmacy, who stepped up to the plate and was able to provide those services under a CPA arrangement. We continue to work with that pharmacy. Indeed, we met with council again this week to look at how we can reintroduce financial services, and we are committed to doing that in Coleambally. But this is a good example of what happens when a licensee vacates with no notice. We are as blindsided as the community. We recognise that Coleambally requires these services, and we’re working with the community to make sure these services are available. We do see the association with pharmacies as a good partnership. Pharmacies, like Australia Post, are a trusted brand in the community. They have extended opening hours. Unlike Australia Post, most of them open seven days a week, generally. They, also, are under threat from changes within their and are looking at additional foot traffic to generate sales. We now have 82 post offices in conjunction with pharmacies. It’s proven to be a successful model, which is why, when Coleambally came up, we immediately defaulted to talking to the local pharmacy, with the support of the pharmacy.  

Senator ROBERTS: So you’re in partnership with some pharmacies in some areas?  

Mr Graham: With 82 pharmacies, yes.  

Senator ROBERTS: What do you say to rural customers who say that your level of care about the plight of rural customers is a scandal? How far is it to your local post office?  

Mr Graham: I live in the city. My local post office is probably 1½ kays, two kays.  

Senator ROBERTS: What do you say to customers who are concerned about the plight?  

Mr Graham: We agree with their concerns. That’s, again, why we’re happy to have the regulatory commitment of 2½ thousand post offices in regional, rural and remote areas. We do have some significant difficulties, particularly in the remote locations where we continue to fund a presence because it’s the right thing to do, and we’ll continue to do that. Again I call out the difficult nature of these licensees and their viability. Where a town has a need, we will make sure we satisfy that need.  

Senator ROBERTS: I want to touch on banks quickly. Freedom-of-information requests revealed part of the terms for the government to approve a ANZ’s acquisition of Suncorp Bank was for the ANZ to make the best endeavours to join Bank@Post on commercial terms for a minimum of three years. Can you provide the date they joined so I can ensure that they at least stay for the three years?  

Mr Graham: I’m pleased to say that, after some intensive negotiations, we convinced ANZ to join. Their original premise was that they didn’t have a lot of customers interested in the service. However, they were active from 1 October last year as a member of Bank@Post, and we have seen a significant activity with ANZ customers in relation to using those services both in metropolitan areas and regional areas. Again, this has provided an additional income stream to licensees because, obviously, ANZ was not part of Bank@Post previously.  

Senator ROBERTS: How many banks now participate in Bank@Post?  

Mr Graham: We have 81 financial institutions and banks participating. Obviously the big four banks are the bulk of the transactions, but there are 81 institutions, credit unions, smaller banks and other financial services in relation to which we can perform over-the-counter services.  

Senator ROBERTS: I think the only question I’ve got left is: will One Nation get into government and create a people’s bank using Bank@Post for a full range of banking services before you shut down every branch in the bush?  

Mr Graham: Well, first of all, we are not shutting branches in the bush. We have no intention of being a full service bank. We believe that the over-the-counter services we provide are a valuable community service, and we will continue to sustain those services. Moving from an over-the-counter service provider to a full bank is a large undertaking and not one that we are considering at Australia Post.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you very much for attending. Thank you for your answers and punctuality.  

CHAIR: Thank you, Senator Roberts. 

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National Security Must Comes First

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I questioned security authorities on the thoroughness of the screening processes for returning individuals and older children, ensuring ASIO and joint counter-terrorism teams are actively monitoring threats to keep our citizens safe.

I asked about the total costs of managing, monitoring and integrating these returnees. Taxpayers have a right to know where their money is going, yet officials refused to disclose specific resource allocations in a public forum.

I raised concerns about how risk assessment notices are followed up with state authorities, specifically questioning NSW Police decisions regarding security during heightened-risk periods prior to recent tragedies.

I will never stop asking the tough questions to ensure our national security comes first and the government remains accountable to the Australian people. Australians deserve no less!

Transcript:

CHAIR: Thank you, Senator Shoebridge. Senator Roberts.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing tonight. Another group of ISIS concubines and their children arrived this week.  

Senator Shoebridge: I’m going to take a point of order: that kind of language is just pointlessly, gratuitously offensive, and I’d ask Senator Roberts to review his language and rephrase his question.  

CHAIR: Withdraw, please, Senator Roberts, and please refrain from that kind of— 

Senator ROBERTS: I withdraw ‘concubines’. ISIS terrorist wives, brides, partners: what security screening has been done on them to ensure the safety of Australian citizens, as a group and also individually?  

Mr Gilmore: As I said earlier this evening, ASIO has worked over many years to understand the threat posed by those Australians who chose to travel offshore and join ISIL. We’ve provided advice on this cohort and other cohorts previously, both overseas and in Australia, to government departments and agencies, consistent with our statutory functions and requirements, for many years.  

Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me; were you watching them on the way out, while they were over there and on the way back?  

Mr Gilmore: ASIO will always be watching to identify threats. When information comes to our attention that requires action, we will act.  

Senator ROBERTS: Have they been screened individually and as a group? I guess what you’re saying is yes.  

Mr Gilmore: What I’ve said is that on any cohort that travels overseas—and I think I could characterise people travelling to join ISIL as a cohort that has been of interest to ASIO for many years, along with our partners, I must say, including in the JCTTs.  

Senator ROBERTS: Are older children to be screened for security risk? I understand that the eldest at the moment is 18 years of age.  

Mr Gilmore: That would be a question for the security authorities, AFP and others.  

Senator Watt: Senator Roberts, I’m sure you understand that there are limits to what ASIO is able to put in the public domain as well.  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. I understand there’s the New South Wales police, for example, or the AFP. Will ASIO have a role in ensuring national security after these and other returnees arrive and stay in Australia?  

Mr Gilmore: Absolutely. ASIO’s function is to protect Australia and Australians from threats to their security. That means that we will always be looking and, where we need to, we will act.  

Senator ROBERTS: What is all of the work relating to the return of the brides, wives, partners, costing? What are the future related costs?  

Mr Gilmore: ASIO receives a baseline allocation from government, as with any department or agency. We have a robust prioritisation and resource allocation process. The details of how those resources are allocated is not something that I could declare in this public forum.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m not asking you to declare the detailed operational plans. I’m asking what the cost would be for these women that have recently come back. 

CHAIR: I think Mr Gilmore has indicated that the question you’re asking goes to the very thing that he’s just said he’s not willing to disclose in this forum.  

Senator ROBERTS: Don’t you think the taxpayers have a right to know?  

Mr Gilmore: I think the taxpayers would be expecting us to prioritise our resources against the highest threats and to be doing our job, which is what we’re doing.  

Senator ROBERTS: Do you have enough money to cover it?  

Mr Gilmore: We have allocations from government. We have a prioritisation process. We assess risk and we do our job.  

Senator ROBERTS: Do you have enough to do your job?  

Mr Gilmore: We have the resources allocated by budget. I think the director-general has been on the public record for successive years. If you want specific details that we might be able to offer this evening, we could go there, but we do.  

Senator ROBERTS: When ASIO provide heightened terrorist risk alert notices to the New South Wales police service, is there any expectation or follow-up by ASIO to check if there has been a suitable response from the New South Wales police?  

Mr Gilmore: You may be aware that we’re members of the joint counterterrorism teams around the country. They consist of ASIO, AFP and the state and territory police authorities in each state and territory. We share information through those forums. But it’s not just those forums; there are many other mechanisms. We work very closely with our partners in the states and territories.  

Senator ROBERTS: Do you keep tabs on them formally or informally or both?  

Mr Gilmore: Could you just clarify ‘keep tabs on them’?  

Senator ROBERTS: Keep tabs on New South Wales police, for example—when you give them advice, you watch to make sure that they implement that advice.  

Mr Gilmore: We partner very closely. I think it would be reasonable to say we have a shared understanding through that habitual relationship that we’ve built over many, many years with our police partners.  

Senator ROBERTS: Is ASIO concerned to find that the New South Wales police service had actually wound back the police presence for Jewish festivals or events shortly before the Bondi atrocity, the murders, even though they had been warned of a heightened-risk assessment of terrorist activity?  

Mr Gilmore: I apologise, but that would go to matters being considered by the royal commission, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment on those this evening. Needless to say, resourcing decisions for police or for other agencies and departments are decisions are made by them, and they’re questions that should be directed to them.  

Senator ROBERTS: In the process of your relationship—it’s a close relationship, I’m concluding—would you comment if something were less than you expected?  

Mr Gilmore: We will always work closely with our partners. Nothing is achieved alone, and there are no truer words in the security and intelligence domain. We rely on close relationships with our partners to understand and respond to threats to Australia.  

Senator ROBERTS: I assume it’s in both of your interests to do that?  

Mr Gilmore: It is.  

Senator ROBERTS: Was ASIO aware of the NSW Police Force winding back when you sent out the heightened-risk notice?  

Mr Gilmore: That’s not a question that I’m able to answer this evening.  

Senator ROBERTS: Could you take it on notice?  

Mr Gilmore: I think the question really starts to go to some of the questions that the royal commission will be exploring, and it would be inappropriate to say anything that might compromise that process.  

Senator ROBERTS: The last question was on the royal commission, so I don’t need to go there now. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair, for your accommodation again. 

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One Nation Says NO to the UN Ocean Rules

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One Nation opposes the High Seas Biodiversity Bill 2026 which implements the United Nations Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) treaty. This bill represents an unnecessary surrender of Australian sovereignty, creates excessive bureaucracy and risks global food security and medical research.

This bill mandates strict notification and database requirements for collecting marine DNA. This will discourage expensive deep-sea medical research, protect pharmaceutical companies and impose unprecedented criminal penalties for collecting ocean compounds.

It also allows the UN to declare specially managed ocean areas, aligning with the UN’s “30×30” target (conserving 30% of oceans by 2030).

Despite clauses protecting commercial fisheries, the bill threatens the global seafood supply (up to 11 billion tonnes annually) without viable substitutes.

Further, it requires mandatory assessments for activities that may cause environmental harm. This is vague, bureaucratic overreach that fails to address actual ocean issues, such as third-world plastic pollution forming major ocean garbage patches.

It also establishes a large enforcement apparatus (inspectors, permits, audits), committing Australian taxpayer funds without a capped limit. This is literally giving a “blank cheque” to the UN.

One Nation will always protect taxpayers from unquantified financial burdens, safeguard global food security, and resist the transfer of regulatory power to international bodies.

Australia first!

— March | Senate Speech

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Here comes yet another UN power grab for control over Australian sovereignty. The High Seas Biodiversity Bill 2026 implements Australia’s obligations under the agreement made under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction. Nobody at the UN, it seems, thought maybe a shorter name would suffice. It’s called BBNJ for short—BB, biodiversity bill, and NJ, areas beyond national jurisdiction. The bill addresses three core parts of the BBNJ agreement: marine genetic resources, MGR; area based management tools, ABMDs—the UN’s full of acronyms, isn’t it—and environmental impact assessments, EIAs. Exemptions apply to activities in Antarctica, which maintains Australia’s rights in that region. Of the main provisions of the bill, the first relates to marine genetic resources and digital sequence information. This establishes a notification based regime for Australian entities collecting or utilising marine genetic resources. Entities must submit pre-collection, post-collection and utilisation notices to the minister. The minister may issue collection or utilisation certificates. Then again, the minister may not. This could actually lock up nature’s own undersea pharmacy and protect the pharmaceutical industry. Remember, natural products can’t be patented. They’re a threat to the pharmaceutical industry. The provision in this bill which requires genetic material, including DNA sequences, to be made publicly available in a regulated repository and database may act to stop companies spending the money to conduct this research, either in entirety or via avoidance behaviour. The regulations do allow some scope for protection of intellectual property, although, given the cost of deep-sea exploration, there is a real risk of this bill reducing the deployment of nature’s remedies hidden in the ocean depths. 

Noncompliance triggers civil and criminal penalties. While previous UN agreements have made the same requirement—criminal penalties on Australians—these have been in areas where such penalties are appropriate—terrorism, genocide, slavery, and suchlike. This is the first agreement that extends the UN’s powers to cover criminal penalties for an action which one would not immediately consider illegal, like taking DNA from a marine creature, looking for a compound that could cure human disease. 

The second aspect relates to area based management tools, ABMTs, and specially managed areas. This creates a framework to recognise international area based management tools—for example, marine protected areas—decided by a UN conference of the parties. The minister must declare the area a specially managed area and determine a special management plan within 120 days, consistent with the area based management tools. Plans may include permitting regimes or prohibitions. Offences apply for contravening the plans. 

The explanatory memorandum and the hype around this agreement show great lengths have been taken to carve out commercial fishing from the agreement. Regional fisheries management organisations, like the ones that manage tuna across the world’s oceans, remain fully in charge of quotas, gear rules, seasons, and enforcement. The agreement contains a strong non-undermining clause, article 5.2, that says the whole treaty ‘shall be interpreted and applied in a manner that does not undermine’ existing fisheries bodies and rules. This was a key demand from fishing nations during negotiations, and it is repeated throughout the text when it comes to area based management tools, although there is a provision which takes precedence, which is marine protected areas on the high seas. The UN conference of the parties can propose and adopt area based management tools to protect vulnerable ecosystems, such as undersea mountains, hydrothermal vents, migration corridors and so on. How much of the ocean can be carved out in this manner depends on the exclusion zone around each of these and on the definition of things like migration corridors. Expect a significant percentage of the world’s ocean to be caught in environmental exemptions—probably 30 per cent, a figure I’ll explain in a minute. 

I appreciate there are checks and balances in this process, yet we have seen the zeal with which anything United Nations is embraced by the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the Greens and the teals. Does anyone really think the uniparty is going to say no to the United Nations once these powers have been granted? The UN has already decimated Australia’s fishing industry under these same environmental rules. Now they’ll do the same thing to ocean fishing, which, according to the UN’s own Food and Agriculture Organization, yields 11 billion tonnes of fish—of food, and protein—annually. Eleven billion tonnes of food to feed the world’s hungry may be at risk, and One Nation would argue it is at risk. Australia’s aquaculture industry, fish grown in farms, is only 100,000 tonnes per annum, according to ABARES, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences. This doesn’t include wild-caught fish. What country has the ability to produce billions of tonnes of protein to replace the billions of tonnes of fish at risk from this agreement? Australia is an entire continent, and we can only manage thousands, not billions, of tonnes of aquaculture. Even the measly 40,000 tonnes coming out of Tasmania’s fish farming in Macquarie Harbour is under attack right now for being too much, too intensive, too damaging, according to the Greens, who support this bill, so go figure. What will people eat in Greens land? It’s not the first time I’ve asked them that question, and I still haven’t heard their answer. As Australia cannot change an international agreement, all One Nation can do is oppose this bill, and we will. 

The third aspect is the environmental impact assessment regime. This introduces a mandatory environmental impact assessment process for activities within Australian jurisdiction that may cause substantial pollution or harmful changes in the environment. Note the use of the word ‘may’, which is bureaucrat speak for anything they want it to mean—include anything. Every stage of the project is subject to individual licensing, scrutiny, reporting and review. The United Nations’ recipe for everything is more bureaucracy, more licences, more power and more control taken to New York to make things worse—and, if not New York, Geneva. 

How will this legislation solve the major problem actually threatening large areas of our oceans—the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, covering 1.6 million square kilometres; the south Pacific garbage patch; the north Atlantic garbage patch; the south Atlantic garbage patch; and the Indian Ocean garbage patch? How? It won’t. Can anyone show me where in this legislation these abominations, these embarrassments to civilisation will be fixed through this legislation? You can’t, Minister, because the source of this pollution is third-world countries chucking their rubbish into rivers, which travels out to sea and gathers in the gyres between permanent ocean currents. Those will not be covered by the international agreement this legislation introduces, because nobody wants to take on the countries doing it. You won’t take them on. 

Australia did it, though. We banned the export of our waste to third-world countries, who were taking out anything of value from the rubbish and then using their rivers as waste disposal facilities—putting their rubbish, our rubbish, into their rivers and then into the ocean. We did that without a United Nations agreement. We took out the dumping of rubbish and the exporting of our rubbish. We banned the exporting of our rubbish. We did that because it was the right thing to do. And, for the record, One Nation supported that legislation. Here’s the catch, though. Under this agreement, if the United Nations wanted to solve the rubbish handling across nations whose populations exceed three billion, Australia would have to pay for it. That’s the point of this bill. We undertake to pay whatever our share of whatever they spend becomes. 

The fourth area is compliance, enforcement and administration. Australia appoints inspectors for monitoring, investigation, civil penalties, infringement notices, enforceable undertakings and injunctions. This includes information notices, audits and protections against self-incrimination. Australia authorises grants, payments and financial arrangements to meet the BBNJ obligations, including capacity building and technology transfer. When I said ‘more bureaucracy’, I wasn’t joking. This is an insane level of new bureaucracy that we will be paying for. 

And here’s our next objection: the bill creates the heads of power for the government to make appropriations for the purposes of paying our share of this whole new bureaucracy yet doesn’t say how much. You do not say how much. It can’t, because the UN hasn’t set their cost yet. Whatever that outcome becomes, we pay our share of that. This legislation is a blank cheque to the bloody United Nations. One Nation will not sign blank cheques. This is taxpayer money. Taxpayers are under extreme cost-of-living pressure and housing prices. This is taxpayers’ money, and we have an obligation to make sure it’s being spent properly. When you can’t fulfil that obligation, we don’t want to spend it. There’s no reason why the spending can’t be put in a separate bill when the cost is known. Then again, financial responsibility goes out the door when it’s the United Nations asking or the World Health Organization, which is part of the UN, or the Asian Development Bank or the World Bank or any other globalist entity so beloved by the uniparty. Finally, let me share with the Senate One Nation’s overarching objection to this and similar legislation. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted in December 2022 at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, United Nations Conference of the Parties 15. This framework, which Australia has signed, includes 23 targets for 2030—that’s just four years away. Target 3, called the 30-30 target, requires members to conserve and manage at least 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, coastal marine areas and oceans by 2030 through creating protected areas, taking area based conservation measures and recognising Indigenous territories. 

That’s exactly what this bill does. For all the nice words—the fraudulent wording—around protecting fishing, this bill will give the United Nations, in their own words, the right to lock up 30 per cent of the world’s oceans from fishing. In so doing, the world’s hungry will lose billions of tonnes of food, of protein and of good nutrition. That’s what you’re all voting for. One Nation opposes this bill.

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13 Months Later, Labor Finally Listened

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I first announced our policy to cut fuel excise back in February 2025, repeating it in March 2025 as part of our promise to deliver $40 billion into people’s pockets. Senator Hanson and I have consistently championed this measure, including early in 2026 following rising Middle East tensions.

After 13 months of One Nation patiently explaining why cutting fuel taxes would stimulate the economy and boost productivity without driving inflation, the Albanese government finally adopted our policy, even copying our slogan about putting money back into people’s pockets.

While our policy isn’t to remove the GST on fuel entirely, halving the excise automatically reduces the GST applied on top of it, chipping away at an immoral tax-on-a-tax that both major parties have long supported.

One Nation was the first to call for fuel security, supply stability, and excise relief long before the major parties even thought of it.

They called us extremists.

Yet we were right all along and we are proud to see that our vision finally delivered some relief to everyday Australians.

— March | Senate Speech

Senator Roberts: All these bills are coming before the parliament this week to solve the fuel crisis, when the real solution would be to solve the government crisis. Reducing the excise on fuel was part of One Nation’s 2025 federal election campaign. 

The Acting Deputy President (Senator Scarr): Excuse me, Senator Roberts—can you maybe just be a little bit lower in terms of the sound? It’s— 

Senator Roberts: I’m already pretty short! 

The Acting Deputy President (Senator Scarr): Thank you for your good humour. 

Senator Roberts: I first announced this One Nation policy on 11 February 2025 in a Senate adjournment debate. The policy was repeated in my adjournment speech on 25 March 2025 as part of our election promise to cut $13 billion worth of excises to put more money back into the pockets of everyday Australians. Not only have the Labor Party stolen the policy; they’ve stolen the slogan about putting more money back in people’s pockets. 

My talking point is similar to one I’ve heard today. It’s this: the ACCC monitor fuel prices daily, and I’m confident the reduction will be passed on to consumers. Fuel is an input cost right across the economy. Lowering fuel prices lowers commuting costs for consumers and transport costs across the economy, including for groceries, saving consumers and industry $8 billion a year. The policy was a hit and helped to start the orange tidal wave, the orange movement. 

Senator Hanson spoke to One Nation’s policy to reduce the fuel excise in her senator’s statement on 5 March 2026. In a statement on fuel prices and security amid Middle East tensions, Senator Hanson said: 

“The government collects 51.6c per litre in fuel excise. One Nation was elected on a policy to halve that tax, cutting 26c a litre immediately, with compensation for any truckies and farmers losing rebates. The Morrison government took our advice in 2022 for six months—”

They took our advice— 

“but didn’t look after truckies and farmers. It’s time for the Albanese government to do the same and deliver cheaper fuel for Australians in 2026.”

On 2 March, I raised the fuel crisis two days after the jets flew from Israel into Iran. On 12 March, I spoke on the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Domestic Reserve) Bill 2026 and called for the excise to be halved. This week, Senator Hanson called for the fuel excise to be removed and for the road user tax on trucks to be suspended for three months. One Nation, One Nation, One Nation, One Nation. Our policy is not to remove the GST on fuel, though reducing the excise 52c a litre will reduce the GST by 5c and end this immoral tax on a tax that both you parties support. 

So, here we are. After 13 months of One Nation patiently explaining to the ideologues on my left why reducing the fuel tax will help everyday Australians and stimulate the economy, finally, lo and behold, One Nation policy is now government policy. As I explained a minute ago, it’s not inflationary. It increases productivity. I did hear Senator Waters describe this bill as ‘rushed’. The bill is rushed. The idea of fuel duty relief, though, is not. 

It was amusing to listen to the Liberal Party and the National Party take credit for the idea. I went back and looked to see when the Liberals first started talking about cutting the excise on petrol and diesel. It was on 26 March 2026, last week, after four weeks. Yet, somehow, the Libs claim it was the Liberals who forced the Albanese government to introduce an excise cut. Nonsense. This is the second time today the Liberals have dispensed with the truth. Senator Cash’s speech on the cash ban regulations was factually false. It misrepresented the truth, and we will explain to the people of Farrer how the Liberals and the Nationals sold out the bush. Today, the uniparty was on display for everyone to see. Look at them down there. The Labor, Liberal and National uniparty were defending their big mates in big banking—their big donors in big banking. 

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Fuel Excise Relief) Bill 2026 implements a 50 per cent cut in petrol and diesel duty and suspends the road user charge. One Nation will support this sensible measure to reduce the cost of petrol by 31c for everyday Australians and 32.5c for the trucking industry. This will keep the trucks moving, putting food on the shelves at the supermarket, stock in the shops, medical supplies in hospitals and dentists and ensuring the economy doesn’t melt down entirely as a result of the war in Iran. 

I remind people that One Nation were the first to raise the fuel supply, fuel security and price volatility issues. We were the second, we were the third, we were the fourth, and we were the fifth, before the Nationals and the Liberals even dreamt of it. They’re playing catch-up. We are having crisis after crisis, and you lot over there in the government accused us of being far-right-wing extremists. We are correct, we are right, and we hit the target before you even dreamt of it.

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Retrospective Fees or Government Cover-Up?

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A 2011 legislative drafting mistake caused ASIC to apply indexation incorrectly, leading to inaccurate review and late fee charges.

The Corporations (Review Fees) Amendment (Technical Amendments) Bill 2025 seeks retrospective authorisation, deeming previously collected, incorrect fees legally valid after the fact.

Small businesses and employers end up paying the price for a government mistake.

I feel very uneasy about that and dislike retrospective legislation unless it is truly necessary. We do not support this bill.

Small businesses shouldn’t be penalised for government administrative errors, especially during tough economic times.

Transcript

ASIC collects fees from users registering their business entities, such as companies, as part of its regulatory activities. The review fees act provides ASIC with the power to collect fees in relation to review dates for certain entities. Typically, an annual fee falls due on an entity’s anniversary of registration on ASIC’s register. The review fees regulations prescribe the review fees. Regulation 4 sets out how the fees are applied and calculated, including an indexation mechanism, and schedule 1 sets out dollar amounts that apply to particular entities and circumstances. ASIC identified a technical error during a routine review of its regulations—so full credit to ASIC—which affects how indexation was applied to certain fees.

The affected fees are late fees, tenure upfront fees and special purpose company review fees collected under the review fees regulations. The 2011 amending regulations made amendments to the review fees regulations to increase the base rate for certain review fees and continue the annual indexation of those fees using the increased base rate. In addition, these amendments reinserted the same base fee for some review fees, and other review fees were not amended. The indexation provisions applied for all review fees, which did not reflect the intended policy outcome at the time—poor drafting of legislation—nor does it reflect the intent now. As a result, ASIC applied an indexation methodology which resulted in incorrect amounts of certain review fees being charged.

These amendments validate review fees ASIC has already collected and deem the amount of the review fee to be a certain amount. This ensures any review fees charged from 1 July 2011 are valid and that ASIC was authorised to collect the review fees—authorised retrospectively. I feel very uneasy about that and dislike retrospective legislation unless it is truly necessary. This bill, the Corporations (Review Fees) Amendment (Technical Amendments) Bill 2025, is trying to validate a government drafting blunder to make taxpayers liable, even when the government is at fault.

We would not support the payment of late fees as a punitive measure during difficult economic times when the original source of authority is faulty. I think of the small businesses that are impacted. I think of the government agencies that extort fees from many small businesses and other employers. My current view is that we should not support this bill.

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Stopping the Latest “Mediscare” Lies

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One Nation supports the sensible reforms to let trained registered nurses prescribe common PBS medications — a practical step that will ease pressure on doctors, strengthen rural healthcare and improve access for everyday Australians.

This isn’t a thought bubble; it’s the result of decades of professional evolution in nursing.

I also put an end to the latest round of “Mediscare” nonsense. One Nation will defend Medicare and the PBS — full stop. We’ll crack down on the $3 billion in fraud the government refuses to confront, protect patients from bureaucratic roadblocks, and ensure no Australian pays more for a prescription under a One Nation government.

Our healthcare system must serve patients, not criminals, not fraudsters and not political spin.

One Nation will keep Medicare strong, keep the PBS fair and keep pressure on a government too timid to clean up its own mess.

Transcript

One Nation will support the Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025. It amends the National Health Act and the Health Insurance Act 1973 to enable approved registered nurses to prescribe certain pharmaceutical benefits under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the PBS. Australia’s health system is experiencing increasing demand due to an ageing population and rising prevalence of chronic disease, something we do need to better understand. Improving access to safe and effective medications is essential to meeting the health needs of everyday Australians. 

Registered nurses comprise around half the Australian health workforce and are the most geographically distributed health profession. They’re the best placed to prescribe certain common medications, taking the pressure off doctors while reducing travel and inconvenience to patients. This will support rural pharmacies. Registered nurses must complete a three-year bachelor’s degree in nursing. Nurse practitioners must hold a master’s degree in nursing and complete 5,000 hours of advanced clinical practice. 

The history of the idea of allowing nurses, suitably trained, to write prescriptions is quite long. It began with a trial in New South Wales between 1991 and 2000—a generation ago. This went national in 2001 with the advent of the national Nursing and Midwifery Board, designed to bring regulation of nurses closer to the system used for doctors. It was at this time that the pathway to nurse practitioner was introduced. In 2010, nurse practitioners were approved to write prescriptions under the PBS, although only while working in collaboration with a registered medical prescriber. Then, in 2024, the government removed the need for collaboration with a registered prescriber, allowing nurse practitioners to prescribe most medications under their own Medicare Benefits Schedule prescriber number. Finally, in 2025, the government introduced the ability of registered nurses to prescribe. There are suitable checks and balances. Nurses must meet specified qualifications, complete the course and maintain endorsement. The first cohort were enrolled and have now completed their training. 

This legislation will enable these health professionals to prescribe certain medications. Perhaps this could have been done the other way around, with the heads of power to allow registered nurses to prescribe written into law before we started training them, disrupting their careers and offering them a career path which didn’t yet exist. Maybe that’s just a sensible One Nation thing. 

This legislation is being supported across the chamber and could have been supported a year ago. The point of this history lesson is clear. The move to allow registered nurses to prescribe is not a thought bubble. It’s the result of a generation of evolution in the education and professional certification of and skill base within the nursing profession. 

The system they’ve put in place appears fit for purpose. Not all drugs can be prescribed by registered nurses, just certain ones: birth control; repeat prescriptions across a wide range of conditions. There are lots of opportunities to take the pressure off our doctors. This is particularly beneficial to regional and remote areas. 

For those who may be concerned about this measure—and One Nation is not concerned with it—I reference the PBS auditing framework. The PBS has excellent audit routines which scan all the prescriptions written across the system and zero in on any patterns out of the ordinary. These are then followed up with a phone call or, if necessary, a visit. Misuse will be detected. One Nation does contend medical professionals are given insufficient discretion to use their wealth of medical knowledge. In this case, it will provide an additional check. The initiative in part stems from the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce. One Nation is pleased to strengthen Medicare with this initiative. 

Next, I must address ‘Mediscare’ 3.0, which disreputable media have been promoting in the last few weeks. I say ‘Mediscare’ version 3 because the last two elections saw the Labor Party, or their supporters, smear the Liberals with a false ‘Mediscare’ campaign. Now it’s One Nation’s turn to be smeared, and Labor is smearing One Nation. They must fear us. While it has been only one week since the last time I defended Medicare and the PBS in a Senate speech, it seems I need to do it again. Very well. One Nation will defend the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Medicare. Both are part of a social-welfare safety net which maintains a healthy population and contributes to Australia enjoying a high standard of living. Medicare and the PBS are why people pay taxes—and don’t forget it, government. 

Taxes are, of course, not the government’s money. Taxes are the people’s money and should only be spent accordingly. Hardworking Australians do not deserve to have their money wasted or handed over to fraudsters. One Nation will work with and better resource the Benefits Integrity Division and the Fraud Fusion Taskforce to ensure every cent of money spent through Medicare and the PBS goes to people who need it and who qualify for the benefit. 

It’s intolerable to me that new drugs, drugs that could save lives, are held back, despite agreement between the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and the drug maker, because of the cost, because billions are being taken out of the system in fraud. And, yes, some prescribers are complicit, although a tiny amount. No patient with a legally obtained Medicare card should ever be afraid of using that card under a One Nation government. No Australian will have to pay more for a prescription under a One Nation government. We will support and maintain the system of the Medicare urgent care clinics, and we will work constructively with all stakeholders to extend operating hours for service delivery to take further pressure off public hospital emergency departments—which we will be able to afford because we will remove the criminals and fraudsters from the system and ensure everyone who uses a Medicare card is entitled to use that card. The government knows who these people are—yes, you do. The government knows where the $3 billion a year in fraud is coming from. Their own integrity division said as much in Senate estimates recently. The fraud figure is the government’s, not One Nation’s—we didn’t cook it up; the government’s own agency told us. The Albanese-Burke government doesn’t have the guts to do anything about it. 

I’m concerned that the Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025 could create a two-tier health system. Rural, regional and poorer suburbs would get registered nurses and nurse practitioners. Richer suburbs would get doctors galore. In fact, I’m sure that’s going to happen because it’s happening now. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the federal department of health track their workforce using a framework called the Modified Monash Model. Their data shows a stark imbalance. Roughly 84 per cent of private hospital medical practitioners and the vast majority of medical specialists operate exclusively within major capital cities and metropolitan centres. Small, regional, rural and remote towns classified as MM4 to MM7 contain the lowest number of healthcare workers per capita. In these areas, access to medical care drops drastically. In these areas, GPs provide primary care and act as emergency doctors and hospital doctors, making up 60 per cent of the entire available hospital workforce because there are so few dedicated specialists. The bill before the Senate will help take the weight off those GPs, yet will not solve the issue of doctors gravitating to wealthy suburbs and cities. What may solve that problem is to do more to assist children from the bush to take up medicine as a career. One Nation’s health policy, to be released later this year, will add more detail to that statement. 

Finally, I’ll be moving amendments to this bill on behalf of Senator Lambie, who’s recovering after recently herself quality-testing our healthcare system. As it currently stands, properly qualified podiatrists and podiatric surgeons can prescribe specific medicines to their patients, although these prescriptions are not recognised under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Patients either have to pay the full price or meet with the GP to get the same medicine prescribed under the PBS—or, worse, go without and suffer the consequences. That’s ridiculous. Podiatrists require a university degree, must maintain membership of their professional association and are affiliated with Ahpra, like other medical associations. Their medical expertise in their area of care is well capable of supporting improved prescribing rights. The focus of our healthcare system must be what’s best for the patient, and what’s best for the patient cannot include bureaucratic roadblocks and financial pain. The amendments I foreshadow do not reduce safeguards. They do not give podiatrists greater prescribing powers. They will ease GPs’ workload and make things easier for patients. They are commonsense amendments, and they should be supported. 

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When the Trucks Stop, Australia Stops

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Government is failing to maintain the internationally mandated 90-day fuel stockpile, currently holding less than 30 days of reserves.

Senator Ayres is misrepresenting statistics, claiming “115% capacity” when it actually means only 26 days of supply. A deliberate deflection of accountability.

Depleted fuel reserves put the nation’s daily transport, defense, mining, and agriculture sectors at severe risk, threatening to grind the country to a halt and fuel inflation.

Australia needs long term fuel security – not short term band-aid fixes.

For decades Senator Hanson has suggested a pipeline to convert domestic natural gas into liquid fuels (diesel and petrol) for major cities.

The United States has dropped net zero and the Paris agreement and is now producing more hydrocarbon fuels. Why? Because they are essential for human life as we know it.

One Nation calls for an immediate parliamentary inquiry to reveal the truth, address price volatility, and secure Australia’s fuel supply chain.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: This matter is urgent for three reasons. Firstly, the truth is not coming out. We want it out. It has to come out immediately before more people die. Secondly, fuel security—the people are getting ripped off at the bowser because of fuel volatility in prices and supply. I want to correct the record here, and I also want to point out, yet again, how urgent this is. 

This is from Senator Hanson, Leader of One Nation, from a Hansard from 2021: 

“I rise to speak on the Fuel Security Bill 2021. When I came into the Senate in 2016 I raised the importance of fuel security for all Australians.“

For a decade, she has been on about it, and I have been hearing her for that full decade and before. She goes on to say: 

“This and previous governments have continually failed to meet the internationally mandated 90 days stockpile of fuel for the people of this nation. That means this government has put at risk—“

that was the Morrison government, but you’re doing the same now— 

“the fuel security of our daily transport needs—” 

daily transport needs of the people watching this at home— 

“our defence, our aviation industry, our mining and our commuter needs. Without this internationally mandated 90-day stockpile of fuel, Australia risks coming to a grinding halt. My concerns were echoed by Senator Jim Molan when he entered the parliament in … 2017.“

Not only has she done that, but she’s advocated for a pipeline across the country to bring some of the world’s largest gas reserves to the east coast cities of Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney and get fuel from gas to liquid fuel, diesel and petrol, conversion. And what have you done? Nothing 

What Senator Ayres did, through you, Chair, on Monday, when I asked this question and started this talk about fuel security—which we must discuss—is try to conflate it by saying he had 115 per cent, 120 per cent, 150 per cent. Forget the arithmetic; he was misleading, because, when we went and did our research, we found out he had 115 per cent of 24 days, which is about 26 days. We realised he was misleading the people of Australia and misleading the representatives in this chamber, because he was saying we had 115 per cent of reserves when we had less than 30 per cent of reserves, according to the International Energy Agency. Then, when he was caught out by my question on Monday, what did he do? He focused entirely on Angus Taylor, who has nothing to do with this at the moment. 

This is what the government try to do. They try to deflect, denigrate and mislead, and they try to hide it. That’s why we need this, if I follow Senator McKenzie’s call—I’ll read clause (b). It calls on the government to take ‘urgent action to avoid a fuel crisis that will add to Australia’s already existing, home-grown inflation pressures’. Fuel stocks are low. We are not arguing they are low under Mr Taylor as the energy minister. That’s for another day. We want to sort the problem out now. We need truth, we need security, and we need absolute facts out in the open. That’s why we need this inquiry. We can’t get the answer by asking the minister, Chris Bowen, or Senator Wong. 

Volatility of fuel prices is cut by having reserves at 90 days. That is a fact. The people of Australia will pay through the neck. The other thing is security. The whole country stops when we run out of diesel—farms, mines, transport. Every single thing in this country relies upon transport indirectly or directly, and, when the trucks stop, Australia stops. You should know that from listening to Glenn Sterle, a truckie himself. This is about security. It’s also about long-term security, getting a pipeline across the country, as Senator Hanson has requested and suggested for decades now, to convert our gas fuels into liquid fuels, diesel and petrol in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. We also note that the United States has dropped net zero and the Paris agreement and is now producing more hydrocarbon fuels. Why? Because they are essential for human life as we know it. 

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Avoidance on Rising Breast Cancer Rates

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In February I questioned the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) on the surge in early-onset breast cancer, with diagnoses in women in their 20s, 30s and 40s rising sharply over two decades.

When I asked whether they’d cross-referenced these cases with lifestyle factors, or with COVID vaccination status, they admitted they haven’t done that work.

To me, that’s a glaring failure.

COVID injections were the biggest health intervention in our history, yet no one is checking for possible links to adverse outcomes. Australians deserve transparency, not avoidance.

If there’s no connection, proper research would reassure thousands of worried people. Instead, all we get is deflection.

I will continue to push for answers.

— February | Senate Estimates

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. The Cancer data in Australia 2025 report emphasises that cancers, including breast cancer, are being diagnosed more frequently in people in their 30s and 40s, with the share of all breast cancer diagnoses rising about 50 per cent over the last 20 years, which is stunning. Breast cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer for women aged 20 to 39 and 40 to 59, which is surprising as well. Have you undertaken any analysis to cross-reference breast cancer in this younger cohort with lifestyle factors—drinking, prescription medications and so on? 

Dr Bolevich: We do indeed produce the report you’re talking about and have a unit within the institute that specialises in cancer data—its collection, national consistency around it and various types of analysis. We often make the data available to researchers. For the specific question you’re asking, I will defer to my colleague.  

Ms Gates: As you said, we produce that information about cancer. We sometimes look at lifestyle factors. Specifically, it depends on what information we have around the connection between having a lifestyle factor, such as risk factors around smoking or other risk factors—I haven’t got to hand anything directly that we’ve done in relation to breast cancer.  

Senator ROBERTS: Could you take it on notice, to give us a range of what you provide in terms of lifestyle factors like drinking, prescription medications and so on?  

Dr Bolevich: We can take that on notice.  

Senator ROBERTS: We’d just like to see what you’ve got available; thank you. The American Cancer Society call this ‘early onset breast cancer’. Specifically, have you cross-referenced breast cancer in this younger cohort with COVID vaccination status?  

Dr Bolevich: No, we haven’t done that kind of work.  

Senator ROBERTS: Why not?  

Dr Bolevich: I think we have provided updates to this committee on previous occasions about the work we’ve done to create some data infrastructure that will enable various types of research to occur. That infrastructure is now largely in place, and we would expect that over time people will undertake various types of analyses using that data and other data that’s available to them. But the institute itself has not undertaken that specific type of research.  

Senator ROBERTS: You’re more the constructor of the database and the ability to cross-reference, but it will be up to someone else who wants to do that to do it?  

Ms Hermann: Cancer Australia is undertaking a piece of work at the moment, directed by the minister, to look at the impacts of early onset cancer, including looking at lifestyle factors and other factors that may be influencing earlier rates of cancer in Australia.  

Senator ROBERTS: What about COVID vaccination status?  

Ms Hermann: I don’t think that’s included in what they’re looking at.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m surprised, given what’s in the public domain about that. Have you cross-referenced COVID vaccination status with any health outcome and any demographic?  

Ms Gates: We have looked at vaccination status in terms of rates and that sort of thing, but, no, we haven’t looked at that in terms of any associations.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m surprised, because of the news that’s travelling around about that, including from many scientists. COVID injections were the most significant health response in Australian history, coming at a significant cost to the taxpayer and involving a significant level of coercion which, in hindsight, was not justified by the risk. The news about AstraZeneca and even the Pfizer shots, and the concerns, came out very early. There’s a widely-held belief that the vaccines caused adverse events, and nothing but denials has come from the government—and not just this government but the previous government as well. If you have nothing to hide, Minister, why are you not doing the research which would confirm or disprove the link between COVID vaccination and adverse events, which would put a lot of people at ease?  

Senator Green: The department and the officials have explained to you that there is work being undertaken on a range of research projects that look into trends in health care. Whether or not that’s post COVID-19, there’s a lot of time still to go before we see what that research might be. But the systems are being set up, and I’m sure that if there are any updates they’ll give them to you first and foremost.  

Senator ROBERTS: That’s most unlike you, Minister, because it sounds like a lot of fluff. Is your government afraid of confirming that COVID shots cause early onset cancer? To me, people who have got cancer have got that thought in their mind; it’s right through the community. People are worried, and if there is no connection it would be wonderful to take that off their burden. It sounds like, ‘Bugger the people; just get on with the job and keep hiding it.’ Senator Green: I think the most important thing to do is to listen to the experts.  

Senator ROBERTS: And common sense and what people in the street are saying.  

Senator Green: And the health experts—particularly the health experts.  

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Smears, Lies, and Clickbait

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Mainstream media is manufacturing outrage for clicks to compensate for its declining influence. They’ve taken my past comments out of context, and in one case, edited them to mean the exact opposite of what was said.

TV audiences have halved, newspapers have lost billions, and one in three Australians now openly distrust the news. Instead of fixing their credibility crisis, they’ve doubled down on woke propaganda, false reporting and partisan hit jobs on One Nation.

I laid out the hard numbers in Parliament last week – from the media’s market freefall to the truth about COVID policies, excess mortality and the fear campaigns they helped sell. When I ask data-based questions, they smear me as a “conspiracy theorist” because they can’t defend their own record.

Australians deserve facts, not fear porn. And as One Nation’s support grows, the media attacks will only get louder. We won’t be backing down.

Transcript

It’s obvious the media recently declared war on One Nation, and tonight I ask the obvious: what’s really going on? Over the last 20 years, the mainstream media’s market penetration has crashed. Broadcast television fell from a peak of 56 per cent of adult TV usage in 2006 down to just 20 per cent today. For young adults aged 18 to 35, it’s even lower, at just 12 per cent. Many still watch their favourite program online, mostly sporting telecasts. What they don’t watch are commentary shows, social engineering and opinion for hire. 

The last five years have seen the cancellation of commentary programming: 10 News+, The Project, 7NEWS’s, early and late editions, SBS’s The Feed and ABC’s Q+A. The Q+A format, where one leftist host and four leftist talking heads invite a conservative to be ritually sacrificed each week no longer resonates. This is why the media’s woke agenda has now been injected into sport, usually through welcoming the audience to their own country, men in women’s sports and woke commentary talking points. No opportunity is lost in the media’s quest to replace balanced, factual reporting with woke propaganda, at dramatic cost to the media’s shareholder value. 

In 2006, Channel 9 was worth $7.5 billion. Today, Channel 9 is worth just $960 million—less than a billion. Channel 7 fell from $4 billion 20 years ago to just $115 million today. For accuracy and fairness, by the way, both values are inflation adjusted. Channel 10 was worth $1.5 billion 20 years ago and today is on the books of owner Paramount at just $20 million. 

Movies suffered, with theatre attendance over the last 20 years falling 50 per cent—an inevitable outcome of gender and race swapping of lead roles; the compulsory inclusion of a gay storyline and a transgender character; the endless negative portrayal of men; the refusal to show a happy, loving nuclear family; and generally propagandising the woke agenda while pretending it’s entertainment. 

Let’s move on to newspapers. News Corp was valued 20 years ago at $85 billion worldwide. Today, it’s worth just $14 billion, including REA Group and Dow Jones. Fairfax Media was valued at $9 billion in 2006. Twenty years later, it was forced to sell to Channel 9, whose value of $960 million today includes Channel 9, Fairfax Media, Stan and Domain Real Estate. Again, I’m using inflation adjusted figures to compare 2006 with 2026 for fairness and accuracy—things Fairfax does not extend to us in One Nation. 

Last week saw what is a low point for Australian journalism. The Sydney Morning Herald falsely reported Senator Hanson had used party funds to keep a luxury hotel room vacant for six days while visiting Italy and played up the waste of donations. This ignored the facts. Firstly, the $5 million donated in the Fire the Liar campaign has gone into a term deposit, gathering interest until it’s needed for the next federal election. Secondly, the story was false. Senator Hanson immediately provided receipts to show the room was not booked in this period and cost One Nation nothing. Rather than admit its mistake, the Sydney Morning Herald replied with a headline saying ‘Hanson feuds with media, concedes using party funds for luxury hotel’—no apology and no correcting the record, just a story and a headline which doubled down on their lie. This is not journalism; it’s partisan propaganda. If this continues during the next election, it will clearly and patently be election interference. 

What was a scandal was Minister Bowen spending $345,000 of taxpayer money in the last 12 months alone on junkets to Brazil, Denmark, Finland, USA, Germany and Fiji—and on and on the list goes. How does a minister with a domestic portfolio spend $100,000 more on overseas trips than the Minister for Foreign Affairs and $110,000 more than the Minister for Trade? How? These trips were designed to promote Minister Bowen’s personal gains on climate change and, in part, his attempt to chair a UN climate change group. Instead of questioning this expense in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and a budget deficit, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story portraying Minister Bowen positively for not claiming any family travel as part of these junkets. Fairfax Media has lost 90 per cent of its market value and still can’t help itself. A company that was properly run would not be allowing injection of journalists’ personal and political vendettas into a supposed news story. It would have presented the facts without partisan attacks and left the public to make up their own minds. 

Our media have skipped the whole balanced and impartial part and gone straight to telling you who to vote for. Conservatives make up 50 per cent of their potential audience. One Nation alone is 30 per cent. To alienate, ridicule, insult and lie to half their potential audience at a time of falling market share, falling profits and eroding shareholder value is business suicide. The fable of the scorpion and the snake was written for the Australian media, hopelessly ensconced in their urban bubbles, preaching to an ever-shrinking base of champagne socialists raging at the dying of wokeism, a perfect demonstration of the classic logical fallacy: they do not see the world as it is; they see the world as they are. Conservatives can turn, by the way, to the Spectator and the Epoch Times for accurate news and current affairs. If you haven’t discovered these publications, have a look. 

Meanwhile, a casualty is media’s credibility. The Australian Communications and Media Authority says the proportion of Australians who explicitly distrust the news rose from 25 per cent in 2016 to 32 per cent last year. That’s a huge proportion of Australians—one in three—who do not believe what the newspaper or television tells them. This figure will grow as the truth around Australia’s COVID response emerges. The media went all in on promoting baseless COVID policies, using what can only be described as ‘fear porn’. I called for caution in Australia’s COVID response in a letter to Prime Minister Morrison in April 2020, pointing out the fatality rate was simply not what the Chinese suggested. At that time, Anthony Fauci, in his private diary, recorded his comments to the American CDC saying COVID was ‘acting like a bad influenza in its transmissibility’ and would have a fatality rate of between 0.2 per cent and 0.3 per cent, not the two to three per cent publicly claimed. Zero point two per cent to 0.3 per cent is in line with the 0.1 per cent fatality rate of an average influenza. It’s 0.13 per cent for a more serious flu. The current known fatality rate of the original COVID strain from 2019-20 worldwide is between 0.2 per cent and 0.3 per cent, exactly what Fauci privately predicted in February of 2020. 

Fauci was called last week to testify to the US Congress as to why his private diaries had the correct appraisal of COVID while his public pronouncements were entirely the opposite, whipping up unfounded terror and fear, and to inquire why he advocated measures like social distancing, masking, lockdowns and screens at check-outs, all which had no scientific basis. He pleaded his fifth amendment right to not answer based on his fear of self-incrimination 113 times. Nothing says ‘I am guilty and will lose my immunity if I lie to you’ more than what he did. The committee has now held Fauci in contempt. This he would rather than to admit under oath that the actions he took, the same actions the Australian media enabled with their fear porn, had no scientific basis. Fauci knew that at the time. These were actions taken to sell pharmaceutical products which were disproportionate to the health risks of COVID but which made big pharma rich. There was an opportunity to wind all this back in November 2021, when the omicron virus arrived in Australia and the fatality rate from COVID fell. The omicron fatality rate was between 0.03 per cent and 0.1 per cent; that’s way less than the flu. Nonetheless, at the time, the excess mortality rate was going through the roof—and we know it was not due to COVID. 

The unfounded fear that Fauci fomented meant that advocating for the cessation of vaccination would have been hard to explain, despite the fact that American and Australian health regulators knew that Pfizer had misled the public on its shoddy, skimpy, faulty testing that proved fatal for 1,230 people. Only a royal commission can deal with the critical point here: if the omicron fatality rate was as low as 0.03 per cent of infected persons, and most people had been infected and, at the time, had natural immunity anyway, why was excess mortality running at a staggering 13 per cent? It’s impossible for that mortality rate to have come from the COVID virus. What could it have been? Only one thing, it seems: COVID injections. 

Even now, five years later, Australia’s excess mortality rate is running at five per cent. This represents 10,000 additional people dying each year with no explanation. I asked about this in Senate estimates and was told it was the lockdowns delaying medical treatment. It was psychological trauma, despair and loneliness: ‘It’ll pass.’ It has not passed. Why is the media falsely labelling me a conspiracy theorist, and why is it lying about me for asking these questions based on hard data? The answer is that the media took their 30 pieces of gold in the first three years of Australia’s COVID response. The media banked over $600 million from COVID— (Time expired) 

What wasn’t said because of Time Expired:

related advertising from State and Federal Governments. 

That’s what’s going on.  

Only a Royal Commission can investigate Australian governments’ COVID response, the media’s role in this and the reason for excess deaths still occurring. 

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Life in a Greens-Run Supermarket

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The Greens have shown their true colours with calls to nationalise essential services, a pipe dream that our economy simply cannot afford.

Government-run industries and state-owned supermarkets sound like a fantasy, yet we all know that when politicians try to control everything, everyday Australians pay the price through total government overreach, inefficiency, and incompetence.

Imagine if you will a Greens-run government supermarket: no plastic packaging (bring your own bags and scoop out your purchase), Aboriginal Australians would shop first, then migrants with brown skin — Senator Faruqi’s description, not mine — then gay and bi folk, then men dressed as women, followed by actual women, and then straight white men last, if anything is left.

The shelves will carry only brown onions (white onions are cancelled), staff are color-coded by hair dye, green in produce, blue in cleaning aisle, and meat rations are down to one lamb chop or one cockroach per week, WEF-style.

Bags of coal will make fart noises when touched and the store is only open for 20 minutes on Friday morning because employees are absent on paid leave for everything from stress to gender reassignments to union meetings, or annual leave from having leave. Not to mention – working from home.

If this sounds ridiculous, that’s because extreme government control always is!

We’ve already seen the disastrous results of trying to nationalise the energy market under the guise of saving the planet: skyrocketing bills and sheer incompetence. The private sector belongs in business; government belongs in governance.

One Nation supports strategic public infrastructure, like rail and a government owned bank, to ensure a fair go for everyday Australians.

One Nation will always stand against extreme, far-left overreach.

Transcript

I thank Senator McKim for this motion. The Greens have finally shown their true colours: ‘Let’s nationalise essential services.’ From their website, those would include power, water, telecommunications, education, transport, health care and labs, which are industries that collectively hold $3 trillion in assets. No government could afford to pay just compensation at that price, which section 51 of our Constitution requires. Any attempt to nationalise these industries will fail on that basis. Greens party policy calls for a national chain of government owned supermarkets, so perhaps add a few hundred billion dollars more for those. 

Actually, let me pause and focus on a government owned supermarket in the hands of the Greens for a moment. What would it look like? No plastic packaging, of course—former senator Whish-Wilson’s contribution—in fact, very little packaging at all. Customers would need to bring their own bags and scoop out their purchases, just like in The Handmaid’s Tale. When a new shipment arrives, Aboriginal Australians would shop first, then migrants with brown skin—Senator Faruqi’s description, not mine—then gay and bi folk, then men dressed as women, followed by actual women, and then straight white men last, if anything is left. 

Brown onions are available; white onions, not so much. Staff can be organised by hair colour: green hair in produce; blue hair in cleaning goods, just like toilet ducks; and red hair in hot food. Pricing is based on genetics. Please share your Ancestry DNA results in order for us to decide how much loading you will be charged for your white privilege. Staff dress is strictly pants and shirts for the women and skirts and blouses for the men. The Greens have of course built their supermarkets without walls, so the checkouts aren’t very busy. Following World Economic Forum guidelines, meat is restricted to one lamb chop per week or one cockroach per week, and shopping trips are limited to one visit per person per week. 

Senator McKim interjecting— 

I’m glad the Greens can see the sense of humour. The bags of coal on display are empty and make fart noises when you touch them. Stores are now only open every Friday morning because staffing has been affected by the Greens’ four-day working week and working from home, plus leave for maternity, paternity, sickness, bereavement, bad periods, stress, gender reassignment, domestic violence, study, union meetings and, of course, annual leave from having leave. I’m pretty sure I missed a few there! 

The Greens’ economic justice policy calls for the nationalisation of all natural monopolies and essential public services, which reflects the wording in Senator McKim’s motion. Natural monopolies include water, rail, roads, sewerage and electricity, so I’m really not exaggerating my comments here at all. To be conducted under government ownership is property development and housing—but not all of it, since paying for $11 trillion in real estate might tire out their magic money fairy. 

In other words, this motion is a Greens wet dream—total power and control in the hands of a government that will then make decisions based on victimhood and feelings. If this sounds like I’m having a lend, I’m having no more of a lend than the Greens and Minister Bowen have been taking at the taxpayer’s expense in the name of saving the world from the sky god of warming. The government’s attempt to effectively nationalise the power market to promote so-called renewables has resulted in a bill of hundreds of billions of dollars. It has shown the sheer incompetence of government when asked to perform tasks which are best left to the private sector. 

Let’s be clear. One Nation is not opposed to government-private partnerships which are part of our energy policy. We believe, though, that some infrastructure, including rail, should be publicly owned. Banking must have a government owned bank to provide a fair go for everyday Australians, which our banks stopped doing years ago. 

Senator McKim interjecting— 

Just one out of others. The real reason for the motion is simple: the Liberals moved to the left, and the Nationals followed them. Labor moved further to the left, and the Greens move so far left they’re sitting in totalitarian territory. One Nation opposes this motion. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator O’Neill): Before I call Senator Shoebridge, I’ve counted three terms about body parts and body motions already in this debate. I remind senators to think carefully about the language choices they make that bring respect and order to the Senate rather than descend into inappropriate language that I think is less than satisfactory for this place. I look forward to your contribution, Senator Shoebridge. 

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