After everything that’s unfolded around Ben Roberts-Smith, it was refreshing to hear the War Memorial confirm his Victoria Cross display remains untouched, his plaque updated only with factual context, and that the presumption of innocence still applies.
That principle isn’t optional – it’s the foundation of justice.
Transcipt
CHAIR: Thank you, Mr Anderson. Senator Roberts, you have the call.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for being here and thank you for such an uplifting opening statement. That’s wonderful that you’re celebrating that. My questions are fairly brief. Mr Anderson, can I confirm you have left the Ben Roberts-Smith VC display in the Hall of Valour in the same condition it was before his arrest while updating his plaque to include the passage: In April 2026, Roberts-Smith was charged with five counts of the war crime of murder. The legal process is ongoing.
Mr Anderson: That’s correct.
Senator ROBERTS: Can I confirm that on 10 April 2026, in a media conference at the Australian War Memorial, you made the following statement: The most important thing that all of us can do now is allow justice to take its course; to start with the presumption of innocence.
Mr Anderson: That’s correct.
Senator ROBERTS: Is the presumption of innocence still the overarching principle guiding the Australian War Memorial in the continued display of Ben Roberts-Smith’s VC exhibit in the Hall of Valour?
Mr Anderson: I think the overriding principle is one of fact. He’s in the Hall of Valour because of his actions in Tizak on 10 June 2011. Those are the circumstances that we speak to in the Hall of Valour. We’ve updated, as we always do, the panel. Since 2023, we’ve been updating the interpretive panel with the facts as they become known.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s almost as uplifting to me, hearing that you believe in fact and make decisions based on data and fact, as your opening statement. That’s wonderful. Final question—I want to thank you, Mr Anderson, for reminding Australia that Ben Roberts-Smith has a presumption of innocence and for treating his service with the respect it deserves. I have nothing further, Chair. Thank you.
CHAIR: That is very efficient of you, Senator; thank you.
I seemed to have upset my colleagues when I questioned why more than half a million dollars was being spent on a grant exploring “Indigenous connections to outer space” and whether Aboriginal people “cared for other planets.”
How do such projects help Australians who are living in tents, skipping meals, or struggling to pay rent?
While people are hurting, the Labor government is spending $1 billion a year on grants like this.
Taxpayers deserve to know why.
— February | Senate Estimates
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Moving on, Dr Lara Daley at the University of Newcastle received a grant of $528,491 over three years, including salary and project costs to study: ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge in Australian space policy, using songlines and creation stories, aiming to broaden understandings of outer space by identifying and supporting Aboriginal connections between space and life on Earth to develop culturally respectful and environmentally responsible space exploration.’ How would Aboriginal environmental management be better than what these days is a collective understanding of environmental management that includes Aboriginal management of the environment?
Prof. Shergold: My answer to this and other questions I suspect are going to be identical. I can do no more than describe the peer-review processes that are being used and hopefully make it clear why it would be entirely inappropriate for me or the board to step in on particular projects on which we would have far less expertise than the assessors to overturn decisions.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Professor Shergold. That doesn’t give the taxpayers much confidence. How would Aboriginal management be better than what these days is a collective understanding of environmental management full stop? Does the ARC expect Elon Musk to encounter an Indigenous population on Mars for which we should prepare? According to her bio, Dr Daley’s research is grounded in herself as, inter alia, ‘a white, non-Indigenous person on unceded Aboriginal country specialising in human and more-than-human research, including outer space as being already known, cared for and inhabited through Indigenous ontologies. Did Aboriginals inhabit other planets?
CHAIR: The scope of estimates is very broad, but it is contained to the operations and expenditure of departments and agencies, and I—
Senator ROBERTS: Okay, one more question.
CHAIR: Okay.
Senator ROBERTS: I wonder: did Aboriginals care for other planets in the solar system? You appear to be trying to extend Aboriginal mythology to other planets in the solar system. How far out—Pluto, Saturn, to infinity and beyond, as Buzz Lightyear said in Toy Story?
Senator FARUQI: My God. Read some books, Malcolm!
Senator ROBERTS: Australians are living in tents, struggling to buy food. Hundreds of thousands of people are struggling. Tens of thousands are living under bridges and in cars, and this is what you spend your $1 billion a year on. Unidentified speaker: Is there a question, Chair?
Senator FARUQI: Chair, please put us out of our misery.
CHAIR: Malcolm Roberts, please take a moment. Senators, I appreciate all the feelings at the table, but it is important that senators are able to be heard in silence as they ask their questions, as it is important for witnesses to be heard in silence and not spoken over. I will be enforcing this on both counts. Senator Roberts, you have the call to keep asking your question. Senators, regardless of what you think of it, please allow him to do so in silence.
Senator ROBERTS: With Australians struggling, why is this what you spend your $1 billion a year on? Taxpayers would be saying, ‘Shame on you.’
Senator Walsh: Was that for the professor or for me?
Senator ROBERTS: Both.
Senator Walsh: I’ll go first, Senator Roberts, and say that you are a politician and that you are expressing your political views right now—
Senator ROBERTS: On behalf of many constituents, yes.
Senator Walsh: and what we did is we removed politics from the processes that the ARC uses, because we believe in peer review of research not political review of research. The ARC’s process is rigorous. It is independent. As Professor Shergold has said, it is based on a strong network of peer reviewers. That is the decision of the government. We based that decision after an independent review of the ARC Act. Our reforms came into force from 1 July 2024, and we established an independent and expert ARC board to be responsible for the approval of grants, fellowships and the like. Professor Shergold and his team are discharging their obligations under the legislation to assess grant applications through these processes—through the panel, through peer review. They are discharging their obligations appropriately, and the government undermines efforts to undermine the trust in the Australian Research Council.
Prof. Shergold: You are quite right to be directing the question to me. It isn’t a ministerial decision. It is in very large measure a decision for me and the board of the ARC. You’re quite right. The reality is, as I said, that we had about 1,000 grants that were approved last year. It is inevitable that there will be 10 or 20 of those that will become highly controversial for the reasons you’ve suggested. I suppose my view is—and it’s not giving any view on any particular research—that the fact that becomes controversial is not a bad thing. The whole purpose of research is to look for new paradigms, to interpret in new ways, to provoke and, to be honest with you, to raise hackles on existence. It is the way in which we continue to improve what we do economically, socially and environmentally and have debates about culture within Australia. I can’t, like you, sit down and say, ‘I think that looks like a really good piece of research to me, and that one looks a bit whacky.’ I’ve got to be dependent upon the experts that I use. My task, as I’ve said, is to make sure that they are doing it with integrity. I want to make sure, to see, that there are no conflicts of interest. I want to look at the outcomes of that research, to make sure that all universities are getting agreement that Indigenous scholars—not just on Indigenous issues, incidentally, but Indigenous scholars in all areas—are getting fair access. That’s what I’m looking at when I look at the 4,000 grant applications we receive and the thousands of decisions we make. It’s making sure that, in all ways, the peer review process is working and, with the board, looking at ways in which it can be improved all the time.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/KfQtjTs2vls/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-07-09 09:15:062026-07-09 09:16:25Tents vs. Space Programs
I seemed to upset my colleagues when I questioned why the Australian Research Council is spending close to a billion dollars a year on grants that taxpayers would struggle to see any value in.
ARC leadership repeatedly hid behind “peer review processes”, refusing to justify cost-benefit while signing off on a $889,275 grant for an Arab/Muslim Australian social movements study, and another $322,213 grant that produced a commercial sold book Coming of Age in War on Terror.
While I respect independent review processes, the real issue is being ignored.
How is this supposedly “world-class system” allowing taxpayer money to be poured into niche ideological research with no demonstrated benefit to the people footing the bill?
The problem isn’t that research exists – it’s why taxpayers are being forced to fund it.
— February | Senate Estimates
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair, and thank you for appearing tonight. Good evening. I have here grant reference FT220100427 for beneficiary Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, covering the period from 2022 to 2027, with a grant amount $802,000, since increased to $889,275. The purpose of this very large grant—inter alia—is: Arab/Muslim Australian Social Movements since the 1970s: a hidden history … aims to recover previously untapped oral histories and rare archival collections of Arab/Muslim Australian activists … Who have struggled against external systems and internal conflicts to build a socially just future … include a greater understanding of the transformative activism of communities whose movement work is often relegated to the margins. This is what you’re spending taxpayer money on. What is the cost benefit of this study sufficient to justify an almost $900,000 price tag?
Senator FARUQI: Why do you hate Muslims, Malcolm?
Senator ROBERTS: I don’t; we have some in this party.
Prof. Shergold: Let me answer that question and I’m happy to do so because the key change to the ARC legislation, as you will be aware, is that, at this stage—in most instances, not all—it is the ARC and board which make the decision on grants and not the minister. So the minister is clearly at arm’s length. Now, what do you do if you’re on a board and you are trying to make sure that you use public funds for the best purposes available for projects that are deemed by universities to be in the national interest? If you look at the number of applications that come forward, you’ll start to understand what a challenge it is. I think last year—I’m looking for the numbers—there was something about 4,000 applications.
Senator ROBERTS: Is this getting to the answer of my question?
Prof. Shergold: I am going to get there, because I want you to share my pain. We’ve got 4,000 applications and about, give or take, 25 per cent are accepted. It is quite unrealistic and very bad governance to imagine I and the board members sit down and look at 4,000 applications, even as well as presented as you’ve just done with this one, and say yes or no. How do you do it? You try and make sure you have the very best world-class system, which is a peer-review process. The role of myself, the role of the board, isn’t to go through and second-guess those expert peer reviewers in the decisions they make. My role—an important one; I feel a burden of responsibility—is to make sure that the processes that are being used are best practice in peer review and are done with honesty.
Senator ROBERTS: Is there a cost benefit?
Prof. Shergold: This was a proposal that came forward out of about was about 1,200, give or take, that were accepted last year.
Senator ROBERTS: So you can’t tell me—
Prof. Shergold: What I can tell you is we are using the best peer-review processes that we have available. It was thought by members of college of experts and then by disciplinary experts that this would be an important and innovative and, no doubt, provocative piece of research.
Senator ROBERTS: But you can’t tell me the cost benefit.
Prof. Shergold: Well, I tell you what I can do. I can tell you the cost benefit as assessed of the ARC grants overall, which we had undertaken a few years ago—
Senator ROBERTS: Is that for this grant?
Prof. Shergold: which gave a return on all our grants of about I think $3.20 on the dollar, something like that.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll move on. This isn’t your first grant to the doctor. There was also grant DP110101249 titled ‘Youth in the digital age: Being young and Muslim in Australia’ for $322,213 covering 2018 to 2021. Now my question is: why didn’t you use the correct name of the project, which was: ‘”Trust, Politics, and Fear: ‘Generation 9/11’ Muslim and Non-Muslim youth compared”‘?
Prof. Shergold: Well, it wasn’t my piece of research.
Senator ROBERTS: This grant allowed the doctor to write a book titled Coming of Age in the War on Terror, published by Allen and Unwin. Why are you funding this person to write a book which she sold commercially and for which the doctor most likely received payment? Did she?
Prof. Shergold: I have no idea—
Senator ROBERTS: That is what bothers me.
Prof. Shergold: if she received payment from that. But I am delighted overall when pieces of research that we fund end up in books or articles. I think that was a good use of money.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, this is socialising costs and privatising profits. Why is the Australian Research Council allowed to use taxpayer money to provide a commercial benefit to their friends in academia—paid to write the book, paid to sell the book? This seems to be a great scam going on here for academia.
Prof. Shergold: Well, in answering the question, and you were frustrated at the delay, the one thing I did show is how this is a best-practice peer-review process, and to identify that as a scam is probably stretching it somewhat.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, why is the ARC allowed to do this—socialise costs and privatise benefits?
Senator Walsh: The ARC’s role in the process is through its independent and expert board to use the process of peer review that Professor Shergold spoke about to be responsible for the approval of grants and fellowships and so on. That’s the ARC’s role and they rely on independent peer review to discharge their obligations. I think you’re asking questions about academics then publishing books after they have conducted research which may be funded by the ARC or may be supported in other ways. I think that publishing opportunity is just a part of higher education; it is standard procedure.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, you have been funding this person continuously since 2018. Dr Randa Abdel Fattah is a radical Islamic activist who just participated in the figurative ‘burning down’ of the Adelaide Writers Festival. Is this grant nothing more than the ARC funding Islamic activism?
Prof. Shergold: I won’t repeat the process which the minister has described well. I will say we have a college of experts carefully selected who do a first assessment. We then have detailed assessments from over 20,000 assessors from Australia and around the world that then assess each of those pieces of research. And roughly about 25 per cent of them manage to make the cut. I wish I could fund more. There are many more good projects you could, but that’s the truth. There is a process. I can’t possibly step in and start to overrule decisions of that process on the basis that I don’t like particularly the political advocacy that someone does. I’ve got to make sure on your behalf that that process is being used as well as it possibly can be to make sure that decisions are being made fairly, honestly, transparently and in the national interest.
Senator ROBERTS: They’re nice words. But I’d leave this to the taxpayers to decide. The doctor has now organised an alternative event to the Adelaide Writers Festival, which, by all reports, is designed to exclude people of a certain faith or belief. Minister, I keep on hearing about social cohesion and yet this grant has gone to a person who is attacking social cohesion to advance Islamic propaganda. Why is your grants program encouraging social conflict?
Senator Walsh: There are a lot of incorrect premises there about the role of the ARC and the grants process and the investigation that was undertaken by Macquarie University. Essentially, Professor Shergold has already gone through that process. To go over it again, briefly, the minister wrote to the ARC and, I think, to Professor Shergold and asked the ARC to look into this particular grant to the doctor and make sure that the grant was being appropriately used. The way that works is that it’s the university that receives the grant that is then tasked with doing the investigation. Macquarie University appointed academic experts to conduct the review. The review investigated whether the grant funding was being used for its intended purpose. During that process, the funding was suspended. The process concluded and the grant was reinstated. It was reinstated, as I understand it, because there was no evidence that there was an inappropriate acquittal of public funds. So that’s the process.
Prof. Shergold: The only thing I would add is that, of course, we will continue to review this grant, just as we review all the other grants.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Minister. Just moving on then—
Senator FARUQI: Chair, may I raise a point of order?
CHAIR: Yes.
Senator FARUQI: Senator Roberts is making completely unfounded and false allegations about a very respected academic and researcher. I would really like you to ask him to withdraw those or stop that line of questioning.
Senator ROBERTS: I’d like to move on, Chair.
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, you need to wait for me to respond to the point of order before you can direct the committee to move on. I take your point, Senator Faruqi, but I don’t believe there has been a breach of the standing orders from what I can observe. But I would just remind all senators, as we continue through this session, to do so respectfully of the witnesses and topics we’re dealing with and of each other at the table. Senator Roberts, you still have the call.
During this Estimates hearing back in February I questioned Dennis Barnes, the CEO of the infamous Snowy Hydro 2.0 that’s estimated to cost taxpayers $12 billion … for now.
This project began without a transparent business case and is currently locked into an anti-competitive contractor structure whilst relying on a cost-plus model that leaves taxpayers carrying the blowouts.
Add years of delays, poor early planning, and constant political blame-shifting, and the project looks less like nation-building and more like a multibillion dollar waste of taxpayer money.
Despite the project’s spiralling costs and repeated failures, the government continues to shift blame rather than accept responsibility.
Barnaby Joyce has openly acknowledged his mistake, yet those overseeing Snowy Hydro 2.0 refuse to show the same accountability.
And it’s you. The Australian taxpayers, that are expected to foot the bill.
One Nation says: it’s time to cut our losses on this white elephant and get back to what works – cheap base-load energy.
Transcript
CHAIR: Thank you. I’ll give the call to Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again tonight. Good evening, Mr Barnes.
Mr Barnes: Good evening.
Senator ROBERTS: Your principal contractor is FGJV, Future Generation Joint Venture, which is three companies: Webuild, Clough and Lane Construction. Webuild as an Italian company who has across the construction arc of Snowy Hydro bought out Clough and Lane Constructions, so the joint venture is Webuild, Webuild and Webuild. Is that correct?
Mr Barnes: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: It’s significant because one arm of Webuild is unlikely to find fault or offer a cheaper option than another arm of Webuild. They really have this project in their grip, don’t they?
Mr Barnes: We have a principal contractor called Future Generation Joint Venture. That joint venture was chosen through a competitive process before my time. Circumstances meant that Clough, who went into receivership, I believe, in 2022, was acquired by Webuild at that time. The contractual counterparty for Snowy Hydro has not changed.
Senator ROBERTS: So who’s the contractual partner?
Mr Barnes: Future Generation Joint Venture.
Senator ROBERTS: Which is Webuild, Webuild, Webuild.
Mr Barnes: There are three Webuild subsidiaries.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s right. So the current contract with Webuild uses an incentivised target cost model, also called a cost-plus margin. Is that correct?
Mr Barnes: The important part is the incentivised bit. There are elements of the project which are more complex and challenging, which are on a cost-recovery basis, but is a large proportion of the contract where the contractor Future Generation Joint Venture is incentivised to do a better job on time, on cost, and, if they don’t, then they suffer some penalties.
Senator ROBERTS: But, essentially, it’s cost-plus margin.
Mr Barnes: Elements of it are cost-plus margin; elements of it are incentivised target costs, where the contractor is incentivised to deliver the lowest cost and fastest outcome, and, if they don’t, then they incur penalties.
Senator ROBERTS: Being cost-plus, the higher the cost, the more money the contractor makes through the plus margin part.
Mr Barnes: There is a series of triggers and caps within the contract which mean that the contractor doesn’t continue to earn as the cost of the project increases. In fact, the recovery from the contractor means their return goes down.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you use external auditors to ensure every cost is legit?
Mr Barnes: We have a monthly process conducted by Ernst & Young, who go through every line item and every subcontractor payment and assure those to us.
Senator ROBERTS: So they’re external auditors?
Mr Barnes: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: This question might actually be good news. How many apprentices and trainees are working on Snowy Hydro? I understand you have a school based apprenticeships and traineeships program.
Mr Barnes: I think the round number—and we can provide the detail on Snowy Hydro as opposed to Snowy 2—is more than 40 people in what we call development programs. That include apprentices, vacation students and graduates—across that spectrum. We can provide the detail. We do produce a report each year with that input. We’re happy to provide that.
Senator ROBERTS: One Nation believes very much in apprenticeships. They used to be a fantastic system, and they’ve been peeled off.
Mr Barnes: I’m a product of an apprenticeship myself, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: This is my last question. Minister, without reflecting on the performance of Mr Barnes, who is making good progress, you understand that the taxpayers are annoyed that the cost just keeps going up and up under the current model. It started without an open business case or cost-benefit analysis. Costs will continue to go up through 2028. Is that correct?
Senator Ayres: Yes. I think this was a project that commenced under the—
Senator ROBERTS: Turnbull government.
Senator Ayres: Turnbull government, when Mr Joyce was the deputy prime minister. Mr Joyce and that government announced the program. It’s a little bit like some of the dam projects that Mr Joyce constantly talks about. I think he said he was going to deliver 100 dams during the life of the Abbott-Morrison-Turnbull catastrophe—and delivered one.
Senator ROBERTS: Which one was that?
Senator Ayres: I don’t know, but one out of 100—one per cent. A lot of talk, not much water.
Senator ROBERTS: He found it very frustrating, didn’t he?
Senator Ayres: Well, he wasn’t much good. The assessment that was made on Snowy 2.0 was that the cost escalation was partly due to what was described as design immaturity at final investment decision and site conditions and geology, which should have been known at the time. Unlike Mr Joyce and Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison and Mr Taylor—all these characters—we haven’t covered up—
Senator ROBERTS: You haven’t mentioned Sussan Ley.
Senator Ayres: I’m only pointing at the people who are responsible. I don’t know about—maybe, maybe; certainly Mr Joyce is at the heart of this free-wheeling catastrophe. We haven’t covered up the costs, and we haven’t covered up the delays. What we, as a government, have done is work with Mr Barnes and the team to make sure that this nation-building project gets back on track. It is an important project for our future energy security. Despite the damage of a ham-fisted start, with a focus on announcements and the sort of approach that was taken by Mr Joyce and his colleagues, we are working hard. The project is now 70 per cent complete. It’s still got some quite substantial work to go. You are right to point to work that has been done by Snowy and contractors in terms of apprenticeships. That’s a good contribution. We’re very focused on this project proceeding as quickly as possible in as low cost a way as possible but transparently. We don’t think good public policy is supported by deliberately concealing facts about important national projects like this.
Senator ROBERTS: It did bother me that Prime Minister Turnbull at the time heavily redacted the business case. That certainly did bother me because I wasn’t in favour of it at the start. But its cost has gone from roughly $2 billion, I think, to about $20 billion.
Senator Ayres: I might go to Mr Barnes on the cost questions because I think we should be precise. The cost has escalated significantly, but let’s have some precision.
Senator ROBERTS: We’ve had a lot of imprecisions in the past. Is it worth continuing?
Mr Barnes: The cost approval that was budgeted was $5.9 billion, and the project reset that we concluded in 2023 was $12 billion.
Senator Ayres: I thought the figure was closer to $12 billion than $20 billion.
Senator ROBERTS: With all the extra transmission lines and all the ancillaries?
Senator Ayres: Yes, well these are nation-building projects that are required to deliver an electricity system. I agree with Mr Joyce 1.0, not 2.0 or whatever version he is now. In 2020, he said: The Federal Government has delivered millions of dollars of investment already for renewable energy generation right here on our doorstep in places like Inverell and Glen Innes. He then went on to say: We’ve made massive investments in the New England into renewable energy— I’m passionate about this because it’s where I come from. We’ve made massive investments in the New England into renewable energy, in fact we’re one of the biggest renewable energy hubs in Australia. Just like the Inland Rail, others talked about it for years and I made sure it happened.
Senator ROBERTS: And he now has the courage to admit his folly.
Senator Ayres: In 2021, he then went on to say, ‘In the long term, we understand that there may be a transition to other fuel sources, and we’ve got to make sure that we’re also part of that transition,’ something his constituents agree with. In 2017, he said: With other projects like the Sapphire Wind Farm going ahead— and here he is backing in a wind farm that he was cutting the ribbon at, extolling the virtues of this very important development—
Senator ROBERTS: And he’s had the courage to recognise he was wrong.
Senator Ayres: He said: With other projects like the Sapphire Wind Farm going ahead, it also shows that the New England is leading the way in renewable energy production and I will continue to advocate for the region as a growing power supplier for Australia. Before his decline to where he’s got to now, he said some quite commonsense things, this bloke.
Senator ROBERTS: Well, at least he’s got the strength of character to admit he was wrong.
Senator Ayres: He’s a long way away from common sense now.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s something that you haven’t done, despite the rising cost of electricity.
Senator Ayres: He’s a long way away from common sense now.
CHAIR: Senators, thank you for that exchange. Senator Roberts, I will have to wind you up.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/t22LKdNqnqo/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-07-06 12:42:582026-07-06 12:43:02Snowy 2.0: A Masterclass in Government Failure
A $68.5 million budget measure (allocated over three years) intends to provide HIV treatment to people who are not eligible for Medicare.
Why are Australian taxpayers funding treatment for non-citizens when we are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis?
Officials declined to comment on this, stating the policy and funding mechanism were developed strictly by the Department of Health.
I then shifted the discussion to the Significant Cost Threshold (SCT) for visa health requirements, which was raised from $51,000 to $86,000 in July 2024.
How this works is that if a medical officer of the Commonwealth estimates that an applicant’s health condition (such as HIV, a physical disability, or other chronic illnesses) will cost the Australian healthcare system more than $86,000, they fail the health requirement, and the visa is refused (unless a specific waiver is applied).
I asked whether this framework allows Australian citizens a “perfect way” to bring in family members with known health conditions to receive immediate taxpayer-funded care, provided the projected costs fall just under the $86,000 limit.
The Department repeatedly stated they could not answer the “family member” line of questioning.
They reiterated that immigration rules and the $86,000 threshold are applied uniformly to all applicants, independent of separate Department of Health funding measures.
Data on exactly how many people reside in Australia under the updated threshold was taken on notice.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll get back to the topic I started on this morning. It’s an immigration issue, not a health issue.
Ms Foster: We’ll just get our chief medical officer up to the table.
Mr Willard: I can speak broadly about the criteria. There’s a health criteria that applies to all visas. It looks at questions of health protection for Australians. It looks at costs to the health service, and it looks at the access to health treatment for Australians. It’s applied across all our visa types. It’s applied on a risk management basis. It looks at where somebody is coming from, and the sorts of health risks that might be presented. It looks at what the person might be doing in Australia, whether they’re going to go to a medical facility, whether they’re staying for a short time or whether they’re looking for a permanent visa. All of these factors are taken into consideration when the health criteria are assessed. Dr Grant Pegg, our chief medical officer, oversees the system that undertakes medicals. I think there are very large numbers of medicals undertaken each year.
Senator ROBERTS: Can you tell me what the three basic criteria are again?
Mr Willard: It’s health protection for Australians. It’s cost to the health system, and it’s access to Australian health services.
Senator ROBERTS: This is primarily with No. 2—cost. The 2026-27 federal budget included $68.5 million, or $69 million, over three years to provide HIV treatment and pre-exposure prophylaxis, which is medication that stops transmission to people in Australia who are not eligible for Medicare. They’re not eligible for Medicare, but we are paying for their treatment anyway so they don’t infect Australians with their HIV. Is that the logic behind this allocation? I know it wasn’t allocated by you.
Mr Willard: Because it is a measure from the department of health, I really can’t talk to the logic behind the measure.
Senator ROBERTS: Why should Australians allow entry of people with HIV and then pay for their treatment, especially when Australia is under pressure economically and individual Australians are under pressure cost-of-living-wise?
Ms Foster: Mr Willard is unable to comment, because the measure was developed by the department of health.
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I think that the right place for this is at the community affairs estimates committee next week.
Senator ROBERTS: But I want to know. Many Australians are calling for noncitizens who have HIV or AIDS to be deported instead of paying for their medical care. We’re letting people in here with a known liability of cost to Australians. What is your response to that criticism of this budget allocation—the criticism, not the budget allocation itself? People are concerned that we’re letting in people who have a disease, and now we’re paying for their treatment.
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I think that is asking the officials at the table for their opinion on a matter that is not within the purview of the questions allowed to be asked at Senate estimates, particularly as it relates to the budget.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. I’ll move on to the next one. Australia raised the significant cost threshold for visa health requirements in July 2024, from $51,000 to $86,000. For those following this thread, I’ll give a quick explanation. The significant cost threshold determines whether a health condition, such as HIV/AIDS or physical disability, is likely to impose significant costs on Australia’s health and community services. Exceeding it typically means failing the health requirements for a visa, although health waivers are available for some visa subclasses, including partner and humanitarian. A person who comes in under your new, higher cap can access medical care and medications for free or for a small co-payment depending upon the state in which they live. How many people are here under this arrangement across all health conditions?
Mr Pegg: I don’t have the data in that detail, so I’d have to take that on notice.
Senator ROBERTS: If you could. Thank you. This is my last question on this topic, Chair. Isn’t this a perfect way of getting a family member into Australia and having their care paid for straightaway? The other part of the question is that the numbers are increasing, which means the Australian taxpayer is paying more.
Mr Pegg: Perhaps, if I can just offer, that’s the purpose of the operation of the significant cost threshold—to try and avoid significant cost to the Australian healthcare system. That’s why it exists.
Senator ROBERTS: Could you explain that more?
Mr Pegg: When someone is identified as having a health condition through the immigration medical examination as part of their visa process, they’re then costed by a medical officer of the Commonwealth who looks at that, on a hypothetical basis for someone with the same condition—the nature of condition and severity— to determine what their costs might be to the Australian healthcare system. That could be lab tests, X-rays, visits to the doctor—those sorts of things. There’s a comprehensive process that is undertaken to do that. When that’s undertaken, a figure is determined, and then, if that figure exceeds the number that you talked about, $86,000, that is considered to be ‘not meeting the health requirement’.
Senator ROBERTS: The first part of my question was: isn’t this a perfect way of getting a family member into Australia and having their care paid for straightaway?
Ms Sharp: Are you talking about a situation where the health requirement is waived? I guess what we’re saying is that the general rule is that if you fail the health requirement—as in your healthcare costs are coming in above $86,000—you will not be granted the visa; you won’t come to Australia.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s initial assessment. Forget about the—well, the payment matters, but I’m not interested in the total amount. What I want to know is: isn’t this a perfect way of getting a family member into the country and having their health care paid for straightaway? That’s basically what it is. The government’s allocated $69 million over three years to provide treatment and pre-exposure prophylactics just for people with HIV. They’re coming in here with a known condition, and we pay for the treatment.
CHAIR: Was there a question, Senator Roberts?
Senator ROBERTS: Isn’t this a perfect way of getting a family member into Australia and having their health care paid for?
CHAIR: This is a question that the officials at the table have responded to. It sounds like—
Senator ROBERTS: Yes or no?
CHAIR: you’re not using the same words to describe the same thing. I think the officials at the table have spoken about what their role is. I think you’re talking about it in a different way, but it’s not necessarily what the officials are—
Senator ROBERTS: It’s about immigration, though.
CHAIR: I think they’ve responded to your question, which is that there’s a program that exists to essentially weed out, for want of a better term, people who have costs higher than the amount the official said.
Senator ROBERTS: No. If they’re projected to have a significant cost threshold higher than $86,000, then I understand, but, if it’s less than $86,000, isn’t this a perfect way of getting a family member into Australia and having their care paid for straightaway?
Ms Foster: Senator, I don’t understand the link between the answers we’ve been giving and the family member issue.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes or no?
Ms Foster: That’s why we’re struggling to answer you.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes or no?
Ms Foster: We don’t understand the relation of the question to the information we’ve given, and, in a sense, it’s asking us for an opinion: ‘Is this a perfect way to do something?’ That’s not our role. Our role is to provide you with information about how the program operates.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay, I’ll make it easier. Is it a way of getting a family member into Australia and having their care paid for straightaway?
Ms Sharp: We might finish it where we began which is I think you need to direct this question to the department of health to ask them for the policy reasoning behind the measure—which group of people they were aiming to support.
Ms Foster: We apply our immigration rules irrespective of whether or not the government has funded a measure such as this through the department.
Senator ROBERTS: One of your immigration rules covers a significant cost threshold maximising at $86,000. If you assess an application to migrate here and it’s less than $86,000 then they are welcomed in. Is it a way of getting a family member in here?
Ms Foster: We don’t understand the relationship between what we’ve told you and the question about a family. I can’t say that any more clearly. I’m not trying to be unhelpful. We just don’t understand the question.
Senator ROBERTS: Could a citizen of Australia use this to bring in someone who is going to cost Australia money and health care immediately?
Ms Foster: The rule would apply irrespective. We would apply that rule as part of our visa consideration to any visa applicant.
Senator ROBERTS: I understand that, but this is a way for a citizen of Australia to bring in a family member and have their health care paid for by the taxpayer?
Ms Foster: I’m sorry, but we have nothing further to add.
Australians have a right to answers when it comes to our national security.
During this session with Home Affairs, I asked several questions about the returning ISIS families and frankly, the lack of clarity is alarming.
Deradicalisation programs for these returning children are entirely voluntary. If the mothers do not consent, the states have no authority to force participation.
Basic questions, like whether any of the returning adult partners hold dual citizenship, or even the general age range of the children, were repeatedly put “on notice” due to privacy concerns.
If these children are deemed at risk and taken into state care, it will be the state taxpayers left holding the bill.
Instead of clear answers on security risks and monitoring, we got political deflections from Labor ministers trying to pass the buck.
Transcript
CHAIR: Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: I have one other question, and then I’ll move on. We can go through quickly. Are any of the returning terrorist partners dual citizens?
Ms Foster: I’d like to take that question on notice. I’m very conscious that, whilst there’s been a lot of public scrutiny of this—
Senator ROBERTS: And concern.
Ms Foster: and concern in the community, these are Australian citizens, and I just want to be careful that I’m not breaching any privacy considerations by providing personal details about the cohort. So let me take that on notice and see whether or not that’s information that I’m able to provide.
Senator ROBERTS: Or if you can provide it in a way that doesn’t breach privacy, by saying, ‘Yes, three of them are, and they’re of this country, this country and this country.’
Ms Foster: Certainly. I’ll take that on notice.
Senator Watt: Senator, can I just add one thing here? I don’t know whether you’ve heard this point before, but it’s also worth remembering that, during the coalition’s period in office, there were over 40 actual fighters—as opposed to wives and children—who returned to the country. That’s just for some perspective here as well.
Senator ROBERTS: I don’t know what value that adds to this case, but thank you for letting me know.
Senator Watt: I think it’s just useful background.
Senator ROBERTS: Well, I can’t interrogate Senator Duniam.
Senator DUNIAM: We can swap if you’d like!
Senator Watt: I’ll pass!
Senator ROBERTS: Ms Foster, I think we can go through the rest of the questions pretty quickly, because they’re fairly simple, I think. I appreciate your need to protect security. Have the ISIS children already here commenced deradicalisation programs yet?
Ms Foster: I don’t know the answer to that question. I’m assuming you mean those from the first cohort who came back a few weeks ago.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes.
Ms Foster: Let me see if anyone knows the answer to that.
Senator ROBERTS: Could you take it on notice, please.
Ms Foster: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Will the newly arrived children participate in deradicalisation programs?
Ms Foster: The state and territory authorities will make an assessment on a case-by-case basis about the needs of each child and what is appropriate given each of their circumstances. That’s part of the process that takes place once the families return.
Senator ROBERTS: I assume, then, that you don’t know how many children will do the deradicalisation program.
Ms Foster: I don’t.
Senator ROBERTS: Is participation dependent on their agreement or the consent of their mothers?
Mr Dowling: The programs which are provided by the states and territories as they relate to deradicalisation or counselling are voluntary. My presumption would be that for a minor under a certain age, depending on the rules in that jurisdiction, parental permission would potentially be involved. But I think it would depend on each jurisdiction and how they operate their programs.
Senator ROBERTS: What will happen if the mothers do not consent? Have the states got the authority to force it?
Mr Dowling: For those types of counselling programs, I don’t believe there is the power to compel someone to participate.
Senator ROBERTS: I appreciate you answering the questions even though you are not completely certain. I understand why. Are any of the children expected to remain in the care of the state in cases where the children are considered at risk in the care of the mother? In other words, will the state taxpayers get the bill?
Mr Dowling: That would be a decision for each jurisdiction.
Senator ROBERTS: Are any of the children considered a risk to the safety of Australians? What’s the oldest child’s age?
Mr Dowling: There is an age range. I think to provide that detail would probably cross the privacy boundaries of what we’re able to share.
Senator ROBERTS: I don’t want names—just the range.
Ms Foster: Let us take that on notice and see if we can provide that.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Ms Foster. Are any of the children—just the children—considered a risk to the safety of Australians?
Mr Dowling: State and territory law enforcement and the Federal Police, as the secretary has outlined, are taking a role in continuing investigations in relation to anyone who’s arrived back home. Any implications for safety or security would be a matter for those authorities.
Senator ROBERTS: Are any of the terrorist widows or brides or partners considered a risk to the safety of Australians?
Ms Foster: I described before the process that the law enforcement and intelligence agencies will continue to take to assess the risk.
Senator ROBERTS: And that’s largely state?
Ms Foster: It’s a combination. In terms of the management of the people in their states, it’s the state law enforcement agencies. But, obviously, ASIO in particular has an intelligence function that crosses Australia.
Senator ROBERTS: And they have been advising you?
Ms Foster: They would be contributing to the assessments about the risks or threats posed.
Senator ROBERTS: You mentioned that earlier. Will any of the children or the adult partners be monitored?
Ms Foster: The exact actions that the law enforcement or intelligence agencies take are ones for them. That was the subject before where I was saying that I was uncomfortable discussing what specific activities might be undertaken, because none of us wants to put those activities at risk.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Is one of the returning children the child seen holding up the decapitated head of a murdered man that appeared in the media some years ago?
Mr Dowling: I don’t know the answer to that question.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. How many more of these terrorists’ partners and children will the government be bringing back to the country?
Ms Foster: Senator—
Senator ROBERTS: Or allowing back into the country?
Ms Foster: As we’ve said before, Australian citizens have a right to enter Australia if they hold citizenship, valid passports or valid travel documents. Apart from the one person against whom the government issued a temporary exclusion order, the other adults of the cohort of women and children who were held in the internally displaced persons camp in Syria have returned with their children.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I appreciate your considered responses. I know it’s a difficult thing.
The “global push” for Net Zero by 2050 is a myth. China’s target is 2060, India’s is 2070, and the US has pulled out. Australia is joining a minority club that only accounts for 30% of global “emissions”, in turn crippling our economy while the biggest polluters “keep on polluting.”
Of course, Matt Kean doesn’t agree with this, saying that over 80% of global GDP is committed to Net Zero. He said, if Australia doesn’t jump on the clean energy train, we get left behind by global markets and investors.
Wind and solar are driving power bills through the roof. We went from the cheapest electricity to the most expensive outside of Europe. Coal demand is actually increasing globally.
How does Matt Kean respond to this? He cites Bloomberg data that show new solar and wind are way cheaper than new coal and that renewables are driving prices down.
The climate agenda is built on “dodgy modelling.” Shutting down farmland for carbon credits is killing agriculture, and green jobs aren’t replacing real job losses.
The Labor government is destroying Australia’s industry for a “climate scam.”
A One Nation government will end UN Net Zero, exit the UN Paris Agreement and re-energise Australia with cheap, reliable electricity – putting more money back in your pocket.
Transcript
CHAIR: Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing.
Mr Kean: Nice to see you, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: Good to see you again. Mr Kean, last estimates you gave me an update on your statement last year which provided net zero metrics. They were your metrics—specifically, what percentage of the world was covered by net zero mandates. You might remember that.
Mr Kean: Yes, we talked about it last time.
Senator ROBERTS: These figures were 78 per cent of global emissions, you said, and 79 per cent of GDP and 87 per cent of the global population. These figures, we’ve found, are flawed. China’s target is not 2050; it’s 2060.
Mr Kean: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: India’s is 2070. The United States has pulled out altogether. Our target is 2050, at which time Australia will share our misery with countries having just about 30 per cent of emissions, about 40 per cent of GDP and just 20 per cent of the world’s population. Why pretend net zero by 2050 is the dominant position, when in fact we’re in a minority, based on your metrics?
Mr Kean: That’s just not true, Senator. You’re obviously entitled to your opinions—
Senator ROBERTS: They’re not opinions; they’re facts.
Mr Kean: But you’re not entitled to your own facts. The reality is that 195 countries have signed up to the Paris Agreement. We’ll get you some figures shortly as to how many countries have signed up to net zero by 2050. But you make the point yourself. China and India have signed up to net zero. The majority of the world’s GDP has committed to this global effort to confront global warming. If you’re suggesting that Australia should be left behind from where markets are going, where capital is going, where investment and opportunity are going, then you’re arguing for a poorer country, and that’s not something I want to see.
Senator ROBERTS: Rather than saying these are my opinions, these are based on hard facts. The facts I told you are truthful.
Mr Kean: Sorry, what are the facts? A hundred and ninety-five countries have signed up under the Paris Agreement.
Senator ROBERTS: We’ll get to that later.
Mr Kean: The majority of the world’s GDP has committed to net zero—
Senator ROBERTS: China’s target is not 2050 but 2060. India’s is 2070. The US is out altogether—the second biggest economy in the world. Germany is making signs of reversing. Our target is 2050, at which time just about 30 per cent of emissions will come from net net-zero-by-2050 countries, which are about 40 per cent of GDP and just 20 per cent of the world’s population. If they’re wrong, show me where.
Mr Kean: But the majority of the world’s GDP has committed to net zero emissions. The markets that underwrite—
Senator ROBERTS: Not by 2050.
Mr Kean: Committed to net zero emissions. The markets that have underwritten our prosperity for generations are changing the type of goods and services they’re looking for, and we’re very well placed to prosper in that low-carbon global economy. I’m not sure why you don’t want Australia to benefit from this global megatrend. Maybe you could explain.
Senator ROBERTS: It is because I want the cheapest energy possible in Australia.
Mr Kean: I’m trying to explain to you that the majority of the world’s GDP is heading in this direction. It’s something like 84 per cent. Over 80 per cent of the world’s GDP has committed to net zero emissions. That means they’re looking for low-carbon steel, cement, energy, transport—a whole range of things—and we’re really well placed to provide it, so we can do well by doing good. I don’t know why you’ve got a problem with that.
Senator ROBERTS: The forecasts for coal consumption are increasing dramatically. It’s not decarbonisation.
Mr Kean: The demand for energy use is increasing dramatically, and the proportion of renewables is increasing dramatically. I think you’ll find that there’s more investment going into renewables than there is any other form of technology. What that means is that Australians can benefit because we can produce renewable energy at a cheaper cost than most other countries. That means that, for energy-intensive industries, we’ll have a competitive advantage, and we should be grabbing that with both hands rather than people like you standing in the way of Australia’s biggest economic opportunity.
Senator ROBERTS: The cheapest electricity user has a competitive advantage, and right now every country that has adopted a significant proportion of solar and wind has increased its costs and is not competitive. We used to have the cheapest electricity in the world. Now, outside of Europe, we’re the most expensive, and only three countries in Europe are more expensive than us. We’re on the road to bankruptcy.
Mr Kean: That’s just wrong. You’ve got to be called out for that nonsense. It’s not true.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s fact.
Mr Kean: It’s not fact.
Senator McDONALD: [Inaudible]
Mr Kean: Can I address that? Today—
Senator McDONALD: What about record coal demand—
Mr Kean: renewable energy is putting downward—
CHAIR: Let me just pause for a moment. I’m sorry to interrupt you, Mr Kean. Senator MacDonald—
Senator McDONALD: Sorry. It’s not my questions. I’m sorry.
CHAIR: Senator Roberts has asked the questions. If you’ll address his question. Senator MacDonald, if you’ll allow him to do so, please.
Senator ROBERTS: You said you were going to give me some figures?
Senator Ayres: Well, I’m not sure there’s any value in trying to engage you on this question. You’ve been impervious to facts and argument and the Australian interest the whole time I’ve been engaging with you on this committee about these questions. It’s imported ideology from One Nation. Exporting jobs—that’s your approach. It’s the One Nation-National Party coalition here, and only one part of that is winning that argument. Senator Henderson interjecting—
Senator Ayres: I can’t help you with this. There’s a set of facts. Mr Kean‘s doing his best to work through them. You’re shouting over the top of him. We’ll do our best.
CHAIR: Alright, let’s get let’s get back to this because we are late in the evening.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. I’ll ask my second question.
CHAIR: Thank you, Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: In 2050, Australia, the UK, Japan, Canada, some South American countries and the EU—basically the 2050 club—will in your world have zero greenhouse gas emissions. Australia’s emissions will be down because our economy will be decimated. China, India and the US will hoover up our industry and leave us with no emissions because we will have no industry. Your sessions often talk about modelling. Have you modelled what the Australian economy will look like in 2050 from the perspective of GDP per person and share of national income going to wage and salary earners? These are the key metrics for standard of living. Have you modelled them?
Mr Kean: Well, I was trying to answer your question from earlier, though Senator Ayres took up the platform from me. Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which is a very recognised analyst of energy matters, looked at the cost of new-build energy. It quotes solar at about US$39 per megawatt-hour. Wind is a bit higher, at $40 to $55 per megawatt-hour. Battery prices fell eight per cent last year to about $108 per kilowatt-hour. Again, in January, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimated that levellised cost of electricity for new coal was about A$297 per megawatt-hour without a carbon price. In Australia, new solar was $68 a megawatt-hour; wind, $115 a megawatthour; and then new coal without a carbon price, nearly $300 a megawatt-hour. So you’re arguing nonsense. Clearly, from an expert analyst—
Senator ROBERTS: Bloomberg has also said we’re going to transition to perfectly good—
Mr Kean: I’m just trying to say the facts are there, but you’re just quoting nonsense. I’m reading from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. I’m happy to table Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s report.
Senator ROBERTS: Please do.
Mr Kean: Maybe you could table your report from the dark recesses of the web.
Senator ROBERTS: Labels are the refuge of the ignorant, the incompetent, the dishonest, the desperate, the fearful. That’s what you two are doing.
Mr Kean: Okay, but you can’t table that. I’m reading from—
Senator ROBERTS: Don’t label me. Just use hard facts. I’ll happily table it.
Mr Kean: I’m happy to table the Bloomberg New Energy Finance report.
Senator Ayres: He just did, Senator Roberts—honestly.
Senator ROBERTS: To drill down on this: Australia’s system of carbon credit units encourages productive farmland to be shut down and local native vegetation replanted in return for carbon dioxide credits. This reduces agricultural and grazing land below critical mass for survival. Have you modelled the reduction in agricultural output—food, fibre and red meat—and the increased costs of agriculture?
Mr Kean: This is a huge economic opportunity for Australia.
Senator ROBERTS: Have you modelled them?
Mr Kean: There have been various models done.
Senator ROBERTS: Have you modelled them?
Mr Kean: There have been various—
Senator ROBERTS: You’re not answering my question.
Mr Kean: But I’ve said there are various models that the Climate Change Authority relies on for this information.
Senator ROBERTS: Could you, on notice, give us the names of those?
Mr Kean: We can provide you with the relevant documents.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.
Ms Rowley: I just note that, in the authority’s advice to the government with respect to the 2035 target, one of the inputs to that, as mentioned earlier, was modelling by CSIRO. It looked at it looked at—
Senator ROBERTS: The same people that did GenCost.
Ms Rowley: If I could finish my answer—it looked at emissions reduction opportunities across the economy, including through land based sequestration and in agriculture. It showed what it would look like for the economy. To your point earlier about what it does for GDP and GDP per capita, the GDP growth was unaffected by the decarbonisation of the economy. From memory, the economy continued to grow at 2.7 per cent per annum whilst the economy decarbonised, including through enhanced sequestration across the landscape. CSIRO modelling, as well as other work that the authorities have drawn on and is published by agencies such as ABARES, Ernst & Young and other sources, shows that that can be done whilst agriculture sustains and, indeed, increases its production and increases its output.
Senator ROBERTS: Could you provide us with the title of that CSIRO study?
Ms Rowley: The CSIRO report is directly quoted in the authority’s advice to the government on the 2035 target and it’s available on the CSIRO website. We’re very happy to table to table it as well.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Great. In December estimates, you pointed out that one of Australia’s largest exports, coal, was facing a future of reduced demand from overseas buyers. Korea was mentioned as an example. By 2050, we will have exited our own domestic use of coal for power. That means more reductions in our GDP, more jobs gone and more communities closed down. The future for our economy is bleak because of net zero measures, isn’t it?
Mr Kean: It doesn’t mean those things at all, and I pointed out earlier why it doesn’t mean those things. As I said, Bloomberg New Energy Finance say that the cost of new coal is about $300 per megawatt hour, compared with the costs of wind and solar and batteries, which continue to fall; they’re much cheaper, and they continue to come down the cost curve. So actually what will see Australia become more prosperous is embracing those new technologies and helping let them use it to underwrite a new era of prosperity for our industry, for our manufacturing sector and for our community, and that’s something we should be grabbing with both hands. That’s something you and I can agree on: we want Australia to be more prosperous. And making decisions based on the facts and the evidence is exactly how we do that.
Ms Rowley: And perhaps I could add, Senator, noting your interest in modelling—
Senator ROBERTS: I’m vary wary of modelling, believe me! The whole climate scam is based on dodgy modelling.
Ms Rowley: But you were interested in looking at the sources. In terms of the economic growth opportunities that come with the transition to net zero for Australia, explored in Treasury’s modelling for the government’s net zero plan, it included analysis of the development of new industries, like green metals and other clean fuels—and there are figures in the report if you’d like to look—comparing that with the anticipated decline in Australia’s fossil fuel exports as the world decarbonises. We don’t control global demand for our fossil fuel exports but we do have opportunities to build and grow new clean industries, which, at least according to the Treasury analysis, could account for an even greater share of our economy by 2050.
Senator ROBERTS: Kumbaya! What a wonderful world! You’re not saying these are net zero jobs, are you?
Mr Kean: Could I just say, to reiterate what the CEO said, that the CSIRO modelling did show that the economy continues to grow under the decarbonisation pathways we’ve modelled.
Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware of the GenCost modelling from CSIRO?
Mr Kean: Yes, I am.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. You’re aware of the flaws?
Senator Ayres: Oh, honestly.
Senator ROBERTS: Last question: employment in Australia went backward in April, didn’t it? The number of people in a job was less at the end of the month than at the start. Green jobs are doing a crap job of making up for job losses in the productive economy. Mr Kean, what will be the employment rate in 2050 under net zero? How many more people will lose their jobs?
Mr Kean: Well, I must reject the premise of the way you framed that question, and I’ll cite the treasurer of New South Wales, the Hon. Daniel Mookhey, who this week said that New South Wales was projected to go into recession had it not been for the renewables investment that was being made into that state. The energy roadmap, of which I was the architect and which we legislated with multipartisan support, has kept the New South Wales economy afloat, and that’s something we should all be proud of, and we should be working to grow our economy and grow our prosperity, not standing in the way of doing so, as you’re trying to do, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: The Crisafulli LNP government is doing the opposite.
Mr Kean: Well, I’m talking about the renewables roadmap in New South Wales, which has kept the state out of recession. It’s not me as a Liberal saying that; it’s the new treasurer saying it, based on a Liberal policy. It’s something I’m very proud of, and we should be continuing to campaign on building a stronger, more prosperous nation. And let me tell you how to do that: it’s by building more renewables, not less.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.
Senator Ayres: Senator, that was a sort of far-right Beat Poet! I’m not quite sure what you were doing over the dinner break. But it’s utter rubbish.
Senator ROBERTS: Dishonest, incompetent, lazy, fearful—
https://img.youtube.com/vi/X6kJ-bsWCcY/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-07-02 10:06:342026-07-02 10:06:40Net Zero is Crippling Australia
Bureaucracy shouldn’t be swallowing up funds meant for our most vulnerable communities.
I recently questioned the NIAA at Senate Estimates on the ongoing failures of the Closing the Gap initiative. Case in point: out of a recent $40M grant for the Alice Springs Camp, roughly half was chewed up by administrative salaries rather than direct aid.
When pushed for a genuine, independent external audit to see where the money is actually going, the NIAA pointed to internal reviews. ANAO does not conduct the deep financial audits required here. This is just the department monitoring itself.
Worse still, when asked if basic welfare payments are enough to survive on in remote areas, the NIAA directed me to the Department of Social Services.
How can we close the gap if the leading agency refuses to look at the actual baseline standard of living?
A One Nation government will demand transparency and independent audits, ensuring that funding goes to people that need it – not middlemen.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you all for appearing again. Good morning, Minister. One of the ongoing tragedies is the failure of the Closing the Gap concept when there are so many people whose vested interests lie in ensuring the gap will never close. Why is so much grant money wasted on enriching middlemen and middlewomen and only a proportion of the grant money ends up with those who the grant was intended to benefit? This is the flaw in the existing grant models where only a fraction is actually spent on the purpose. An example of this relates to grant money allocated to support those Australians living in the Alice Springs camp. Recently, a grant of more than $40 million was made, but half of that was used for salaries, with less than half going to direct assistance. Is this acceptable, Minister?
Senator McCarthy: We have gone through the breakdown of the funding for Tangentyere in terms of the town camps, Senator. I will ask Ms Bellenger to go through that again with you.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.
Ms Bellenger: As we outlined earlier in the session, Tangentyere receives 18 activities funded through the NIAA. If all of those activities are successfully delivered, they will receive around $20.3 million. That does depend on the successful delivery of all of those programs.
Senator ROBERTS: That didn’t answer my question but let’s move on. Does half the grants going in salaries explain why so much money is spent on Closing the Gap, yet the gap keeps getting bigger? Let’s face it, it gets bigger every year.
Ms Bellenger: There is money spent on salaries through the NIAA grants, and they are for the services that are directly provided and are almost entirely filled with First Nations local people. I would argue that a job in the first instance supports—but then the services that are provided to people are also the primary outcome.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. When will a genuine audit of expenditure and outcomes be done on the effectiveness and the value-for-money basis of all Indigenous grants and NIAA programs over the last five years?
Ms Guivarra: We have rigorous monitoring of our own grants through internal assessment processes, and this occurs every year. We monitor for the effectiveness and efficiency and value for money, which is required under the PGPA Act, with all of our investments. You would have seen over a number of years now that the NIAA’s funding has been directed more and more to our engagement with community-controlled organisations being responsible for the provision of our services to communities so that there is a greater connection to what it is that is going to be required to make change for those communities, because now essentially many more of our grants are being delivered through community-controlled organisations.
Senator ROBERTS: When will we see a third-party independent audit.
Ms Guivarra: We have a number of different accountability mechanisms as a Commonwealth executive agency as it is. We have regular performance audits by the Australian National Audit Office that we’re required to do. I will get our group manager for integrity to go through a little of some of the more recent ANAO audits that we have had.
Mr Worth: The assurance mechanisms in place for our funding and how it’s spent, and the value delivered, are multilayered. Within the agency itself we have requirements through all of our funding agreements for providers to report against KPIs in terms of their service delivery. Each time those reports are received, they’re reviewed by the teams. It’s checked off against their own experience, checking with community and visiting the providers themselves to sight those services. With the financials themselves, each time an acquittal is required, staff within the NIAA review the acquittal—that is, the funding claim being made by the provider against that—and they check that it’s in line with the contract and that likewise it’s supported by the performance reports. Then, as Ms Guivarra mentioned, the ANAO, in terms of independent audit, conducts audits of our own—
Senator ROBERTS: The ANAO told me a couple of times that they don’t do detailed, comprehensive audits. What you’re talking about is monitoring yourself. I want to know when an independent external audit will be done.
Mr Worth: The ANAO conducts two types of audits. One is of the actual processes and the way that we operate in order to ensure that the key risks that the Commonwealth is exposed to through our operations are being properly managed through our processes and controls and so on. When it comes to individual audits, the requirement for any audited accounts from providers varies according to the assessed risk for that particular provider. We do require some providers to have their accounts audited independently, and those are checked and received. However, it’s not always the case. As I said before, we do full checks of the acquittal claims made by our own staff. Of course that’s independent from those making the claims who are the providers. So there are a large number of checks and balances in place. There are, where required, given our risk assessments, independent audits required of some providers. On top of that, our own processes and our own approach to risk management is subject to audit by the ANAO.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Do most adult Indigenous people living in remote areas, if not working, receive a fortnightly welfare payment?
Ms Guivarra: I would say, Senator, there is an Australian requirement that, after a certain period of time, if you are not working you are entitled to a payment. Yes.
CHAIR: That’s all Australians.
Ms Guivarra: That’s all Australians, yes.
Senator ROBERTS: So I’m guessing you’re saying yes. Is that likely to be the same or more than that received by non-Indigenous recipients?
Senator THORPE: We get triple! Didn’t you know that!
Ms Guivarra: I would say there’s no difference in treatment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from other Australians.
Senator ROBERTS: Is the payment enough to live on?
Senator WHITEAKER: Chair, I’m not sure this agency’s responsible for the payments to which the senator is—
Ms Guivarra: We are not. Our responsibilities are for the programs and policies that we administer. If it’s in relation to the social security system, then I would suggest you direct those questions to the Department of Social Services.
CHAIR: To ensure you get the accurate answers to your questions, Senator Roberts, we would direct you to them. This is your last question before we rotate.
Senator ROBERTS: Where does the money go? Is the payment enough to live on? Surely that’s part of your remit. What proportion goes in rent? Why is the attendance at school so low? What is being done to fix it?
CHAIR: That’s an awful lot of issues in one sentence, Senator—
Senator ROBERTS: I want to know what they’re doing.
CHAIR: many of them not related to this department, although that’s not to go to the relevance of your question. But you’re probably going to need to break it down a little for the officers to appropriately respond.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Is the payment enough to live on? Where does the money go, and specifically rent?
Ms Guivarra: I think a lot of the issues that you are raising are not within the remit of this agency. As I said, if it’s in relation to social security payments of any sort, it is actually the Department of Social Services who would be able to provide that. My understanding is they are on next Wednesday.
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, on that—
Senator ROBERTS: I would have thought you would know how these things—
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, can I just clarify a piece for you there. ‘Is it enough to live on’—you could ask that about anybody in Australia. You would have to look to the social security people about how it’s assessed. In terms of housing, this agency does not have a breakdown of how people spend any money they may receive in welfare payments.
Senator ROBERTS: How do you assess whether or not people are living satisfactorily?
Senator THORPE: How do you spend your money?
CHAIR: Yes, exactly.
Senator THORPE: How do you spend your money, Malcolm?
Senator ROBERTS: I’m not being questioned here.
Senator THORPE: Well, you should be.
Ms Guivarra: It is not our job to monitor the personal payments or spending habits of individuals. Our role is to administer the programs and policies that we are responsible for.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you assess the standard of living?
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, we are going to rotate the call, so I will give you one final question.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you assess standard of living and what’s needed to upgrade—to close the gap?
Ms Guivarra: We are in constant contact with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities around the country for pressure points for their own cost of living. It is why there is a lot of focus and attention on what is happening in remote communities across the country. You were not present previously when the minister referred to the work that she has been undertaking with the Coalition of the Peaks in regard to the monitoring of the current fuel crisis, where we have, obviously, been in contact with community controlled organisations about the cost of service delivery to remote communities across the country. So those types of issues, in terms of how we understand the impact of the cost of living for remote communities—there are various mechanisms by which we do that all of the time.
The Attorney-General’s Department confirmed that they had zero involvement in monitoring returned ISIS terrorist wives, or running deradicalisation programs for the children. This responsibility was passed to the Department of Home Affairs.
When asked what will it cost taxpayers to bring back and monitor these individuals, the answer? They have absolutely no idea. Officials stated that the government didn’t actually facilitate or fund the return of these families. They said they used to handle countering violent extremism, but it was moved to Home Affairs in 2017.
Now, their only real involvement is occasionally giving “general international law advice.”
If no one in the Attorney-General’s Department is tracking the costs or the monitoring, Australians are left asking: who is?
Transcript
CHAIR: Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: Returning to the ISIS terrorist spouses or whatever you want to call them, did the government seek your advice before returning them to Australia?
Ms Jones: I think we have previously given evidence to the committee that, over the course of many years, we have from time to time been involved in some discussions and we’ve provided general international law advice but we don’t play a role of providing advice in relation to particular movements of people.
Senator ROBERTS: Was the Attorney-General’s Department consulted on the program for deradicalisation of these children?
Ms Jones: No.
Senator ROBERTS: What is your responsibility for funding of legal aid?
Ms Jones: We are responsible for overseeing the National Access to Justice Partnership and other legal assistance schemes.
Senator ROBERTS: Are you involved in any way in advising on or implementing or monitoring the program for monitoring these terrorists when they return?
Ms Jones: No.
Senator ROBERTS: Not at all?
Ms Jones: No.
Senator ROBERTS: Not even after the High Court decision on the case in the Northern Territory?
Ms Jones: I’m not sure which case you’re referring to there, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: XYZ—I can’t remember the details.
Ms Jones: NZYQ?
Senator ROBERTS: NZYQ; thank you.
Ms Jones: I would put that in a category very separate to anything relating to the return of Australians from Syria. Over the course of the NZYQ matter, before the High Court and then beyond that, we were involved in that, but that was quite separate from anything relating to returning Australians.
Senator ROBERTS: I understand that, but that case involved monitoring.
Ms Chidgey: That was also a matter for the Department of Home Affairs and its agencies.
Senator ROBERTS: Wasn’t it also the Attorney-General giving advice as to whether or not monitoring or ankle bracelets were a form of punishment? Is there any form of punishment that can be ruled here? Is someone going to lodge a claim with the government?
Ms Chidgey: I think all those questions are matters for Home Affairs.
Senator ROBERTS: You haven’t got anything to add to it?
Ms Chidgey: No.
Senator ROBERTS: So you know nothing about monitoring?
Ms Jones: No.
Senator ROBERTS: The Attorney-General’s Department knows nothing about monitoring. Do you have any inkling of the cost involved with bringing these wives back and monitoring them?
Ms Jones: I’m sorry; no. We don’t have a responsibility, so I couldn’t talk to any costs associated with that.
Ms Chidgey: It’s probably useful to make clear that for the recent cohorts the government didn’t facilitate their return at all. Any questions about management of that cohort in Australia now that they’ve returned should be directed to Home Affairs, but the government didn’t in any way facilitate or manage their return.
Senator ROBERTS: How do you know that?
Ms Chidgey: We’re aware that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issues passports. But the government itself, on the public record, including the Prime Minister, has been clear that the government didn’t otherwise assist or facilitate their return.
Senator ROBERTS: And you take his word for it?
Ms Jones: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Was this once or previously a responsibility of your department?
Ms Jones: There was a time before the creation of the Department of Home Affairs when the AttorneyGeneral’s Department had responsibility for deradicalisation programs and the countering violent extremism program, but that moved across to the Department of Home Affairs in 2017.
Ms Chidgey: I can confirm that for any of the returns from Syria this department has not taken any leading role. That has been the Department of Home Affairs and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Senator ROBERTS: What about any subsidiary role?
Ms Chidgey: As I think the secretary mentioned, we have at times provided some advice on Australia’s international obligations.
This exchange is about the Australian Border Force’s (ABF) response to asbestos found in the lift brake pads of imported wind turbines.
Mr Reynolds of the ABF explained that after discovering the issue, the ABF “doubled down” on efforts by implementing a specific screening profile to target at-risk shipments. From 1 December to 1 April, 42 matching consignments were intercepted.
35 were cleared via document-based risk assessment; 4 were referred for laboratory testing (all returned negative results), whilst 3 were held pending further documentation.
While Mr Reynolds could not explain how the original contaminated brake pads slipped past the border, he noted that the ABF relies on a combination of self-assessment by importers, risk-based targeting and severe financial penalties to deter illegal imports.
Fines for deliberately importing asbestos without a permit can reach up to $330,000 for individuals and $1.65 million (or 15 times the value of the goods) for companies.
Resolving the issue for contaminated turbines already operating in Australia falls under state government jurisdiction, not federal.
Mr Reynolds took several questions on notice, promising to look into whether the original importers committed a deliberate or accidental offence, whether any fines or prosecutions have been levied against them, and if any current prosecutions are outstanding regarding the operational turbines.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: This is about wind turbines that have been imported into Australia containing asbestos. Now that the asbestos in imported wind turbines has been identified, what’s been done to remedy the problem and prevent recurrence?
Mr Reynolds: The issue was asbestos in the brake pads in lifts inside the wind turbines. What we put in place was what we call a ‘profile’ on the border to look for these products. Between 1 December and 1 April, the Australian Border Force recorded 42 consignments matching against profiles introduced a target asbestos risk because of that wind turbine issue. Of the 42 consignments, 35 were cleared by risk assessment of the documents by ABF officers. The Australian Border Force referred four shipments for laboratory testing. All four returned negative results and were subsequently released. The remaining three consignments are, as of 1 April, held pending provision of further assurance documentation. We’re actively managing that risk on the border.
Senator ROBERTS: Are you actually inspecting the wind turbine brakes when they come in, or is it just done by risk assessment?
Mr Reynolds: It’s both. We’ll make a determination based on that initial risk assessment, and, where required, where we have concerns, then we will refer those for the testing.
Senator ROBERTS: Who does the testing?
Mr Reynolds: I don’t have the name of the laboratory, but it is a nationally recognised laboratory.
Senator ROBERTS: Your officers go to the site where the turbine brakes are stored, pending clearance, and then, if necessary, notify the testers.
Mr Reynolds: What we’ll do is we will provide a direction that that consignment is to be tested. Then the consignment will go to the laboratory to conduct the testing. Depending on the results, we may seize that particular consignment or it will be released.
Senator ROBERTS: How did this problem slip past the Australian Border Force?
Mr Reynolds: Once we became aware of it, we were absolutely onto it. We’ve been testing for asbestos over a number of years. How these particular brake pads made it into the country, I could not tell you. What I can tell you, however, is that for any individual there is a $330,000 fine or three times the value of the goods and for any companies who are deliberately importing asbestos products without a permit it’s a fine of $1.65 million or 15 times the value of the goods. There are significant penalties under the customs regulations for bringing asbestos into the country without a permit.
Senator ROBERTS: An importer of wind turbine brakes could just look at that and say to themselves: ‘What’s the risk assessment involved here? What’s the risk of getting caught?’ If it’s tiny, then it’s worth trying to flout the fines because they won’t get fined. They’ll do a risk assessment the other way.
Mr Reynolds: What I’d offer to you is the fact that we have intervened with 42 consignments which came into the country in that five-month period between 1 December and 1 April. This would indicate that we’re absolutely applying all that we can at the border to look for asbestos coming into the country, including for the wind turbine lift brakes and any other asbestos product.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s subsequent to them coming in without detection and being put into operation. You can’t tell me how that slipped past you. If you can’t tell me how, how do you know that what you’re doing now will get it all? I can understand you can’t possibly inspect every piece of equipment, every good and every item that gets imported by individuals or on major shipments and commercial loads. You have to use some kind of intelligence assessment and a risk assessment. I understand that. Have you changed practices?
Mr Reynolds: Yes, that’s precisely what we have done.
Senator ROBERTS: With the 42?
Mr Reynolds: That’s exactly it. Because we recognised that there clearly were some asbestos products that made it into the country, we doubled down on our efforts to reduce the risk of any asbestos brake pads for wind turbine lifts getting into the country. I think the figures I’ve provided for you demonstrate that we are being effective in getting after it.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m wondering how many other lapses there are, not just wind turbine brakes. Going back to this case: was there an offence committed by the importers or the purchasers by misdescription or omission?
Mr Reynolds: You’d need the details of the importers for those particular lift brake pads, so I don’t have that for you here. I could take it on notice if that would be of assistance.
Senator ROBERTS: If you could please. I’d like to know if it was deliberate or if it was sloppiness on the part of the importer.
Mr Reynolds: Certainly.
Senator ROBERTS: Have all contaminated wind turbines had the problem alleviated, Minister?
Senator Watt: I don’t know that I can give you an across the board answer. I’m not sure whether the commissioner has any further information on that.
Senator ROBERTS: Would that be your responsibility? I would have thought—
Mr Reynolds: It’s a state responsibility to deal with that issue.
Senator ROBERTS: How can I go about finding that out?
Senator Watt: Well, you’ve got some MPs in the South Australian parliament; that might be a good place to start.
Senator ROBERTS: And WA.
Senator Watt: Oh yes; I forgot about that.
Senator ROBERTS: And soon New South Wales.
Senator Watt: I’m not sure they agree with you on fracking and a few other things, but, anyway, that’s another issue.
Senator ROBERTS: We’re always listening to constituents, Senator Watt. We don’t just go blanket.
Senator Watt: ‘Drill, baby, drill’ except in South Australia?
Senator ROBERTS: Except in one electorate.
CHAIR: If we could get back to questions, that would be really helpful.
Senator DUNIAM: This is the entertainment.
CHAIR: No, I am not here for the entertainment.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m just going through my questions. The commissioner has answered most of them. What penalties or fines have been assessed for identified breaches? You’ve already told me the heftiness of the fines. Have any been levied on the importers in court?
Mr Reynolds: To date, all of the consignments that we have reviewed and have referred for testing have been found not to contain asbestos.
Senator ROBERTS: What about the ones that have been found and were in operation?
Mr Reynolds: I’ll take that on notice and do my best to answer that question for you.
Senator ROBERTS: In general, you’re there to apprehend illegal goods coming in illegally?
Mr Reynolds: That’s right.
Senator ROBERTS: If they get through the border and are put into operation, who is then responsible for enforcement? Is it someone else or is it you?
Mr Reynolds: We can still apply the Customs Act for goods that have made it through the border.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you have any prosecutions outstanding?
Mr Reynolds: For asbestos related issues?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes.
Mr Reynolds: Not to my awareness.
Senator ROBERTS: Was anyone prosecuted for the ones that were discovered in operation?
Mr Reynolds: I think that is something that we can take on notice for you.
Senator ROBERTS: The self-assessment of components by the importers is appropriate given your limited workforce and the extent of imports coming into Australia—the extent in terms of not only dollar value but the complexity of things today?
Mr Reynolds: All importers have responsibilities as far as ensuring that they meet the legal requirements for the importation of goods into Australia, but we will conduct compliance checks on any goods over which we have a suspicion that it may be an illicit or prohibited product.
Senator ROBERTS: So your way of protecting the borders, keeping the borders secure is to do inspections. That can’t cover everything, so you use risk assessments, put responsibility on the importers, and then try to protect that with hefty fines if someone is caught to make the cost of criminal or illegal imports prohibitive.
Mr Reynolds: That’s a good summary.
Senator ROBERTS: When I retire I’ll come and get a job with you.
Senator Watt: There’s a merit process, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll pay that one. You were rejected, were you?
Senator Watt: I thought you were going to ask me to be a referee.
