ABC cops a grilling at Senate Estimates – data shows conservative attack

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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation receives over $1 billion a year from taxpayers. I don’t believe we’re getting value for money. It is just being used as a platform for the left to tear down conservatives.

Let me know what you thought of the fact that they covered negative conservative news over 130 times compared to just 20 when it was about the left.

Click Here for Transcript | Part 1

Senator Roberts: I’d like to [inaudible] for a third set of questions that I have, so I’ll do that now rather than wait for it. Thank you for appearing here today. You’re dealing with accusations and a perception of bias from substantial parts of the community. I know you strongly deny any bias and say that the ABC is impartial.  One of the claims of bias is that ABC gives leniency to what is commonly termed left-leaning politicians—which, to me, is the control side of politics—and is more critical of conservative politicians. You’d obviously be aware that even Media Watch slammed the ABC’s coverage of an incident involving Senator Thorpe outside of a strip club, calling the ABC’s lack of coverage ‘pathetic’. Are you aware of Media Watch’s own criticism?

Mr Anderson: Yes.

Senator Roberts: I’d like to compare that to some of your other coverage. When there was a story critical of the New South Wales One Nation leader, Mark Latham, over a tweet, ABC mentioned the story 131 times, yet you only mentioned the Senator Thorpe incident 21 times. Just for comparison, the Nine Network covered the same incidents, mentioning Mark Latham’s incident 80 and Senator Thorpe’s incident 90 times. That’s fairly balanced. Here we have a conservative politician and a politician on the left who were, I would argue, involved in incidents of similar significance, yet you’ve mentioned the negative story about the conservative 131 times and the story of the left-leaning politician only 21 times. How can you maintain that there is no bias in the ABC in the face of those statistics?

Mr Anderson: Firstly, I’d say that, in the complaints we receive and in the way they’re investigated, I don’t see evidence of systemic bias, which is what is levelled at us on a regular basis. I’ll defer to Mr Stevens when it comes to the coverage particularly about Lidia Thorpe and that incident.

Mr Stevens: Thanks for the question. I respectfully disagree; we are not biased. We take an impartial approach to any and all stories. But the bar is also high around the outsourcing of journalism and the accuracy of it. On that particular story which you’ve identified, regarding Senator Thorpe—and I note that Senator Thorpe is no longer in the committee room—the ABC did cover it, for starters. Secondly, the vision you refer to was not the ABC’s. Channel 7 had in possession the raw footage of Senator Thorpe, not the ABC. I back the editorial judgement of my editorial leaders to be very careful about not using video that we haven’t sourced ourselves, and we don’t know what comes before and after it, and not rush to report it.  The emphasis on rushing to reporting it is because we did report on it during the course of the week. Afternoon Briefing covered it on the Monday after, and on the Wednesday, when the Prime Minister made additional comments. When it went from being something that happened in the private sphere, outside of parliament, outside of the Senator’s time in Canberra, when the Prime Minister elevated it to the discussion being relevant to Canberra, we did cover it. 

If there is some implication from the question, and I might be mistaken, that we are not covering Senator Thorpe as forensically as we would others, I’d respectfully point out to Senator Roberts that it was the ABC which broke the story about Senator Thorpe, in October last year, regarding the questions around whether she had a conflict of interest by sitting on a particular committee. It was that story, broken by the ABC, which was referred to the privileges committee. I understand the privileges committee reported back in March, and the committee found that Senator Thorpe did not disclose any sensitive information to Dean Martin, for the record, and we reported that at the time. But it was the ABC that broke that story, in October, which should demonstrate that we do not shy away from investigative journalism regarding any politician of any political affiliation.

Senator Henderson: Chair, I’m sorry to interrupt. In light of these discussions, Senator Thorpe was previously here and I wonder whether someone should alert her to these discussions. She may or may not know, but, out of fairness, could someone let her know this discussion is taking place?

Senator Roberts: This is not about Senator Thorpe, it’s about the way the ABC treats her compared to others. Are we going to invite Mark Latham?

Senator Henderson: There are certain discussions being—I think, to be fair, we need to give her that opportunity, to let her know that this discussion is taking place.

Chair: Thank you, Senator Henderson. Senator Roberts, would you like to continue?

Senator Roberts: This is what Paul Barry from Media Watch said: ‘But it was a proper news story and the ABC should have covered it from the start.’ You said when the Prime Minister got involved it increased the importance of it. So you wouldn’t have covered it if the Prime Minister hadn’t got involved?

Mr Stevens: We covered it before the Prime Minister said anything.

Senator Roberts: In a very subdued way compared to what you did with Mark Latham.

Mr Stevens: I don’t have to hand our coverage of Mark Latham, and the fact that he’s in New South Wales politics these days I’m not sure what the New South Wales newsroom did with that. I’m happy to follow up and look at that.

Senator Roberts: If you live in a bubble, you won’t see what people in Australia are seeing. With topics like climate change the ABC is considered heavily biased. It doesn’t present the data. It doesn’t present the evidence. It just presents opinion. So let’s move on.

Mr Stevens: Sorry, just on that, I would respectfully disagree when it comes to that. We follow the weight of evidence when it comes to our coverage on climate and the weight of scientific evidence that sits with it.

Senator Roberts: Perhaps you could take on notice—

Mr Stevens: I can take it on notice and respond to you.

Senator Roberts: Take it on notice to provide me with the sources of your climate change evidence that—

Mr Stevens: Can you provide some examples, please, as to where we have not done fact-based reporting on climate change?

Senator Roberts: Sure.

Mr Stevens: Right now?

Senator Roberts: I can’t do it right now because I don’t have the data.

Chair: Thank you, Mr Stevens; that can be provided to you later.

Senator Roberts: Let’s go back to last Senate estimates. I asked the ABC about the presence of Bruce Pascoe and Dark Emu related material on the ABC education site and why it was there. We had a conversation about the fact that many of his claims about Indigenous history are highly contested, and some of them have been completely debunked. You answered me then that whatever was on the ABC website would be reflecting the national curriculum.  After you told me that, I asked the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority in a subsequent Senate estimates session: ‘What’s in the curriculum about this topic?’ I have to say that ACARA were pretty shocked, to put it mildly, that you had claimed that material was in the curriculum. Specifically, which part of the national curriculum are you claiming that material of Bruce Pascoe’s reflects? Keep in mind that I’m going to be asking ACARA about this too in a few days.

Mr Anderson: I will have to get back to you on notice with regard to that. Did we give you a response to that on notice after my appearance at estimates last time?

Senator Roberts: No.

Mr Anderson: We didn’t? We will as to why, and I apologise if that was the case. My knowledge of what we do for ABC education, the resources sit there. There are state and territory curriculums as well as what we have nationally and we do put assets there that do align to it. That said, I’ll respond to what you’ve just put to me on notice.

Senator Roberts: Can you please take it on notice, as you just agreed, to provide the specific part of the ACARA curriculum you claim to be reflecting.

Mr Anderson: Yes.

Click Here for Transcript | Part 2

Senator Roberts: Before I start my questions, I have an apology. I made an error, Mr Anderson. You did in fact reply to my question on notice last time about the curriculum, but you didn’t state specifically from where you got it in the curriculum. You’ve undertaken to come back with that this time.

Mr Anderson: I have, and I still will.

Senator Roberts: I tabled a screenshot of a tweet from the ABC Media Watch Twitter account. It was in response to a tweet I made about—

Chair: Sorry, just to clarify: that wasn’t tabled; it was circulated—just to be clear.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. It was made about a protest in front of Parliament House, the Let Women Speak movement. Do you know what happened to that tweet and why it was removed?

Mr Anderson: No, I do not.

Senator Roberts: It was deleted about a second after that screenshot was taken. Do you have any information on why it was deleted?

Mr Anderson: No, I don’t.

Senator Roberts: Could we have that information?

Mr Anderson: I will investigate and respond.

Senator Roberts: Do you keep logs of tweets and deleted tweets?

Mr Anderson: We don’t monitor people’s personal use of social media, because we don’t take legal or editorial responsibility for it. That was a change we made some time ago, which I’ve canvassed heavily here. No, we don’t keep a log of it. There are certainly records when things are raised to our attention, we investigate and disciplinary action is taken—yes, that is recorded.

Senator Roberts: This is not a personal account. It looks like it’s the media watch account, @ABCmediawatch.

Mr Anderson: Which, as an official ABC account, I will investigate.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. I’m concerned that the ABC is sending tweets which could be considered antagonistic to a sitting Senator and then deleting them like nothing happened. That doesn’t bode well for accountability. If that screenshot weren’t taken and I couldn’t table it, people would rightly question me for trying to talk about this with you now. Social media seems to be a real, ongoing problem for the ABC, not just from your journalists but even from your official accounts. What are you going to do to get this under control?

Mr Anderson: Again, the vast majority of staff do the right thing. We have been getting it under control. People have been disciplined for this. For those people who have gone against the code and been found to be in breach, they have had disciplinary action against them. We’re now up to individuals that have been terminated from the ABC as a result of their personal use of social media. That is personal use of social media.  This appears to be an official ABC social media account, subject to our ABC social media policy with regard to that. If it is, we do take editorial responsibility for it—for which we have very few problems, I will say. I will investigate it and come back to you.

Senator Roberts: It’s just that it’s been raised quite a bit on social media. Moving onto another issue: there have been reports that the ABC has never received more complaints about a show than you did for the King’s coronation coverage. Can you confirm that?

Mr Anderson: That is incorrect. We have received more complaints than that in the past. I wouldn’t hasten to give examples because they’re sometimes not great moments in ABC history as they go back some way. In recent times, it is one of the larger amount of complaints, yes.

Senator Roberts: What is the total number of complaints that you received on that?

Mr Anderson: I believe it’s around 1,800 at the moment, of which, I gave evidence earlier to say approximately 60 are editorial complaints being investigated by the ombudsman, some complaints are categorised in a different way and some of it is outright racism.

Senator Roberts: While I didn’t watch the coronation, I’m wondering why Australians who are interested in the coronation, interested in the pomp and ceremony—if that’s what they want—interested in who’s arriving and all of the proceedings et cetera—what a show it is—and who turned on the ABC to watch the coronation found, inserted into that live coverage, commentaries about Indigenous rights and the proposal for a Voice to parliament for Indigenous people. What was the aim and the thought process in structuring your coverage like that?

Mr Anderson: I’ll defer to Mr Stevens for his response.

Mr Stevens: I note you said that you didn’t see the coverage, so I’m happy to give you a bit more information about what it did cover. It was eight hours of coverage over the course of the evening, from 4 pm onwards. The official ceremony itself started at 8 pm Sydney time. We had four hours of coverage leading into the ceremony proper starting. We used the BBC commentary for the actual formal proceedings of the event itself from 8 pm onwards. That was a concerted decision because we knew that the BBC would have access to information that we weren’t privy to around the order of proceedings and the extra, additional historical details behind the order of proceedings. We obviously had a broad picture of what would happen, however not the level of detail that they had. Obviously, they’ve got knowledge of individuals in the abbey that we didn’t have. For the course of the four hours leading into it commencing, we, from time to time, showed vision of what was unfolding in the lead up.  Three to four hours out, can you believe, people were being led into the abbey, in terms of guests. We were showing that visually, and there was music as well. The presenters did a really good job of trying to navigate saying what was unfolding with that vision. That’s a key tenet of good TV—to say what is happening, but then to return to the discussions that we wanted to have three to four hours out of the ceremony starting.

Senator Roberts: I understand what you’re saying, and I thank you for the explanation. It makes perfect sense, and what you’re saying about making good TV makes perfect sense. But still some of the chatter around the presentation was dealing with things like Indigenous rights and the Voice proposal to parliament et cetera. Is that appropriate?

Mr Stevens: For a portion of the coverage, for about 40 minutes, we had a really important discussion about our history. We aired First Nations perspectives of that and colonisation; and their view and experience of the Crown in their lives. That was 40 minutes of eight hours of coverage. Actually, a really important part and remit of the ABC, as you know, is to have discussions which are in the national interest, that reflect on history, that are factually based on history. It’s very important in our coverage of the news and major events that, over the course of that coverage, we have a diversity of perspectives. That was a 40-minute discussion for which there has been a lot of attention; however, we had a multitude of guests over the eight hours and people speaking to the events itself.

Senator Roberts: Do you still think your coverage was impartial, that way?

Mr Stevens: Absolutely.

Senator Roberts: Okay. Before we finish, what was my commitment to you? To get you an understanding of why you’re biased on climate change, for example—is that what I undertook to do?

Mr Stevens: You did. You undertook to provide evidence of non fact-based reporting of climate change.

Senator Roberts: Sure. Thank you very much.

/10 Comments/by

Same place, same time, different temperatures. What’s the BOM hiding?

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The Bureau of Meteorology has been in the process of replacing mercury temperature probes with digital probes at weather stations across the country.

After a long Freedom of Information process, we now have field logs from the Brisbane Airport station showing that the two different devices can record different temperatures at the same place at the same time.

The Bureau have said both of these sets of data has always been available but I don’t believe them and I think they’ve been caught out. We need a transparent inquiry into all of BOM’s temperature measuring.

Click Here for Transcript

Chair: Senator Roberts, over to you for 10 minutes.

Senator Roberts: Thank you again for being here, Dr Johnson and Dr Stone. I would like to table these two articles, Chair.

Chair: Certainly. What are they?

Senator Roberts: They are newspaper articles.

Chair: Given they are public documents, we probably don’t need to table them; we can just circulate them around the committee.

Senator Roberts: The first document is about two articles in the Australian newspaper about parallel temperatures at Brisbane Airport—following on from Senator Rennick. The other one is about forecasts from the Bureau of Meteorology that have been inaccurate. Going to the first one, I’ve tabled some important news about parallel temperatures at Brisbane Airport, showing that your temperature probes do record different temperatures to mercury thermometers in the same location at the same time. If I could please go to Freedom of Information 30/6155, regarding the daily maximum and minimum temperature parallel observations for Brisbane Airport, which the stories relate to, what date did you first receive the FOI request? I think you said 2019.

Dr Johnson: It was received on 12 December 2019.

Senator Roberts: What date did you release the documents to the applicant?

Dr Johnson: Well, the documents were released, as agreed with the respondent, on 6 April 2023, but, as I said in my earlier response to Senator Rennick’s question, the documents released were the ones that we were quite happy to provide in 2019 to the respondent, but the respondent didn’t wish to avail themselves of that material back in 2019.

Senator Roberts: Why did you fight to keep this information a secret?

Dr Johnson: We didn’t fight. Again, I reiterate my response to Senator Rennick: we didn’t fight anything. We were unable to fulfill the request that we received in 2019 because the information that was requested did not exist in the form that the respondent requested it. So we offered the respondent the material we had. They declined and sought to appeal it through the various appeals processes. Our decisions were reaffirmed by both the Information Commissioner and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and the information that we offered to provide the respondent back in 2019 was provided in April this year. So this notion that the bureau’s withholding information is a fallacy.

Senator Roberts: So we’d have to look further into that, but not here.

Dr Johnson: That’s the record and the truth.

Senator Roberts: You’re paid by the taxpayer, Dr Johnson, just like I am. You’re meant to serve the

taxpayer, as I am. You have a remuneration package of over half a million dollars a year from taxpayers. The information you have, the work you do, belongs to the taxpayer, correct?

Dr Johnson: As I said in my response by Senator Rennick, all of the bureau’s data records are available to the public, either in digital or analogue form. They’re held in the analogue form in the National Archives, and the digital records are available on the bureau’s website.

Senator Roberts: I’ve heard that before, but I’ve also seen people who can’t access the information.

Dr Johnson: I can only tell you the truth, and the truth is that those records are available on our website or in the National Archives by request.

Senator Roberts: Why did it take an application to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for you to back down?

Dr Johnson: I reject that comment. The information that was requested by the respondent or the proponent—I’m not sure how you want to characterise it—was not available. We can’t create something that’s not available.  We offered the respondent a set of alternatives, which they declined initially and then subsequently agreed to take. So, again, this notion that the bureau is withholding information from the public or from this particular respondent is just not true; it’s inaccurate. I can’t be any clearer on that.

Senator Roberts: No; you’re clear. Do you disagree that your temperature probes are recording different temperatures to mercury thermometers in the same place at the same time?

Dr Johnson: I’ll let Dr Stone address that.

Dr Stone: No, you actually expect pairs of measuring instruments to have different measurements.

Senator Roberts: So if we had two probes, they would be slightly different. I understand the natural

variation.

Dr Stone: Within tolerance, yes.

Senator Roberts: Would the difference between the two probes be less or greater than the difference between a probe and a mercury thermometer?

Dr Stone: I’ll reiterate that liquid-in-glass thermometers have a tolerance, an acceptable error, of 0.5 of a degree. Our electronic probes that we’ve been using for 30-odd years have a tolerance of 0.4 of a degree. The electronic probes that we’re about to roll out have a tolerance of 0.2 of a degree. You can expect a difference between the two probes that is the sum of the tolerances of the two probes.

Senator Roberts: I understand that. So there is a difference between the mercury in glass and the probes?

Dr Stone: In which sense? In tolerance?

Senator Roberts: No, in the actual measurement. There’ll be difference in the two measurements?

Dr Stone: Sometimes, because they operate within that tolerance.

Senator Roberts: I understand about tolerances.

Dr Stone: For the ones operating at Brisbane Airport, for example, I have the figures on the distribution of readings and the mercury-in-glass. I don’t have the exact figures, I’m sorry, but approximately 40 per cent of the time one of the probes measured a higher amount than another.

Senator Roberts: The figures are 41 per cent—

Dr Stone: About 30 per cent of the time, they measured below, and the balance of the time they measured very similar.

Senator Roberts: So there is a difference. There has to be.

Dr Stone: Correct, and we expect the difference—

Senator Roberts: So 41 per cent of the time it recorded a warmer temperature, and cooler temperatures were recorded 26 per cent of the time.

Dr Stone: Something like that, yes.

Senator Roberts: So are you saying that the analysis of Marohasy and Abbot is incorrect? Or are you

saying that it may be correct but it’s within allowable tolerances, so you don’t care?

Dr Stone: Which part of their analysis? They did quite—

Senator Roberts: The 41 per cent warmer and the 26 per cent cooler.

Dr Stone: If they are the figures. Sorry; I’ve got them here. Yes.

Senator Roberts: 41 per cent and 26 per cent?

Dr Stone: That is correct.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. Do you think it’s significant that your new temperature probes are, on

average, recording warmer temperatures than the mercury thermometers in the same locations at the same times?

Dr Stone: They are not, on average. There is a difference of two-hundredths of a degree, which is not a significant difference.

Senator Roberts: I said on average they’re recording a warmer temperature.

Dr Stone: No, sorry. On average, there was a difference of two-hundredths of a degree between the liquid-in glass-thermometers—

Senator Roberts: So, on average, the probes are recording a warmer temperature.

Dr Stone: 0.02 degrees is not a significant difference.

Senator Roberts: On average, they are recording warmer temperatures than the mercury.

Dr Stone: No. 0.02 degrees is not a significant difference.

Senator Roberts: Graham Lloyd is a credible journalist; I’ve seen his work many times. The story also

says that you, Dr Stone, claimed in response to these issues—presumably he asked you—

Dr Stone: No, he didn’t.

Senator Roberts: that all temperature data is publicly available on your website, including the parallel data. Is that true?

Dr Stone: All of our digitised data is available on the website, and, as Dr Johnson mentioned to you earlier, data that hasn’t been digitised is available from the national archive.

Senator Roberts: The temperature data that was released in the freedom of information request was not available on your website, was it?

Dr Stone: There were two pieces of information provided. One was scans of field books which hadn’t

previously been digitised. Those were digitised upon request and provided. Then the electronic data is available on the bureau website.

Senator Roberts: Well, why were you in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal trying to keep it secret?

Dr Stone: Sorry?

Dr Johnson: Senator, with respect, I think we’ve addressed this. This notion that we are withholding

information from the public is just false. The administrative appeals process was instigated by the proponent, who disagreed with the decision that both the bureau and the Information Commissioner had made in respect of the freedom of information request. Again, I reiterate that the bureau’s actions were affirmed by both the Information Commissioner and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. So this notion that the bureau withholds data is false, and it’s very important that it’s on the record, because, as you say, taxpayers have a legitimate expectation that the data that is generated with their money—

Senator Roberts: Can you take me—

Chair: Last question, Senator Roberts.

Dr Johnson: is available. I just don’t know how much clearer we can be on this.

Senator Roberts: Can you provide the URL where the parallel temperature data was available on your website prior to the FOI?

Dr Stone: This is a key point. The applicants asked for ‘the report’ in which parallel data was recorded. I’ve just explained the data existed in two places. The respondent refused the offer of data on the basis that we couldn’t provide it in one form. It doesn’t exist in one form: there are field books that have the manual temperature readings written down, and there’s electronic data. Bring those two together, and you can construct the parallel dataset, but they specified that they would only accept reports of parallel data, which don’t exist.

Senator Roberts: I know—

Chair: Senator Roberts, we need to move on. Your time is up.

Click Here for Transcript

Chair: Senator Roberts, you have one or two questions?

Senator Roberts: Yes, that’s it. I just have three very short questions.

Chair: Go ahead.

Senator Roberts: The information you scanned from the field book for the freedom of information request—where was that available before the FOI request?

Dr Johnson: That would have been available as a paper record in the National Archives.

Senator Roberts: The scanned information from the field book and the FOI information—where is that available on the bureau’s website today?

Dr Johnson: The scanned information from the bureau’s field books is not on our website. That was a specific request undertaken for a particular proponent.

Senator Roberts: So it’s at the National Archives.

Dr Johnson: But, to my comment earlier: if anyone from the public wants to access our field books they can put a request in through the National Archives. There’s no issue in doing that.

Senator Roberts: Science thrives on debate—open debate based on objective data. A truly scientific body would be encouraging people like Marohasy, Abbott, Bill Johnson and others to actually challenge the Bureau of Meteorology. So why do you run from those challenges? You’ve had many, many scandals—

Dr Johnson: Senator, I just can’t agree with the premise of your question. We don’t run. We welcome engagement with all sectors of society in the work that we do. I think this has been an ongoing subject of public discourse for a long time. Our records are available to anyone who’d like to access them. We welcome all members of the public if they have an interest in our records. There’s no impediment to them accessing them.

Senator Roberts: There’s a list of scandals, if you like, or accused scandals, involving the BOM and global weather agencies. The question—

Dr Johnson: Sorry—Senator, I don’t know what you’re referring to.

Senator Roberts: I’m questioning your data.

Dr Johnson: What are you referring to by ‘scandals’?

Senator Roberts: Questions about temperature fabrications lead to a call for a full inquiry. That inquiry was not held.

Dr Johnson: There have been assertions about these which have been tested in independent inquiries on at least two occasions since I’ve been Director of Meteorology.

Senator Roberts: One of them was just tea and bickies! It looked at the process, not the data.

Dr Johnson: Senator, these are independent—

Chair: Let’s not speak over each other, please.

Dr Johnson: These are independent reviews commissioned by the Australian government into our practices.

Senator Roberts: One of them I know was a cursory look over the processes and did not go into the data.

Dr Johnson: I’m not sure what you’re referring to—

Senator Roberts: The one under Tony Abbott as Prime Minister.

Dr Johnson: but all I can say is: in response to community interest in our practices, certainly since I’ve been Director of Meteorology, or aware of it, or within the vicinity, 2017 was the last one. It was commissioned by then minister Frydenberg. An esteemed panel of national and international leaders—

Senator Roberts: It looked at the process.

Dr Johnson: confirmed that our methods were fit for purpose and sound. These are world experts.

Chair: Senator Roberts, maybe, if you would like, you could catalogue the issues that you’re detailing here and place that on notice for Dr Johnson to respond to.

Senator Roberts: I am happy to.

Chair: It could be that we have a difference of opinion here. Just so that we have the facts on the record, that would be really handy.

Senator Roberts: Thank you, I’ll do that.

Chair: Thank you very much.

/7 Comments/by

The QLD Government made it illegal to build a port they don’t own

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The Queensland Government owns most of the major ports up and down the Queensland coast. Just when a private company was planning on building cheap ports throughout Queensland, the Queensland Government effectively made it illegal to develop ports outside the ones they already own.

In the last budget the Albanese Government cancelled the funding for the North Queensland Water Infrastructure Authority and for the two projects they were running – the Hells Gates Dam and the Hughenden Irrigation Project (including the Saego Dam). Clearly there will be no dams built under a government Anthony Albanese leads. This is a massive blow to North Queensland. These projects represented billions of dollars of economic growth, provided bread-winner jobs across agriculture, mining, and tertiary processing.

This leaves the Urannah Dam as the last dam proposal in Queensland, and I am sure there is no intention on the part of either the Palaszczuk or Albanese Governments to build those either.

Labor are hollowing out the bush. One Nation will get these projects moving again.

Wherever you look, the Government just gets in the way of Australia’s success.

Transcript

Chair: Senator Roberts, do you have questions of Infrastructure Australia before we get to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility?

Senator Roberts: Yes, I do. Thank you for appearing today. Does Infrastructure Australia have any views on what roadblocks there are to port development in Queensland? I know you wouldn’t be prepared. Off the top of your head.

Mr Copp: We’re not aware of any particular barriers.

Senator Roberts: Have you done any work or any reviews on the effect of the Sustainable Ports Development Act 2015? It is Queensland legislation.

Mr Copp: No.

Senator Roberts: It appears to me that legislation is a significant roadblock to ports in our state. I don’t know if you can even build a boat ramp under that law. It completely restricts—I have formed that view after listening to an expert on this; I will explain more in a minute—port development all the way up the Queensland coast except for Gladstone, Townsville, Hay Point and Abbott Point. Do you know who owns those ports?

Mr Copp: No.

Senator Roberts: The Queensland government.

Senator McDonald: It’s part of a broader strategy. It is a Queensland government strategy from a long time ago.

Senator Roberts: They own the ports. I had a meeting with a business in my state recently based on the Gold Coast. The name of the business is SEATRANSPORT. It works internationally. It is a magnificent little firm on the Gold Coast. It is a truly incredible business, humbly creating some of the most incredible boats I’ve ever seen. They showed me a plan they had to create mini ports all the way up the Queensland coast, dozens of them. It is private investment. They have already been operating one successfully in the Gulf for 30 years. I think there are others around the country. From what I could see, it would literally unlock Far North Queensland, especially in agriculture. The Queensland government passed the Sustainable Ports Development Act that said no more ports in Queensland except those that I just listed that the state government owns. This is blatant evidence that productive infrastructure investment is being squashed so a state government can maintain a monopoly and control. Surely don’t we have to consider that an impediment to infrastructure in Australia?

Mr Copp: We haven’t done any sort of analysis of that legislation. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Senator Roberts: Thank you for that. My staff asked this committee yesterday. They said I could ask these questions either in infrastructure or in regional infrastructure. When I got to regional infrastructure, I couldn’t get the answers. They said to go to Infrastructure Australia and the North Queensland Water Infrastructure Authority, which is now tomorrow, I understand, in the environment committee.

Chair: I’ve never been in that committee, so I can’t help you.

Senator Roberts: Do you have a list of every infrastructure project that is started or underway in Queensland outside the south-east region—in other words, regional Queensland?

Mr Copp: Mr Brogan might be able to discuss that. We have a piece of work called market capacity, which may answer that question.

Mr Brogan: We collect data from the Queensland government and other governments across Australia.

Senator Roberts: Including federal?

Mr Brogan: Including federal. It indicates information as simple as when a project would start and total investment cost, but no more detail than that, for the purposes of understanding market capacity constraints—supply and demand constraints in the market.

Senator Roberts: The labour for construction work?

Mr Brogan: Correct. One hundred per cent. That’s correct.

Senator Roberts: Could we get a list of that, please, for Queensland projects outside the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Brisbane?

Mr Brogan: That data is collected with the governments through an agreement that is in place to formalise the confidentiality of the data supplied. I understand your question. I think we have to take on notice what we can provide to respect that confidential information.

Senator Roberts: I don’t want the details. I just want a list of the projects worth over $100 million or more outside the south-east metropolitan area.

Mr Copp: We’ll take that on notice.

Senator Roberts: Thank you.

Chair: We are scheduled to finish at 11 o’clock.

Senator Roberts: I have one more question, maybe two. There are two specific projects. One is the Cairns Western Arterial Road. The website for the department says that Infrastructure Australia has not yet assessed the business case. Has it?

Mr Copp: No.

Senator Roberts: It has not?

Mr Copp: No. It has not.

Senator Roberts: What about the Isaac and Whitsunday regions productive water supply, incorporating the Urannah Dam proposal? Do you know where we are on that?

Mr Tucker: We have a proposal on our priority list. Again, it is stage 1. It recognises that is there is an opportunity to provide high productive water in that region. We’ve had some engagement with the proponents of the Urannah Dam over the last couple of years, but a business case hasn’t been brought forward to us for detailed assessment.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. This is my last question. I haven’t seen the Queensland Great Dividing Range scheme on any list of infrastructure. Am I able to give this to Infrastructure Australia?

Chair: You would like to table it?

Senator Roberts: Yes. It’s a wonderful project. It goes over old ground, but it is entirely new. The concept is old but the project is new. With a proven business case, it provides four million megawatt hours of hydropower, which is 11 times Snowy Hydro 2.0. It is powering $2.5 billion in primary production every year at a cost of just $22 billion, which is less than Snowy Hydro. I think it is important that Infrastructure Australia is aware of this kind of proposal. It is being led by some people with track records on infrastructure.

Mr Copp: Thank you, Senator.

/2 Comments/by

CASA doesn’t think there’s a problem because a plane hasn’t crashed … yet.

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Many of you have watched my previous sessions with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority as I question them on how much risk mandates introduced into the cockpit.

I was shocked to find out in a question on notice (they actually do come back with an answer eventually) that CASA’s medical systems don’t even have the ability to track adverse events or injuries. Whenever they’ve told me there’s no data to indicate a problem, it’s because they don’t have any data. They’re literally flying blind.

It seems because a pilot hasn’t had a stroke and crashed a plane yet, CASA thinks there’s ‘nothing to see here’. This level of negligence should be criminal.

MyocarditisDownload
A0149_RRAT_CASADownload

“QANTAS Incidents to be verified” (click to view)

List of QANTAS incidents

QANTAS B737

17/5/23

QF703 B737 Cairns-Brisbane

Engine damage, air return on one engine, PAN emergency declared. (Media reported)

5/5/23

QF 102 B737 Nandi – Sydney – engine surge and stall. PAN emergency declared into Sydney .. (Media reported)

23/4/23

Qantas B737 Melbourne – Perth forced to return due to fumes of uninown origin in the cockpit. PAN emergency declared, pilots on oxygen. (Media reported).

15/3/23

Qantas 737 experiences ‘engine overheat’ on start up at Ayers Rock. Engine fire bottle fired. Fire crews called, shutdown and precautionary disembarkation carried out. Thermal Imaging revealed hot spot in engine. (No Media Reports)

20/1/23

A Qantas B737 arrives at the gate in Brisbane. Engineer notices smoke emanating from the engine and finds zero oil quantity. Oil had been expelled on approach and engine minutes from critical damage. No emergency declared. (No media reports).

20/1/23

Qantas B737 QF430 Melbourne-Sydney turns back with insufficient thrust (unable to reach target) on one engine. (Media Reports)

19/1/23

QF144 B737 Auckland – Sydney. Engine failure. Flight continued to Sydney on one engine. PAN emergency declared. (Media Reported)

19/1/23

QF 101 Qantas B737 Sydney-Fiji forced to turn back with erroneous airspeed indicators. (Media Reported)

10/2/19

Qantas 737 Port Moresby – Brisbane diverts to Cairns with air conditioning issues. On attempted departure following rectification, engine overheat indication results in passenger tarmac evacuation (Media Reports)

A330

October 2022

Perth-Sydney

Engine severe damage. Operated at reduced thrust. White hot molten metal fragments collecting under engine cowl on shutdown.

15/12/19

Qantas A330 returns to Sydney after experiencing hydraulic fault. This caused fumes and smoke in the cabin with discomfort and distress to the passengers. Emergency evacuation on arrival. (ATSB report).

1/6/18

Qantas A330 Sydney – Bangkok. High Engine vibration. Air return to Sydney on one engine . PAN emergency declared. (ATSB report)

14/4/18

QF123 Brisbane-Auckland -Qantas A330 engine surge and high vibration. (ATSB report).

QANTAS A380

23/12/23

QF 1 Singapore London A380 forced to divert to Azerbaijan due to erroneous cargo fire indication.

QANTASLINK B717

20/1/23

QLink B717 flight QF1516 air returns to melbourne with flap retraction problem on departure (Media reports).

3/6/22

Qantaslink B717 Melbourne-Newcastle suffers engine failure and air return. PAN emergency declared. (Media Reports)

10/3/18

QantasLink B717 flight QF1799 Alice Springs-Brisbane suffers engine failure on takeoff. PAN emergency declared, air return. Media reports first officer suing Qantas group for damages due to poor maintenance.

QANTASLINK DASH-8

29/1/23

Qantaslink dash – 8 Sydney-Coffs harbor forced to air return with landing gear problem (media reports)

FOKKER 100 – Qantas ‘Network’ WA.

24/1/23Fokker 100 Perth – Kalgoorlie returns to Perth with engine trouble. PAN emergency declared.

22/1/23

737 engine overtemps with no response to thrust lever, then fails on the ramp on taxi out.

8/3/23

737 inflight shutdown due to oil filter bypass

25/4/23

Also an A330 in April this year, engine failure at 200 feet on final approach. Was signed back into service and failed again two days later on descent passing 20,000 feet. Same engine failed twice in three days,

11/5/23

Yet another QF 737 inflight shutdown has just been revealed, on descent due to fuel leak.

Also 16/5/23

A330 dumps all its hydraulic fluid on taxi out in Perth.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing again tonight. Ms Spence, are you or any of your executive management or your board members the beneficiaries of any benefits given from any airlines here in Australia?

Ms Spence: No. If we received any hospitality or gifts or anything like that, we would declare it. I am certainly not a beneficiary. Can you repeat that phrase again?

Senator Roberts: Beneficiary of any benefits gifted from any airlines here in Australia?

Ms Spence: Only what we would report in our gifts register.

Senator Roberts: What are they?

Ms Spence: I can’t think of anything that has been. I can say that I haven’t. Certainly if any of my executive team had, it would be reported. As far as I am aware, nothing has been reported.

Senator Roberts: Can you please take it on notice to provide a list detailing anything CASA representatives have received?

Ms Spence: Yes. Mr Marcelja: It’s on our website.

Ms Spence: It will be on our website. Yes, of course we can.

Senator Roberts: So are you going to do that, Ms Spence?

Ms Spence: Yes.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. What is the definition of ‘subclinical ‘?

Mr Marcelja: I’m not a medical expert of that type.

Senator Roberts: Kate Manderson is not here again?

Ms Spence: The request only came to us yesterday asking us to come to Senate estimates. She was travelling overseas on official duties and so is unable to be here this evening.

Senator Roberts: Chair, I want to put on the record that we asked about two weeks before the previous Senate estimates. We asked several weeks before this Senate estimates. That is twice we have asked for Kate Manderson because of her role as a senior medical officer.

Chair: Senator Roberts, just get your office to send copies of that to the committee.

Ms Spence: Senator, while I’ve got you, one thing I probably should have mentioned, of course, is a number of the executive team would get lounge membership by the airlines. I will provide on notice who has those memberships. For example, I have a chairman’s lounge membership.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. Who is responsible, Mr Marcelja, for passenger safety with regard to pilot and medical health evaluation and monitoring in Australia?

Mr Marcelja: We conduct medical certification, as we have spoken about before.

Senator Roberts: Is there any other department, agency or organisation, either domestically or

internationally, that has legal authority, responsibility, jurisdiction, oversight or liability over Australian pilot and passenger safety?

Mr Marcelja: Senator, I would imagine that employers have obligations to pilots. When it comes to the certification of pilots and whether they are fit to fly, that is our accountability.

Senator Roberts: Apart from private company employers, no government agency, department or

organisation?

Mr Marcelja: When it comes to determining whether a pilot is fit to fly, that is our remit. Our remit is

aviation safety and the medical certification that would support aviation safety.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. It’s fair to say the buck stops with CASA?

Mr Marcelja: Within the scope that I described, yes.

Senator Roberts: Your website says that CASA uses multi-crew endorsements as a means of risk

mitigation. Their use enables pilots to continue flying despite the presence of medically significant conditions which would otherwise pose an unacceptable risk to the safety of air navigation. How many pilots with a medically significant condition are currently flying passengers under the CASA restriction which could result in a pilot being incapacitated?

Mr Marcelja: There is a requirement for most airline aircraft, as you would know, to have two pilots. That extends to safety that goes well beyond medicine. I am not sure exactly what your question is.

Senator Roberts: I want to know how many pilots cannot fly alone.

Mr Marcelja: I can take that on notice. It would be a very small number.

Senator Roberts: Can you please provide on notice how many multi-crew endorsements CASA has issued by year over the last five years?

Ms Spence: We can take on notice just to see if that data is available.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. How did you evaluate the aeromedical implications of the pilots taking the new MRNA technology injections, COVID injections, at low atmospheric conditions?

Mr Marcelja: We would not have made any evaluation of that.

Senator Roberts: No evaluation. In an aeromedical context, do you consider that you have any additional responsibility to evaluate or at least surveil a new medical technology that only has provisional approval?

Mr Marcelja: No, Senator, we don’t.

Senator Roberts: But you told me you have responsibility for aero health monitoring?

Mr Marcelja: When we evaluate a medicine, we look at the potential significance of that medicine on a pilot. We don’t test it. We rely on medical authorities to test whether medicines are suitable for use. We look at the implications for medicines in an aeromedical context. As we have spoken many times before, when it comes to vaccinations, we treat vaccinations all the same. With a vaccination that is approved for use in the population, we simply ask that pilots stand down from flying duties for 24 hours to make sure that there is no adverse reaction to it. If there are reactions beyond that, we would expect them to report it and stand down.

Senator Roberts: Are you aware that there is a COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation scheme in operation in Australia now?

Mr Marcelja: I will take your word for it.

Senator Roberts: So you weren’t aware of it?

Mr Marcelja: No.

Senator Roberts: I wonder what it is for.

Mr Marcelja: You tell me.

Senator Roberts: People have been injured or killed by these injections. You mentioned that they have to stand down for 24 hours.

Mr Marcelja: We do not have a role, as I think we have spoken about on many occasions, regarding the health implications of vaccinations on the Australian population. That is a matter for the Department of Health.

Senator Roberts: You are solely responsible for the fact that—

Mr Marcelja: We are solely responsible for determining whether there is an aviation safety risk. I can categorically tell you that it is our view there is no aviation safety risk from the vaccinations.

Ms Spence: As we have said repeatedly, we have not had a single incident involving an adverse reaction to a COVID vaccination by a pilot.

Senator Roberts: Are you aware that last year, 2022, there were more than 30,000 deaths after the vaccines were introduced for the whole of the year?

Ms Spence: That has nothing to do with us.

Senator Roberts: Let’s continue. It’s not of interest to you?

Ms Spence: To be honest— Senator Roberts: They are temporally correlated with the injections.

Ms Spence: I genuinely feel that we have nothing to add to the line of questioning.

Senator Roberts: Let’s continue, then. In February 2022, in a Zoom meeting with Virgin pilots, CASA principal medical officer Kate Manderson stated that the provisionally approved mRNA vaccines can cause myocarditis and pericarditis but that she would rather pilots got those conditions from the vaccine rather than COVID itself, which she claimed to be of a higher risk. What evidence did Kate Manderson have to substantiate these comments?

Mr Marcelja: We categorically can tell you that there is no aviation safety risk that we consider is associated with COVID vaccination.

Senator Roberts: Yet Kate Manderson, your senior medical officer, says that the vaccines can cause myocarditis and pericarditis.

Ms Spence: I expect that what she was saying is that you may. The bigger issue is that there is a greater chance of those sorts of impacts if someone actually got COVID. Again, I would definitely want to see that quote in a broader context. I think reading something like that out could be potentially quite misleading.

Senator Roberts: You are saying that without hearing it?

Ms Spence: I am saying that without seeing the whole context in which the statement was made.

Senator Roberts: We’ll get it to you.

Ms Spence: That would be great. Thanks, Senator.

Senator Roberts: I want to know what medical evidence Kate Manderson had that can substantiate her comments.

Ms Spence: Okay.

Senator Roberts: Take it on notice?

Ms Spence: Yes.

Senator Roberts: I asked you on notice at SQ23-003393 to provide me with the rates of significant diseases over the previous five years for the following conditions—pericarditis and myocarditis, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, immune thrombocytopenic purpura, capillary leak syndrome, Guillain-Barre syndrome, any cardiac related conditions or injuries and any immune related conditions or injuries. These are recognised adverse reactions to COVID-19 injections. The injection manufacturers and the medical authorities have acknowledged this. You completely failed to answer one of them for any year. Your response to me was that your medical record system does not even capture information on these diseases in a way that can be accurately reported.

Ms Spence: That’s correct.

Senator Roberts: I am struggling to understand how you have not been misleading in your previous evidence. Over many sessions, you have maintained to me that there have been no safety signals or concerns about COVID vaccination, yet I am only now finding out that your medical record system does not even have the capacity to report on some of the most significant adverse events to COVID vaccination. How can you maintain there’s nothing in the data to indicate a concern when you don’t have the data and you’re literally flying blind?

Ms Spence: We haven’t had any incidents associated with COVID vaccination. There is no data because there are no incidents. I am sorry, Senator. I don’t know how much clearer I can be.

Senator Roberts: But you can’t measure this?

Ms Spence: We haven’t had an incident to measure it with, though, Senator.

CHAIR: I am loathe to do this. Senator Roberts, I could go to the standing orders. I can’t remember the number, but it’s known as tedious repetition. I know you have been asking these questions in and out. I do not know how anyone in CASA can explain to you any more that they don’t have any more evidence. You have the call, Senator Roberts. Senator McDonald is waiting patiently as well. We have all waited patiently all day, so keep going.

Senator Roberts: Does CASA still maintain that it is unaware of any pilot grounded with a COVID vaccine injury?

Ms Spence: Yes.

Senator Roberts: I find that hard to believe given the rates of adverse events that are huge and startling. No pilots have it but every other category of citizen does. What supervision of Qantas engine trend monitoring is undertaken by CASA given that there have been a significant number of incidents over the near past?

Ms Spence: Is this about issues regarding turnarounds with Qantas aircraft?

Senator Roberts: It is air incidents. Can I table this, Chair?

Chair: Yes, of course.

Ms Spence: If what I understand is correct, you are talking about some of the media coverage on the number of turnarounds because of potential concerns with aircraft safety. We have done an analysis over a 10-year time frame saying that there has been no material increase in the number or severity of air turn-back type occurrences in 2023 to date.

Senator Roberts: Perhaps you could tell me on notice whether or not the list I have just given you from a whistleblower is normal or abnormal.

Ms Spence: Certainly I would be happy to do that. As I said, based on the analysis that we have done, there hasn’t actually been any material increase in the number or severity of air turn-backs. That is on the analysis we have done. I will take that on notice, based on the list you have just provided us.

Senator Roberts: This is a list of incidents that I have tabled that has been provided to me. Can you please verify if those have been reported or lodged with CASA? Do it on notice.

Ms Spence: Based on my quick scan, these are all ones that we are aware of. I don’t think that would change what I have just told you about no material increase in the number or severity of air turn-back type occurrences. But I will—

Senator Roberts: Perhaps you could have a look at it in detail first before making a comment.

Ms Spence: Yes.

Senator Roberts: I would like to know whether this is surprising or normal.

Ms Spence: I think that’s what I was just telling you based on—

Senator Roberts: I understand. I would like to know once you’ve had a look at it, not before you’ve had a look at it. I would be surprised if it’s normal. Thank you, Chair.

/3 Comments/by

Listen to this if you’ve been affected by a wind, solar or power line project

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The Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner has a sole focus on receiving complaints about wind, solar, pumped hydro, battery and power line projects among others.

If you have been affected by a project underway or even one that is proposed you need to submit a complaint by following the steps at https://www.aeic.gov.au/making-a-complaint

Transcript

Chair: Senator Roberts.

Senator Roberts: Thank you for being here this morning. I understand one of my staff called you yesterday?

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: He had a very pleasant talk. Thank you very much for opening the door. Is it accurate to say that you are the national commissioner for complaints about wind and solar projects?

Mr Dyer: I’d like to characterise it as the ombudsman of first and last resort. If you have a concern about a powerline, a wind farm or whatever that might be in our jurisdiction and you don’t know how to get it solved, you can come to us and we’ll figure out the right process to get the concern addressed.

Senator Roberts: When you say ‘you’, that was used in a colloquial sense. This is open to any citizen in Australia?

Mr Dyer: Yes. We’re a national service and we get complaints from around the country.

Senator Roberts: That’s wonderful to hear. So anyone who has a complaint about wind projects, solar projects, batteries or transmission can make a complaint to you?

Mr Dyer: Yes. If you go to our website, which is aeic.gov.au, the second or third tab along says ‘making a complaint’. There’s the process, the form and the policy. You can call us, you can mail us, you can email us or you can arrange to meet with us.

Senator Roberts: How many are in your office? I understand you have a small office.

Mr Dyer: We’re a very efficient team.

Senator Roberts: I wasn’t being critical.

Mr Dyer: We have, I think, five people.

Senator Roberts: And you’re meant to take care of people’s complaints about solar and wind. And you work with the state government, with the federal government, with private entities?

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: Thank you.

Mr Dyer: The respondent is usually the developer to a concern. But sometimes it’s a planning process or an EPBC issue. It’s not always the developer, but usually that’s the case.

Senator Roberts: So it could get pretty complex?

Mr Dyer: Yes. We’ve had some of them going for a long time, but we get through them.

Senator Roberts: Can you perhaps talk a bit more about what you can do for someone who has a complaint that you can look at, because people are not aware. Talk to everyday Australians.

Mr Dyer: I don’t have the budget for a front page ad in the Sydney Morning Herald. But people do find us. If you’ve got constituents who have concerns, we should talk about how they can come to us. The best thing to do is promote our website, and that has all of the details. Typically our process is that, if we get a complaint, we’ll do some research on the project and the proponent, and what is going on. If we don’t already know the proponent, and in many cases we do, we will go and get a briefing or open the door, and sometimes the complainant is known to the proponent. Often they’re not known, and so we’re able to build and bridge a relationship between the complainant and the proponent to work through whatever the concerns are. Many concerns are solved by just provision of factual information. It’s often a misunderstanding or misperception that has caused them to come to us.

Senator Roberts: I certainly agree with that. I would like to ask whether you’ve received any complaints in relation to the proposed Eungella or Burdekin Pioneer pumped hydro project in the hinterland near Mackay and the proposed Borumba Dam pumped hydro and the transmission lines around Widgee, which is near Gympie in Queensland.

Mr Dyer: No.

Senator Roberts: Not any?

Mr Dyer: No.

Senator Roberts: There’s a massive community movement in both cases.

Mr Dyer: Then feel free to connect them to us and we’ll work through it.

Senator Roberts: Okay. It’s shocking to me that, in both of those projects, it appears there has been an appalling level of community consultation. This is entirely from the Queensland government. In Eungella, for example, people who were going to have their houses compulsorily resumed and flooded for the new pumped hydro dam found out via media release. Then they found out that they couldn’t get loans for their business, renovations or sell their house, because their land is now jeopardised. Transmission lines for the Borumba project near Gympie are currently proposed over prime agricultural land, which would be again compulsorily resumed despite the community pointing out that there are state-owned land corridors available nearby. Does this lack of consultation sound like it meets the needs for best practice that your office would recommend?

Mr Dyer: We find that most proponents need help in some way, shape or form. I did have a look last night at the Queensland hydro website, and it didn’t jump out to me how you might make a complaint, for example. So, it’s possible that we may need to help them get their complaint process in place. We’ve had to do that with all the TNSPs, and help them get that in place, and the policies put in place, make it transparent on the project website, and away they go.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. What does the best practice consultation look like?

Mr Dyer: It’s a long topic, but it’s about knowing who your stakeholders are and being fairly well advanced in your thinking about what you’re trying to do. If I reflect on a call I had last night, it’s don’t go about it in secret. We often get developers that want to have one-on-one discussions with the landholder to sign them up for hosting the wind farm or the solar farm and say, ‘This is very confidential. We can’t let you talk to your neighbours.’  Before the developers leave the front gate, the whole street knows what the deal is.

Senator Roberts: And they know that these guys are wanting to cover it up?

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: Which doesn’t build trust.

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: To build trust, developers need to listen first and then talk once they understand people’s needs?

Mr Dyer: Yes. It’s, for want of a better word, not a crude word, it’s a professional sales role that they’re in. But it’s got to be done with ethics and transparency and thinking like a landholder will think—how you go about matters.

Senator Roberts: I’ve been up to both projects, but already there are many constituents who are saying that this will never be built. It’s just going to do enormous damage. It’s just the Queensland government diverting attention in the media and in the community from serious problems like the Mackay Base Hospital. That straightaway has destroyed any trust in that community.

Mr Dyer: It sounds like they might need some help, so I’ll approach the chair and we’ll start the process.

Senator Roberts: We’ll get your website and your name and we’ll send it to—

Mr Dyer: I’ve got a card here for you. You can take that after the session.

Senator Roberts: I’m intrigued about bonds on solar and wind generators. In the coal industry, for every acre that a surface mine uncovers the coal company has to provide a bond to the government, and then it doesn’t get that bond back until the land is fully reclaimed. Sometimes the reclaimed land is far more productive and far cleaner than the original scrub. What is the bond on solar and wind generators?

Mr Dyer: It’s up to the commercial arrangement between the landholder and the proponent. It’s no different from you owning the milk bar as a commercial landlord down the main street of town. If the tenant defaults and leaves the building, you’re stuck with the bain-marie.

Senator Roberts: So, without a bond, at the end of life, solar and wind generators can just walk away from it? Where are the funds to ensure remediation?

Mr Dyer: Some landholders are quite savvy, and I have seen everything from bank guarantees to bonds being in place, but it’s not across the board. That’s not to say it’s not happening and not being done, but it needs to be a standard practice.

Senator Roberts: There is a standard in the coalmining industry, but there’s no standard in the solar and wind industry?

Mr Dyer: It’s something I’ve advocated for a long time. It’s in section 8 of my report in appendix A, that is, the need to have licensed developers accredited to have the skills to carry out the process, as we are doing in offshore wind, and also that the area being prospected has been sanctioned ahead of time.

Senator Roberts: I want to put on the record that I appreciate Mr Dyer’s frank and complete comments and his openness. It’s much appreciated. Thank you.

Chair: I think we would all agree.

Mr Dyer: Thank you.

/by

ARENA hands out $2.15 billion in subsidies to supposedly “cheap” renewables

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We constantly hear that “renewables” are the cheapest and the best way to go. If that’s the case, why does the Australian Renewable Energy Agency need to commit $2.15 billion in subsidies, grants and loans to prop up “renewable” projects?

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing today. The latest figures I have about funds committed, as at June 2022, is $1.86 billion committed across Australia. That is from the 2021-22 annual report. Do you have the most recent figure on what you have committed?

Mr Miller: The most recent figure is $2.15 billion.

Senator Roberts: It’s constantly jammed down Australian throats that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of energy. Why do you have to commit billions in subsidies to wind and solar if this is the case? If they are so much cheaper, shouldn’t they be able to survive without your subsidies and just simply beat coal and gas in the market?

Mr Miller: ARENA hasn’t given much, if any, support to wind projects, in our history. When ARENA was formed 11 years ago, wind was relatively mature and didn’t need much support. Solar was an industry where Australia had a research advantage and a burgeoning research community, and ARENA stepped into that space and continued providing research funding to solar.

I think it’s entirely appropriate that we aim for lower cost, higher efficiency and more sustainable solar materials. That is what the work that we do supports. In terms of our support for solar, our key program in that respect was in 2016-17 where the intervention that ARENA and the CEFC provided the industry, with $92 million funding to two large-scale solar projects, drove the cost of that technology down from $2.50 a watt to $1.25 a watt following that program to the point where large-scale solar is economic in Australia—and the International Energy Agency says is the cheapest form of electricity generation in history. 

ARENA’s continued support for solar R&D is to create a sustainable, comparative and competitive advantage for Australia in this important technology, to unlock the potential for solar to be that form of ultra low-cost generation to support a giant iron and renewable steel manufacturing capability in Australia and to provide low – cost energy into our industrial system and to our domestic users. We take that responsibility seriously, and we are very excited by the opportunity to continue to support solar PV research, manufacturing and production in Australia to that effect.

Senator Roberts: Could you take on notice to explain in depth the cost structures around solar that you are contributing to at the moment, please? In simple terms, the generating of solar is cheap but, by the time we add the doubling or the tripling of the area needed because of the variability in nature and then you add the battery storage, it’s very, very expensive.

Mr Miller: Senator, I’m not clear what you want me to do.

Senator Roberts: I would like the levelised cost of solar produced electricity equivalent to coal in terms of quantities and reliability?

Mr Miller: I would point you to the good work that the CSIRO has done in collaboration with AEMO in their GenCost analysis, which is thorough analysis by the team at the CSIRO, which shows you the levelised cost of solar on its own and wind on its tone and then adds storage to that, which is a proxy for firming. I would suggest that we would not be able to provide you with any more information than that high-quality work that has been done by the CSIRO.

Senator Roberts: That’s fine; thank you, Mr Miller—because the CSIRO’s assumptions are just woeful. If that’s the best and you term it excellent, we’re in trouble. That’s my view. So thank you for saying that.

/10 Comments/by

Will the Australian Energy Regulator sacrifice price or reliability to reduce emissions?

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Currently, the government agencies that run our electricity grid are meant to balance 5 objectives: price, quality, safety, reliability and security of supply. The Government wants to add emissions reduction to those objectives.

I don’t think the objectives of price, reliability, security of supply and emissions reduction can all be achieved at the same time so my question to the Australian Regulator was, which objective will you sacrifice for emissions reduction to satisfy the net-zero pipe dream?

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you all for being here today. The national electricity objectives include price, quality, safety, reliability and security of supply. The government is now intending to add emissions reduction to those objectives. You, the Australian Energy Regulator, have made a submission to the government’s consultation process on the draft National Energy Laws Amendment (Emissions Reduction Objectives) Bill 2022. In that submission you said, ‘The AER supports including an emissions reduction objective.’ This is support for a proposed government policy. Surely the very first value of the Australian Public Service is meant to be impartiality. Why are you commenting one way or another on support for a government policy?

Ms Savage: I guess my objective from that would be that we are there to try and meet Australia’s emission reduction targets in the least-cost way. That’s part of our job, and our decision-making needs to ensure that happens. Our purpose as the Australian Energy Regulator is to ensure Australian consumers are better off now and in the future, so when we assess what tools we need, as the Australian Energy Regulator, to actually do our job effectively and to make sure that we can deliver upon that purpose, our considered view is that change to the legislation, to the objective for which we have to use our decision-making, is required and is important to us being able to deliver upon our purpose. So it speaks fundamentally to our role rather than to the government’s policy.

Senator Roberts: Do you consider that the Australian Public Service Values and Code of Conduct apply to you?

Ms Savage: I absolutely do, Senator.

Senator Roberts: Do you consider that the Australian Public Service value of impartiality applies to you?

Ms Savage: Yes, I do.

Senator Roberts: Why are you stating support for a proposed government policy, rather than impartially commenting on your ability to carry it out?

Ms Savage: I’m not commenting on the policy; I’m commenting on the importance of the change to the work of the Australian Energy Regulator. In that regard, my obligation is to make sure that we have the tools we need to discharge our function such that we can ensure Australian consumers are better off now and in the future.

Senator Roberts: I put it to you that you are breaching the Australian Public Service value of impartiality by advocating support for a government policy. I would like you to take on notice to fully explain how advocating support for government policy in a submission is impartial.

Ms Savage: Senator, as I’ve said, we didn’t advocate support for the policy. We’re advocating support for the changes to the laws that are required to enable us to do our function.

Senator Roberts: ‘The Australian Energy Regulator’—your words—’supports including an emissions reduction objective.’

Ms Savage: That is the change to the legislation required to do our function.

Senator Roberts: You’ve taken a side in this debate even before it’s started. You’re required to be impartial. Why were you not impartial?

Ms Savage: I have—

Senator Roberts: I don’t accept your answer.

Ms Savage: I hear that you don’t accept my answer, but my answer remains that we have asked for changes, and we constantly and repeatedly ask for changes to legislation—and it’s in our strategic plan to do this—when it’s required for us to fulfil our strategic purpose, and that is to ensure that energy consumers are better off now and in the future. Limb 4 of our strategic plan actually says we will inform debate about Australia’s transition, and that’s to ensure that we can do our job to make sure Australian consumers are better off now and in the future.

Senator Roberts: I suggest you read the Australian Public Service Values and Code of Conduct.

Ms Savage: I have, Senator.

Senator Roberts: The current objectives of price, quality, safety, reliability and security are sound objectives. What level of compromise on price or reliability are you willing to accept to achieve the objective of emissions reduction?

Ms Savage: When it comes time for us to consider the new objectives, with all of the limbs in them, including the emissions reduction objective, we’ll need to think about the value of carbon emissions reductions in the context of the target to achieve net zero by 2050, to ensure that the investments that happen in things like transmission or gas networks are consistent with achieving that goal at least cost to consumers, which is where that element of making sure consumers are better off now and in the future arises.

Senator Roberts: So my question—I’ll say it again—is: what level of compromise on price or reliability are you willing to accept to achieve the objective of emissions reduction? You’ve now got a new objective.

Ms Savage: I don’t see it as compromise; I see it as optimising.

Senator Roberts: Can I take note of that?

Ms Savage: Absolutely.

Senator Roberts: It will be interesting in the future. What are you going to do if the objective of emissions reduction conflicts with those existing objectives?

Ms Savage: We will need to optimise against the current list of objectives, and the inclusion of emissions reduction which become another limb. Already, today, we have to make judgements and choices between the existing elements of those objectives. We constantly have to be thinking about trade-offs on behalf of customers in terms of price, quality, safety and reliability, and we will also be considering emissions reduction in that context.

Senator Roberts: I put it to you that there is no way that the objectives of price, reliability and emissions reduction can be achieved at the same time, so which one will you prioritise?

Chair: Senator Roberts, I wonder if your questions are getting a bit accusatory. You have asked questions, and Ms Savage is responding to your questions with her perspective.

Senator Roberts: I have constituents that are deeply concerned about electricity prices that have trebled in a couple of decades.

Chair: You are open to ask your questions, but I would ask you to mind your manner.

Senator Roberts: Thank you, Chair. I say it again: I put it to you that there is no way the objective of price reliability and emissions reduction can be achieved at the same time—the facts show that—so which one will you prioritise? You’ve actually supported the government and its policy, so which one will you prioritise?

Ms Savage: An example might help. Currently, we have to think about price, safety, security, reliability.  When we make a judgement, we have to think about price and reliability, and those two things aren’t always the same thing. More reliability can mean higher prices, and higher prices can mean lower reliability. On safety and security, we just gave, in response to Senator Van’s question, an example of abolishing gas connections; there is a safety issue there. We’re always and constantly in our work needing to optimise across those different objectives within the national electricity and gas objectives, and, with the inclusion of emissions, it will be the same type of task. We have to look at it in its whole, and we have to optimise across all of those objectives. We do it today and will be able to it tomorrow.

Senator Roberts: My view is that the people who tell us wind and solar are the cheapest form of electricity are lying. If they are the cheapest form of electricity, why do we need to change the electricity objectives to include emissions reductions, so they are favoured?

Ms Savage: You are thinking about generation technologies. We do a lot of work with the Australian Energy Regulator in electricity and gas networks, and that’s nothing to do with renewable energy necessarily. If I take a gas network, for example, and if you came to me as a gas company and said, ‘I need to invest in an electric compressor instead of a gas compressor because I’m trying to meet my emissions reduction objective,’ then that is something that we could not consider necessarily under the existing obligations. Under a future set of arrangements that’s something we could consider, so it’s not necessarily about wind and solar; it’s about lots of little choices that go along in the system to make sure it all adds up to the least-cost way of meeting our climate goals.

Senator Roberts: If the ministers past and present are not lying and solar and wind are cheap and reliable, it would fit into existing objectives of price and reliability. Why do we need to change the objectives if the climate ministers are not lying?

Ms Savage: As I just said—and I’ll repeat my answer—it’s not always about wind and solar.  Sometimes it will be about networks, and, in fact, most of the changes to the objective for the work of the Australian Energy Regulator will be about transmission, distribution, electricity and gas networks.

Senator Roberts: So it won’t be about price versus emissions, yet everywhere in the world every country that has a substantial proportion of solar and wind has had a dramatic increase in prices—that’s fact.

Ms Savage: Are you asking me a question?

Senator Roberts: Yes, I’m asking you a question. How can you justify the statement that there won’t be a trade-off between emissions and price?

Ms Savage: I have covered that in answering the question before, which is that we’ll be optimising across the new emissions reduction objective with the other elements of the national electricity and gas objectives.

Senator Roberts: What is the Australian Energy Regulator’s position on nuclear energy?

Ms Savage: We don’t have a position on nuclear energy.

Senator Roberts: So now you’re impartial?

Ms Savage: We’re always impartial.

Chair: Last question, Senator Roberts.

Senator Roberts: You say as part of your retail energy market regulation, your other roles include, secondly, reporting on performance of the market and energy businesses, including affordability and disconnection of customers for non-payment of energy bills. What is the latest disconnection rate in each state? Could you take that on notice?

Ms Savage: I can tell you at the macro level and take the state based data on notice. For ’21-22, which is the last full financial year of data we have, the number of disconnections was about 30,000, which is significantly less than what we saw before COVID. At the time before COVID it was 70,000 customers per year.

Senator Roberts: Could you take on notice to give us the five years—actually the three years?

Ms Savage: I have the five years here at the macro level if you’d like it.

Senator Roberts: I would like to know the states as well because I want to see how the different states are behaving.

Ms Savage: Actually, I have got the states here. Would you like me to read them out?

Senator Roberts: If you could put it in writing, that would be good.

Senator McAllister: As you can imagine, it ends up being like 20 numbers.

Chair: I wonder if we could just copy it in the break and circulate it—just for ease. Is that okay with you, Senator Roberts?

Senator Roberts: That’s fine.

Ms Savage: At a cumulative total, in 2017-18 it was 72,000 and in 2018-19 it was 70,000. The Australian Energy Regulator then asked retailers to stop disconnecting customers during COVID and we saw a big drop down: 43,000 in 2019-20; 17,000 and 2020-21; and then it’s back at 29,000 in 2021-22.

Senator Roberts: Thank you.

/3 Comments/by

The market is not abandoning coal, the government is forcing the market to abandon coal

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Australians are constantly told that banks, electricity markets and buyers are all turning away from coal and gas because it’s too expensive or the buyers just don’t like it anymore. It’s bullshit.

It is the Government that is applying direct pressure on coal and gas while it gives wind and solar a free ride. There is a sneaky, hidden piece of legislation called the Renewable Energy Shortfall Charge that is enforced by the Clean Energy Regulator (CER).

It forces your electricity company to buy a percentage of all of their electricity from wind and solar complexes. If your electricity company buys too much coal or gas fired electricity, they have to pay to buy green credits (generation certificates) off wind and solar generators or they will be fined.

Like slowly boiling a frog, the percentage of wind and solar your electricity company is forced to buy has been ratcheted up from 0.65% in 2001 to 18.64% this year. The increases are only accelerating.

So remember when anyone tells you “the market” is abandoning coal that it’s a lie. It’s only the government that’s choosing to abandon coal.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: I want to get help with an issue that constituents want to understand and so do I; I don’t understand it. It has relevance to the primacy of energy costs in the budget. I’m hoping to get into a relatively complex area and get your evidence or confirmation on how the renewable energy shortfall charge, under the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act, works. Perhaps you could bring anyone to the table who has expertise in that.

Mr Parker: Sure. Mark Williamson has the expertise.

Senator Roberts: Thank you, Mr Williamson. I will try to step my way through the legislation here, and you can pick me up where I’m wrong or missing something. The renewable energy shortfall charge applies to liable entities?

Mr M Williamson: Correct.

Senator Roberts: Which is defined in sections 35, 31, 32 and 33, and essentially talks about entities that make a wholesale acquisition of electricity.

Mr M Williamson: Yes. For simplicity, these are typically electricity retailers.

Senator Roberts: Retailers.

Mr M Williamson: Yes.

Senator Roberts: Wholesalers?

Mr M Williamson: The electricity retailers are typically the liable parties.

Senator Roberts: Okay; they are the liable parties because they sell it to the end user.

Mr M Williamson: Correct.

Senator Roberts: Okay. Thank you. That’s great.

Mr Parker: Or large users, people directly purchasing electricity.

Senator Roberts: So large users who buy direct can also be facing these charges.

Mr Parker: Correct.

Mr M Williamson: Correct.

Senator Roberts: Can I get you to explain who the liable entities for the renewable energy shortfall charge are in simple terms—again, retail or large users?

Mr M Williamson: I need to frame and explain the renewable energy target for you. It sets an obligation on these retailers or large users who are buying direct to surrender to us each year a certain number of large-scale generation certificates and small-scale technology certificates. Those amounts are based on percentages set each year in regulation by the minister. Effectively, if you’re an electricity retailer, you take your acquisition of electricity in megawatt hours, you multiply it by those percentages and that tells you the number of certificates that you need to surrender to us. If a liable entity does not surrender the certificates or surrenders fewer than they should, that makes them liable for the shortfall charge.

Senator Roberts: So it’s not power generators and not wholesalers; it’s just retail and large consumers, as Mr Parker said.

Mr M Williamson: Correct; and they’re only liable for the shortfall charge if they do not surrender enough certificates to us to meet their renewable energy target liability.

Senator Roberts: Can you talk me through the large-scale generation certificates that you just mentioned.  What are they and what is the effect of surrendering them for that company?

Mr M Williamson: Large-scale generation certificates are issued for each accredited power station that’s from a renewable energy source.

Senator Roberts: Solar or wind, for example?

Mr M Williamson: Correct. Hydro, as well, is quite common. They get a certificate for every net megawatt hour of generation. Those certificates can be used on the demand side to equip liability, so they can be sold to electricity retailers or big users, or they can be voluntarily cancelled to prove the use of renewable energy. For example, you may have heard of the GreenPower scheme. That operates in a way that businesses who want to have more renewable energy use proven, other than just the statutory renewable energy target, can buy and cancel large-scale generation certificates.

Senator Roberts: So a coal-fired power station would not get them?

Mr M Williamson: That’s correct.

Senator Roberts: Definitely not. Solar and wind would. And purchasers must buy at least 18.64 per cent right now of solar or wind power or hydro.

Mr M Williamson: Effectively, that’s the case. I think that percentage you’ve mentioned is the renewable power percentage and so, yes, those electricity retailers or big users multiply their electricity acquisitions by that percentage. That tells them the number of certificates that they have to cancel to us.

Senator Roberts: I’ve got some figures in front me about the renewable power percentage. I’ll just go through them. In 2001, it started—so that’s 22 years ago—and it was just 0.24 per cent, about a quarter of one per cent. Then it went up in the following year. You mentioned that this is a ministerial directive.

Mr M Williamson: The minister sets these percentages, based on calculations that we do each year, but the actual targets are set in the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act. A certain number of gigawatt hours of generation each year was set in the act. That got to the target, which is 33,000 gigawatt hours, which is set in the legislation from 2020, and that same number continues to 2030. That 33,000 gigawatt-hour target was reset in mid-2015 by parliament. In the early stages of the scheme, there was a table in the act that set the numbers that dictated where that percentage would be set.

Senator Roberts: Is that table in section 39(1) of the act?

Mr M Williamson: I’d have to ask the general counsel to try to find the right part of the legislation.

Senator Roberts: While we’re waiting for confirmation, in 2001 it was 0.24. In 2002, the following year, it was 0.62, and it had slow increments, mild increments, until 2010. It took 10 years to get to 5.986 per cent. Then, from 2011 onwards, it rose, in 11 years, to 18.64. So it was 5.6 per cent in the first 10 years and there was a 13 per cent increase in the next 11 years.

Mr M Williamson: These were legislated increases. That was the way that the scheme was designed.

Senator Roberts: I want to understand this. First of all, I’ve focused mainly on the climate, because I haven’t found anyone who can give me the science that proves the need for this. But I haven’t focused on the energy, and that’s where I want to go in the future. That means resolving some of the complexities. I want to no-understand this because we always hear that it’s the market that’s forcing coal-fired generators out and that one likes coal. Yet it appears to me, with this renewable energy shortfall charge—a fine, if you like—that it’s actually the government forcing the retail sellers and the end users to buy wind and solar energy or, essentially, they’ll be faced with this fine. Is that correct?

Mr M Williamson: The construct of the scheme is that the retailers should buy the certificates. The shortfall charge is only where they do not choose to or are unable to get the certificates that they need. So it’s the default mechanism. But the way the scheme works is that the retailers should get in and be buying renewable energy. That should bring through more renewable energy, and that’s the way the scheme works.

Senator Roberts: It appears deceptive from one perspective. I’m not accusing you of doing that, but it appears deceptive from one perspective, hidden in the complex legalese. Have you ever advertised to the public that the government, through you, is forcing retail purchasers and large-end users to purchase more and more wind and solar?

Mr M Williamson: We don’t do specific broad community education, but all of this is regularly published; it’s published by other bodies, such as the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Commission. It is generally well known that there’s an obligation on the electricity retailers. As I said, a lot of electricity users are choosing to buy GreenPower and to go further than the minimum statutory target.

Senator Roberts: What we have is a consumer faced with a choice of buying electricity. If they don’t buy an adequate amount or proportion of solar and wind, they will have to pay a charge in addition to the subsidies that the solar and wind producers are getting.

Mr M Williamson: No. The obligation is set with electricity retailers. There are a lot of electricity retailers. In a competitive market, they should source the certificates at the best price they can and have the lowest level of input cost for the renewable energy target.

Senator Roberts: My point, Mr Williamson and Mr Parker—you can correct me or confirm—is that, in my opinion, now that I’ve had it clarified, this is the most significant intervention in the electricity market that the government has ever conducted, and not just this government but previous governments as well. By ministerial directive via legislation, they’re ratcheting up the percentage of renewable electricity that every electricity buyer has to buy, or face a fine over the course of 20 years.

Mr M Williamson: Let me clarify, again, that the underlying numbers that lead to those percentages are locked in the act, so parliament took a decision to lock those numbers in. We do complex calculations to convert that to a percentage and they are put to the minister. The act sets out the things that the minister must consider. This is all set in legislation that was passed in parliament.

Senator Roberts: Thank you for affirming that yet again. My mistake: I thought I said ‘in the act’, but maybe I didn’t. Doesn’t this confirm that solar and wind are much more expensive? We’ve all been hearing the fluff that says people are going away from coal because it’s more expensive. Solar and wind get subsidies; plus, if somebody buys coal-fired power, the retailers or large-end users can be up for a charge. Doesn’t this really confirm that, without subsidies and without a throttle on the coal-fired competition, wind and solar are too expensive?

Mr M Williamson: Not in my view; I wouldn’t agree with that at all.

Senator Roberts: On what basis?

Mr M Williamson: There are incentives in the form of those large-scale generation certificates that go to the generators.

Senator Roberts: The solar and wind generators?

Mr M Williamson: Correct. Effectively, who benefits often depends on the nature of power purchase agreements between those solar and wind power station operators and the retailers. But, in essence, the numbers—if you look at the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Quarterly Energy Dynamics report, every time that wind and solar are setting the price in the wholesale electricity market, the prices are very low and, in some cases, in negative territory. It’s quite clear that, in fact, wind and solar are driving down wholesale electricity prices, which are also an input to retailers and to all of us as consumers.

Senator Roberts: I would say that’s an aberration. What’s happening is that coal is actually being forced out by the governments—I say ‘governments’ plural—and it’s a direct market intervention in addition to the subsidies. The subsidies enhance solar and wind; the charge slams coal.

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, in your questions just now and, indeed, yesterday, you mentioned subsidies. Are there any particular subsidies that you’re interested in? I think it’s been challenging sometimes for witnesses to engage with your questioning, because you don’t name them and I’m just unclear what it is that you’re referring to.

Senator Roberts: Subsidies on solar and wind.

Senator McAllister: Issued by whom?

Senator Roberts: Federal government, state governments.

Senator McAllister: Is there a program in particular that you’re seeking information on?

Senator Roberts: No, I don’t have any one in mind in particular.

Senator McAllister: I see. Please go on.

Chair: Senator Roberts, I’m going to wind you up as well. We can come back to you, if you need.

Senator Roberts: I’d just make the point that the market is not abandoning coal; the government is forcing buyers to not buy coal. That’s the point.

Chair: Thank you for your statement.

Senator Roberts: Thank you very much, Mr Williamson, for clarifying.

/by

Clean Energy Finance Corporation defends rubbish returns on wind and solar

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The ASX200 is the Australian benchmark for investment returns, if you’re not matching it many people will ask why you even bothered.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation “invests” your taxes into pipe dream “renewable” projects. We’re told that these investments are some of the best things in finance, in reality I think they are a scam.

My question was simple, if the CEFC is making such good investments, why would putting money into the ASX200 have made a 22% better profit over the last 10 years?

Click here for Transcript

Senator Roberts: At the last Senate estimates, I submitted some questions on notice asking for how the returns for wind and solar investments compare to other financial investments or benchmarks. The CEFC answered very vaguely and essentially said, ‘Depends.’ The number for that question and response is SQ23-000642. In your annual report, you are happy to tout a percentage but not in your answer to me, apparently. In your report you say, since the Clean Energy Finance Corporation’s inception you have achieved an annualised return of 4.48 per cent, which adds up to 55 per cent in total over 10 years. The ASX 200 over the same period has returned 67 per cent. That’s 27 April 2012 to 20 May 2023. An investment in the Australian benchmark would have returned a 22 per cent better profit than the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Why are your investments in supposedly clean energy, which is not clean—just have a look at what happens when heavy metals out of abandoned solar panels get into the water supply or oil from a malfunctioning wind turbine leaks into the ocean—so poor compared to the Australian benchmark?

Mr Learmonth: There are a few things in there. Firstly, that 4.48 that you refer to doesn’t just cover renewable energy of wind and solar, if that’s what’s going to be in your sights; it covers the whole portfolio, and that’s everything from green bonds, loans to industrial companies to reduce emissions, technology investments with venture capital, limited partnership interests in funds in sectors like the built environment, agriculture and infrastructure. So it’s very, very broad. You can’t possibly hone it in just around wind and solar.

The other thing I would note is you’re making the point that our returns appear inadequate or are below what other commercial benchmarks should be. The CEFC’s capital is about driving policy outcomes as well as making appropriate return, so it’s about decarbonising the electricity sector. It’s about fuel switching and energy efficiency. In many cases, we may make a below-market return because that’s what’s needed to bring a project online or take a technology down a learning curve. So I don’t think you can use those very sweeping references to apply to the CEFC.

Senator Roberts: Let me interpret that. You’re saying that the subpar performance is a cost of subsidising government policy objectives?

Mr Learmonth: I wouldn’t put it like that. I would say that if you felt that we weren’t reaching some kind of commercial benchmark, that’s probably a reflection of the way that we are using our capital to deliver on the policy objectives of the CEFC. But, equally, we are a lender. Today 70 per cent, broadly, of our portfolio is debt. So you can’t compare it to an index like the ASX or some ETF or whatever it might be, because a secured loan is a relatively low yielding investment compared to putting money into a technology company where you might expect 25 per cent. So, again, I don’t think we are comparing apples with apples.

Senator Roberts: That’s fair enough. I’m asking for more details, because the response to the question on notice was not detailed and not respectful, in my opinion. It was very vague.

Mr Learmonth: I’m happy to provide you with more information around that and break it down by sectors to demonstrate that and give you a bit more background to the return, the 4.48 that you refer to.

Senator Roberts: Can you take that on notice?

Mr Learmonth: I can do that, very happily.

Senator Roberts: Perhaps something else you could take on notice is: why should Australian taxpayers be giving you the extra $20.5 billion Labor has given you in this budget, given you are not even close to the Australian benchmark. You can explain why you’re not close to the benchmark. That’s fair enough. But why should the Australian taxpayers be giving you an extra $20.5 billion?

Mr Learmonth: I can start, and I’m sure others may have views on this. The money is being appropriated and delivered to the CEFC to help deliver on some very defined policy objectives, like Rewiring the Nation, like Household Energy Upgrades and, thirdly, investing in growing technology companies here in Australia. We were proven to have done a very good job over the last 10 years on investing, lending and using capital to achieve these environmental outcomes. One can only assume that’s why the government was prepared to back us into doing more.

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, obviously you fundamentally don’t believe that it is necessary to reduce carbon emissions.

Senator Roberts: I know so.

Senator McAllister: It is a difference of opinion between you and the Australian government. As I understand it, it is also a difference opinion—

Senator Roberts: Minister, you have repeatedly failed to provide the evidence for your policies.

Senator McAllister: between you and the opposition, as I understand their policy.

Senator Roberts: I think the opposition wouldn’t agree with me.

Senator McAllister: Putting that to one side, having agreed that our policy is to reduce Australia’s emissions, we therefore have to look at the policy levers that are available to us. One of the very successful levers, in my opinion, in the Australian landscape has been the CEFC. It is a different model to one that might conventionally be adopted using grants or direct funding to proponents, and instead seeks to increase financial flows into the clean energy sector, as Mr Learmonth has explained to you. It is one of a number of tools that the Australian government seeks to use to drive investment in the clean energy sector, and it has met that objective.

Senator Roberts: I understand that, but, repeatedly, you have failed to provide the specific effect of human carbon dioxide on any climate factor—temperature, storms, rainfall. You’ve repeatedly failed to provide that basis for policy. The whole thing is just running on fluff.

Let’s continue the questions. I asked you on notice at the last Senate estimates if you had done modelling on what percentage of your returns are attributable to government subsidies and policies. Your answer to me was ‘yes’, as part of your due diligence. It is question No. 2 from the question on notice that I asked before. Question No. 2 says: Have you done any modelling or investigation to find what percentage of these returns are attributable to government subsidies or policies?

Your answer was: All revenue streams are taken into account as part of transaction assessment and due diligence. So your answer to me was to say yes, as part of your due diligence. Given you’ve done that analysis, what percentage of returns for investments are attributable to government subsidies and policies?

Mr Learmonth: I’m just trying to understand your question, Senator. Our returns come from using government dollars—taxpayer dollars—that are either lent or invested by the CEFC. Therefore, using those dollars, we either receive interest or dividends, or, potentially, we might sell an equity investment and make a gain. That’s where our revenue comes from. When you ask what percentage of that is coming from government subsidies, all our capital is coming from the government. All our returns come from the deployment of government capital. I’m just trying to understand what you mean by ‘subsidies’ there.

Senator Roberts: Do you get a return on your investment?

Mr Learmonth: Absolutely—

Senator Roberts: So what percentage—

Mr Learmonth: You inquired about it earlier, and that’s correct.

Senator Roberts: Right. So what percentage of that is due to government subsidies?

Mr Learmonth: Again, I don’t quite understand your question because all our capital is provided by the government. Someone might say, ‘Well, that’s not really a subsidy, it’s a provision of capital from Treasury.’

Senator Roberts: Accept that.

Ms Learmonth: Therefore, we’re not the recipients of subsidies. I might see if my—

Senator Roberts: Let me—

Chair: Mr Learmonth, I wonder if you could, in a very pithy fashion, outline the kind of organisation you are and its intent, because I think the senator has misunderstood that.

Senator Roberts: Perhaps I could clarify something: what part of your returns from your borrowers enables them to succeed because of government subsidies? They wouldn’t have provided a return without those subsidies.

Mr Every: Are you thinking about matters such as the large-scale generation certificates, which the Renewable Energy Target—

Senator Roberts: No, I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking about the actual return—the income that a person who is the borrower of your money, or our money, is able to make because of subsidies for solar and wind.  Without those subsidies, would you have got a return?

Mr Learmonth: Oh, so you’re referring to, say, a household subsidy for having solar panels, for example—

Senator Roberts: More to the point: you don’t lend to households, I take it?

Mr Learmonth: We do via intermediaries; we actually do. We use—

Senator Roberts: But most of your lending is to large—

Mr Learmonth: Yes, a substantial portion is to large projects, large companies. That’s part of it, but we also use intermediaries and partners like large Australian banks, for example, to provide mortgages for people to stimulate people to make their houses more energy efficient or to buy a more efficient home. They might access a green mortgage, so there’s a very broad range of borrowers. They pay back the loans out of the money that they’re generating in their business. That might be a small manufacturing company, it might be an agricultural company, or it might be a solar farm. Whether they are entitled through their businesses to subsidies, discounts or benefits through state and federal governments, one can only speculate about that.

Senator Roberts: Your mission and values say that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is a specialist investor with a deep sense of purpose to invest as Australia’s green bank to help achieve our national goal of net zero emissions by 2050. How many of your borrowers make a return because of government subsidies for solar and wind? In other words, without those subsidies, you would not be getting a return.

Ms Learmonth: I’m not sure about that. Let’s talk about a solar or wind farm. We may lend them money to help them build out the generation plant, the wind turbines, the solar panels, for example. They either sell the electricity into the spot market, or they might have a contracting arrangement, so they generate income through that. Yes, a large utility-scale renewables project will also receive a generation certificate, a renewable certificate, which traces its way back to a different government policy, the RET, Renewable Energy Target, so some component of the income of a renewable energy project does come through a former government policy. But the majority of income comes from the sale of those electrons either to someone who wants them or into a market like the NEM spot market. They make that money, and, if we’re the senior lender, we’re the first person they’ll pay.  They’ll pay us back interest and principal through those revenues.

Senator Roberts: Do you have any idea why, when we’re told that solar and wind are now the cheapest form, we still need subsidies?

Mr Learmonth: We know that wind and solar, based on the cost of it and what they can produce, is today the lowest cost of energy.

Click here for Transcript

Senator Roberts: You told me in the answers to questions on notice that you’ve done the analysis. Now you’re telling me that we can only speculate on what those businesses are receiving in terms of subsidies that contribute to your returns. What is it?

Mr Learmonth: I guess I’m just trying to use some examples to try and flesh out what you mean by subsidies. Are they subsidies that are being provided to our borrowers?

Senator Roberts: Yes. You understand their money streams. What is the proportion of subsidies in there?  In other words, the government is paying to help you get a return on your loans.

Mr Learmonth: In some cases there are companies we have lent to that are recipients of state government benefits. And for some reason they might—

Senator Roberts: The point is you’re investing in something that needs subsidies to survive, so we’ve got the government giving money under a loan and then relying upon other subsidies, from the same taxpayers—maybe state, maybe federal—to get a return back.

Mr Learmonth: Just in terms of wind and solar, even if you backed out the subsidy around the generation certificate, they would in most cases still be able to pay their debt. We don’t come up with the subsidies. We are there looking at projects and companies—

Senator Roberts: I’m not accusing you of coming up with the subsidies. I’m saying that your borrowers cannot pay it back without those subsidies.

Mr Learmonth: I don’t think that’s right.

Senator Roberts: Could you give me the figures that show that, please? You’ve said you’ve got the analysis.

Mr Learmonth: The only borrowers that we have where a part of their direct revenue source or generation may have some form of government subsidy is probably wind and solar, because they are recipients, but there are other ones that have no government subsidies.

Senator Roberts: Let’s move on to something that’s associated, because you don’t know the income streams. I also asked you in Senate estimates, on notice, what the risk to wind and solar investments was from a change in government policy. You didn’t answer what the risk was. You just said that you have assessed the risk, like any prudent investor.

I asked: Political risk is one of the most basic elements of a assessing a business case. What is the risk to wind and solar investments if the government were to abandon their net-zero policy?  Which some jurisdictions around the world are discussing right now. The answer I got was: The question is a hypothetical but suffice to say, like any prudent investor, the CEFC undertakes due diligence into risks to any revenue stream, and structures its investments to ensure that it is not unduly exposed to risk, including policy risk. If you have assessed the risk, what is the risk?

Mr Learmonth: What is the risk of a government abandoning—

Senator Roberts: Financial risk—what is the risk to your loan?

Mr Learmonth: It’s hard to speculate. We would look—

Senator Roberts: But you’ve assessed it.

Mr Learmonth: Yes, because we would have looked at it and we would have gone: What sort of generation would this wind or solar farm produce? Do we estimate that power prices over the term of our loan—it might be five years; it might be seven years—will introduce some element of risk to those cash flows? And then we would have looked at whether or not our debt could be paid back. If a future government changed policies around net zero, it would take some while before that potentially would have any impact. I think it’s not a risk that we would be factoring into it, because we’re looking at the more immediate and realistic options.

Senator Roberts: You’ve said you’ve done your due diligence but you can’t put a handle on the risk. I put it to you that the government abandoning net zero targets would be catastrophic for your investments. Without targets, there are no subsidies, and the generators couldn’t produce a return and pay back the loan.

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, I think the problem with the line of questioning you’re pursuing with Mr Learmonth is that you assume that investments in the National Electricity Market are driven by subsidies, which you have not identified. All over the world renewable energy is increasing because of its technological advantages and because of the cost profile of alternatives—

Senator Roberts: Hydrocarbons after—

Senator McAllister: May I finish?

Senator Roberts: Yes.

Senator McAllister: Particularly where either the overall demand in an electricity system is growing or assets need to be replaced. I think you have repeatedly mischaracterised Mr Learmonth’s answers to you and then put the question back to him in a form that misrepresents the position he has just put to you. To be fair to the officer, he is doing a good job at describing to you the processes that the CEFC go through in examining investment opportunities.

Senator Roberts: Well, combining what you’ve said—

Chair: Senator Roberts, I’m going to have to make this your last question.

Senator Roberts: I’ll move on. I note that, as you said in those same answers, you don’t screen any investments for connections to political donations. Don’t you think that some basic due diligence is needed?  Shouldn’t you be bringing it to the attention of the minister if you are about to give a company hundreds of millions of dollars and it has made a political donation?

Mr Learmonth: We undertake very significant due diligence on all our borrowers or investee companies. We would look at whether there was some overt political connection—

Mr Every: We’re actually required to under the AML/CTF laws, the anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing laws. We are required to identify politically exposed persons, and that is part of the due diligence.

Senator Roberts: Senator McAllister, in response to your comments: the world has globally invested trillions of dollars—I think the figure may be $150 trillion, but I may be wrong on that—and the share of energy used on the planet from hydrocarbons has gone from 82 per cent to 81 over the last 10 to 20 years, despite trillions of dollars going into solar and wind.

Chair: I’ll take that one as a comment.

Senator Roberts: Yes. It’s not a question; it’s a fact.

/3 Comments/by

1984: The Department of Home Affairs COVID Censorship team

,

I asked Home Affairs why they’ve asked social media to censor more than 4,000 posts related to COVID.

We must protect people from being labelled or categorized based on their beliefs, and Home Affairs has no place policing COVID given the amount of “misinformation” that turned out to be true.

Is Home Affairs merely providing a conduit between the dictators in the Department of Health and the social media platforms? #COVID19 #HomeAffairs #SenatorRoberts

Click here for Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you, Chair. And thank you for appearing today. Just to clarify, I looked up the

definition of regime, and it includes the government of the day, so, Senator Watt, you are a part of the Albanese regime.

Chair: Have you got questions?

Senator Roberts: Yes, I have, I just wanted to clarify that. Mr Pezzullo, counterterrorism is important; I want to say that up-front. Extremists can pose a threat; I want to say the up-front. But labelling and categorising people, anti-vax etcetera—that is not okay. What has been the arrangement between Home Affairs and social media platforms to intervene or censor or block posts related to COVID-19 that were or are contrary to government policy? Was it purely being the conduit from the department of health to the media platforms?

Mr Pezzullo: And also making judgements against the platforms’ own policies, but to answer the senator’s question, I said earlier that we’re not the arbiters of health science. Can you describe what might have triggered action on the part of our staff to start a to draft up a referral, for instance? Ms Hawkins?

Ms Hawkins: Senator in terms of the way I was answering the previous senator’s question, I would say to you that the government was concerned about instances of harmful mis- and disinformation in relation to COVID.  This line of effort was set up in 2020 and, as the secretary has said, it came out of the fact that we had been doing referrals in relation to terrorist and violent extremist content. As I understand the secretary’s evidence in terms of having conversations with the department of health early in the piece about the fact that we could use that same kind of mechanism to provide referrals about harmful mis- and disinformation in relation to COVID, we could use a similar technique that we had been using in the context of terrorist and violent extremist content, and we could use that same kind of technique in relation to harmful mis- and disinformation in the context of COVID.

For example, in relation to Facebook’s policies on mis- and disinformation, we scanned the environment, we identified where there were harmful instances of mis- and disinformation in relation to COVID, and then we provided those referrals to platforms, such as Facebook, for them to determine against their own policy about not allowing COVID mis- and disinformation on their platforms. So, in relation to their own policy, we then made referrals to say, ‘You might want to look at these posts, in the context of your own policy, about not having COVID mis- and disinformation on your platform.’ That’s what we have been doing since 2020, and, as the secretary said earlier, we will finish doing that on 30 June this year.

Senator Roberts: Mr Pezzullo, your department has been a conduit between the department of health and Meta and other platforms, and those platforms have been funded by big pharma to shut down posts that raise any questions about the COVID-19 injections. So you’re actually aiding and abetting censorship of relevant and scientifically correct information. As Senator Antic pointed out, much of what was labelled misinformation by people like Meta is now found to be correct and true. So, you aided and abetted in the injection of Australians that led to 30,000 excess deaths in 2022.

Chair: Senator Roberts, do you have a question?

Senator Roberts: Yes, I did.

Chair: The officials are here to answer your questions.

Senator Roberts: You were a conduit from the department of health to Meta and other platforms. Are you a conduit for any other departments? Do you follow their instructions just like you followed the department of health’s?

Mr Pezzullo: On the question of health, ‘conduit’ may not be the right phrase, because that would imply that an action was initiated in the Department of Health, sent to us as, if you like, a clearing house and then forwarded on. I think the evidence you’ve heard is that, in order to relieve the Department of Health at the time when we were dealing with the front end of a public health crisis, we stepped into that breach to say: ‘We’ve got the capability. As long as we can understand from ATAGI and others what the broad parameters are of health information the public should be advised of versus harmful misinformation, we’ll run with that’. And we put in place a program that allowed us to do that. As to your characterisation of the COVID-19 response and the efficacy of vaccines—you made reference to Australians being injected—I ask you to direct those questions to the department of health.

Senator Roberts: I will be.

Mr Pezzullo: I’m sure you will be. They’re better qualified to give you a better view, certainly, than I can, about the efficacy of that advice. We’re not a health department. We don’t have an independent way of saying to the—

Senator Roberts: So, you’re a conduit.

Mr Pezzullo: Well, ‘conduit’—again, I’ll just repeat what I said.

Senator Roberts: You take orders from the department of health.

Mr Pezzullo: A conduit implies that an action is initiated in one department, it comes through a middle broker, such as ourselves, and ends up in Facebook. Other than the policy settings being made known to us by the department of health, this was an area of action, like so many other things in the early days of COVID, where we didn’t need any instructions; we were just told to get on with a function, which we performed. Occasionally there would be engagement with Health, to make sure that we weren’t operating off obsolete information.

Senator Roberts: So you were just told to do it. Who was the service provider advising you on what was or wasn’t misinformation?

Mr Pezzullo: We use the service provider to do the scanning, do we not?

Ms Hawkins: That’s right. The service provider that we have used is M&C Saatchi.

Mr Pezzullo: Who do the scanning.

Ms Hawkins: Who do the scanning. They—

Mr Pezzullo: They’re not scientific advisors, as such.

Ms Hawkins: Exactly. They’re scanning the platforms and then providing us with proposed referrals that they consider are in breach of the platform’s own policy on misinformation and disinformation in relation to COVID.  Then there would be staff in my team who would consider that, and, after considering Saatchi’s proposed referrals, we would decide whether or not to pass it on to the platform.

Senator Roberts: Is it not true that it was said in past Senate estimates that Home Affairs considers that a significant threat to Australia is that of domestic terrorism?

Mr Pezzullo: I’m sorry?

Senator Roberts: Isn’t it true that in past Senate estimates Home Affairs has said that it considers a

significant threat to Australia is that of domestic terrorism?

Mr Pezzullo: Most certainly.

Senator Roberts: I was hoping you’d say that.

Mr Pezzullo: It’s one of the key risks that we seek to manage.

Senator Roberts: Do you consider that those who would challenge the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccinations are domestic terrorists—if they challenge government policy?

Mr Pezzullo: Not if it wasn’t associated with any extremism, politically motivated violence or planning to attack institutions of society, no.

Senator Roberts: Do you consider that those senators who have posted comments opposed to the COVID-19 mandated vaccines—injections—are domestic terrorists?

Mr Pezzullo: Senators?

Senator Roberts: Yes.

Mr Pezzullo: You can post whatever you like, Senator. You have the privilege of being a senator.

Senator Roberts: I’m pleased that you just said I can post whatever I like, but Meta will not let people like Senator Antic and myself, and Senator—

Mr Pezzullo: If they, with their own service conditions, take your post down, then you can you deal with them as an elected representative. If you want to contest their takedown, then feel free.

Senator Roberts: Are you aware of any social media posts by elected members of this Senate that have been secretly censored through this arrangement?

Mr Pezzullo: I have no advice or information on that.

Senator Roberts: Interfered with in any way?

Mr Pezzullo: I don’t know.

Senator Roberts: Limited in reach? Not just censored, but limited in reach, so we can get to fewer people?

Mr Pezzullo: A posting by a member of the House or the Senate? I don’t know. I will check. When we come back to Senator Antic, will I be surprised to learn that there were any referrals that related to a member of parliament?

Ms Hawkins: I hope not.

Mr Pezzullo: I’ll check, but I’m rather thinking I won’t be surprised.

Senator Roberts: Are you aware of any posts by members of parliament that were taken down as a result of your actions?

Mr Pezzullo: That was a side discussion I just had. I don’t even know that we made any referrals that related to parliamentarians.

Ms Hawkins: I would have to take it on notice, Senator.

Mr Pezzullo: I would be surprised and verging on disappointed if we had.

Senator Roberts: Could you find out in particular if Home Affairs has been involved with or responsible for any of the posts that have been taken down from my media pages and also restricted in any way.

Mr Pezzullo: That, in effect, is a subset of the question asked by Senator Antic, but we’ll make a particular effort to check. I’m interested as well. There are questions of privilege that I would be much more respectful of than Facebook might be. It might well be, if we have made such a referral, that it’s something that I’ll need to reflect on. But I will check. In fact, why don’t I come back to you directly in relation to your own personal circumstances, on notice?

Senator Roberts: Thank you. Several MPs, in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, have

been heavily censored for posting material that was classified by social media platforms as misinformation and has now been found to be true.

Mr Pezzullo: Regarding the latter part of your assertion—in what might have been a question; I’m not quite sure—I don’t have any basis for thinking that something that was considered to be misinformation at the time under social media policies is now, through some kind of scientific evolution, considered to be true. I just don’t know.

Senator Watt: Senator Roberts, would you mind clarifying who it is that you say has found these comments to be true?

Senator Roberts: The government itself. Pfizer itself has admitted itself that the COVID-19 injections are not safe and effective. Yet the government, the previous regime, under Morrison, said that they were safe and effective. They’re neither effective nor safe. They have negative efficacy. That’s proven.

Senator Watt: That’s always been your opinion. I’m wondering which authority you’re pointing to that has deemed—

Senator Roberts: Pfizer vice-presidents.

Senator Paterson: A point of order. It’s not appropriate for a minister to ask a senator a question.

Senator Watt: One of your senators was asking about this as well.

Senator Paterson: No. A minister is directing questions to a senator. I don’t think that’s the usual order of—

Senator Watt: Well, when an assertion is made that things are true—

Senator Roberts: Mr Pezzullo, are you aware that—

Chair: Senators! I think the minister is actually trying to assist Senator Roberts, as I think most of us do.

Senator Roberts: if—

Senator Watt: If an assertion is going to be made that something is untrue, I think someone—

Chair: Minister! I’m speaking. Thank you. Senator, you have one last question.

Senator Roberts: How many other senators have had their media posts censored through these

arrangements? Could you get back to me on that one as well, please.

Mr Pezzullo: I will, as a further subset of the question taken on notice from Senator Antic, make a particular point of checking whether any referrals related to members of the House or the Senate—inclusive of you, but others as well.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. Minister, if senators have had their media posts censored by Home Affairs being a conduit to Meta and other platforms, then I call for a full royal commission to get to the bottom of this gross breach of freedom of speech at the highest level. The Labor Party itself—

Mr Pezzullo: I’m so sorry, Senator, I missed the first part of your question.

Chair: I don’t think it was a question.

Senator Roberts: The Labor Party has already said—Anthony Albanese said, before the election, that he committed to a royal commission. Will we now have a Labor Party royal commission?

Senator Watt: The whole thing is based on a hypothetical about whether senators or MPs have had their social media interfered with. Let’s wait and see what the answer to that question is. Let’s continue the questioning with Senator ‘Professor’ Rennick.

Member of the committee interjecting—

Senator Watt: I don’t spread COVID misinformation.

Senator Rennick: We’re not the ones spreading misinformation, Murray.

Click here for Transcript

Senator Roberts: Just a few questions for clarification, Mr Pezzullo. I will read from your website: Home Affairs brings together migration, cyber and infrastructure security, national security and resilience, and border-related functions, working together to keep Australia safe. You’ve been credited, justifiably, I would say, with the success in closing our borders after your appointment to Immigration in 2014. You have also been the inaugural and only secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, which is seen as crucial in that role. Is that correct?

Mr Pezzullo: Well—

Senator Scarr: He’s too humble to say!

Senator Roberts: I didn’t mean about the praise; I meant about the roles.

Mr Pezzullo: I have occupied the office for the time period you have spoken about. As to whether I have achieved any success in the role—

Senator Roberts: You have been widely credited with a lot of success, so we appreciate that.

Mr Pezzullo: That’s for others to determine. I’ve certainly been the occupant of two secretaryships over a decade, yes.

Senator Roberts: And key in security. Do you consider that elected representatives who challenge government policy are domestic terrorists?

Mr Pezzullo: I just go back to my earlier evidence. Terrorism has got a particular definition under our Criminal Code. Under the heads of security power set out in the ASIO Act, if any person, elected or otherwise, is acting in contravention of the criminal law, acting as terrorists—they are of course subject to a judicial process finding them so. Your question relates to elected members, I think you said, challenging government policy. All other things being equal, that’s just called democracy; that’s not called terrorism, no.

Senator Roberts: Do you consider it legitimate to deliberately or inadvertently censor elected senators who are duly elected representatives of the people, if their social media statements differ from government policy?

Mr Pezzullo: I took on notice, both at a general aggregated level from Senator Antic and from you specifically in relation to your own personal circumstances, whether we had—I think you might be going to COVID here, but I just want to be clear about what you’re asking about. I took on notice earlier that we would look at the COVID related referrals, the so-called takedown referrals, the 4,000 and some other number associated, and check that there were no members of the House nor members of the Senate included in that list. If the answer is no, zero, then the question, in a sense, becomes void because we haven’t done anything. If, frankly, regrettably, we’ve accidently, without identifying the person’s name—I don’t know if you self-identify as a government senator, but if we have taken a view of Malcolm Roberts—

Senator Roberts: Not a government senator but as a senator.

Mr Pezzullo: Sorry, as a member of the Senate, I should say. I do apologise.

Senator Watt: We’ve got some standards.

Mr Pezzullo: If we’ve inadvertently—and it would be inadvertent—made a referral of a sitting member or a senator, then I would find that regrettable because, in a sense, you’re held to account by your peers and by your electors; it’s not my job to hold you to account. There is a grey area. If you, whether you’re a senator or otherwise—and I couldn’t imagine for a moment that you would do this, Senator, or that any other senator would do it—inadvertently disseminated terrorist or violent extremist material, notwithstanding the privilege of a senator, my staff would take the view that there’s a referral here. On matters of COVID, which related to a public health emergency that was catalysed as a direction to us about three years ago by the then Morrison government, if one of your tweets or postings has been inadvertently swept up in our referral process, we’ll get to the bottom of

that on notice and get back to you through the notice process.

Senator Roberts: So I’m assured that if I were a terrorist or engaging in terrorist activities or promoting terrorism, you would treat me no different from a terrorist.

Mr Pezzullo: Your status as a senator in those circumstances would provide no protection at all.

Senator Roberts: That’s very reassuring. Thank you. It’s also reassuring that if you inadvertently caused me to be censored in any way, you would also protect my rights to free speech.

Mr Pezzullo: I’m distinguishing here between the service that we were providing in support of the health department on a public health emergency—which is really not about terrorism; it is about public health advisories. I’ll examine the data when Ms Hawkins and her people assemble it for me. I would take the view that we should not be doing referrals of sitting members or senators on public health issues. Terrorism? Acts of incitement to violence? Then we are in an area where the privilege that you have as a senator might well be thwarted by the criminal law, let’s say. But I can’t imagine that that circumstance would arise in relation to COVID.

Senator Roberts: I’m reassured, because privileges do come with responsibilities. I’m reassured by what you’re saying.

Mr Pezzullo: Thank you.

Senator Roberts: So do you not believe that Australian people have the same right to freedom of expression as I have?

Mr Pezzullo: I thought I’d answered this before, but let’s just recap. Even on the internet, which is considered to be untrammelled and unfiltered and uncensored, there is no accepted absolute freedom of expression, because you’ve got laws—for instance, you cannot stream the abhorrent abuse of a child.

Senator Roberts: Accepted.

Mr Pezzullo: But once you accept that there is some constraint at the outer edges—self-evident cases of child abuse, a terrorist’s live streaming of an abhorrent act—

Senator Roberts: But questioning government policy? That’s okay.

Mr Pezzullo: I was going to get to that, Senator. But then you start to get into distinctions and lines of definition. We’re not arguing the principle anymore about censorship because, even on the internet, which is thought to be this untrammelled, utopian public square of enlightened discourse and conversation, it’s been many years, if not several decades, since that view went out the window, because there have been laws, there are treaties, there are international understandings that say, no, there is certain content that is so vile and so unacceptable that it will be taken down by those providers who are acting responsibly. Now, you can’t get to every app and every dark website and every provider, particularly on the dark web, and they do peddle abhorrent material, so you’re not going to regulate that world; you’ve just got to go hunting and take other actions in relation to, if you like, what’s under the clear web.

Senator Roberts: I understand that there’s a lot of grey area there. But what you’re saying is that I have a right to speak but everyday Australians do not on COVID matters.

Mr Pezzullo: I’m struggling to understand how you’ve jumped to that conclusion.

Senator Roberts: Let’s go to two more points of clarification. In Australia in 2022 we had more than 30,000 excess deaths. That’s the equivalent of two Dreamliners crashing with total fatalities every week. Would you inquire into the crashing of two Dreamliner aircraft every week for 52 weeks?

Mr Pezzullo: My remit in that instance would be related to terrorism or related acts of violence or sabotage that caused those aircraft to go down, so of course I would get involved. I know it’s a hypothetical question that you’re putting to me but, as a matter of principle, that would fall under our remit of aviation security as well as counterterrorism. If you’re putting to me, by way of analogy, some kind of quantitative analogy that says this many people died who otherwise would not have died because of the advent of COVID vaccinations—you used the term ‘injection’—I would really urge you to direct that question to the secretary of Health and his officers, because (a) it’s not my responsibility to give you advice or evidence on public health issues; it’s—

Senator Roberts: No, I accept that. What I’m getting at is: would it be part of your remit to at least question what was going on with 30,000 deaths? That’s more than 10 times—

Mr Pezzullo: Sorry, is that 30,000 deaths in relation to COVID or in relation to airline crashes?

Senator Roberts: COVID injections.

Senator Watt: Again, that’s an assertion from you, Senator Roberts.

Senator Roberts: That’s 10 times the level of deaths from the Twin Towers World Trade Center collapse.

Mr Pezzullo: If there’s a question of an abnormal rate of premature death, which is to say death beyond normal morbidity statistics—and I don’t know what the science or the evidence is; I don’t know what data you’re pointing to—

Senator Roberts: Would it raise questions in your mind?

Mr Pezzullo: It might raise questions for the secretary of Health, so I’m suggesting that that’s appropriately directed to him.

Senator Roberts: He’ll be getting it. I take my responsibility to serve the people because they pay my salary. Taxpayers pay your salary as a public servant. Just as a final point of clarification, do you work for the government or for the taxpayers?

Mr Pezzullo: Well, I’m a public servant employed under the Public Service Act, so ultimately I work for the public. In fact, as a matter of law, I’m required to be impartial, I’m required to be apolitical and I’m required to serve the government of the day responsively—because that’s in law—but also in a way which is apolitical. For instance, if issues arose as to the records of former governments or if issues arose in relation to the observation of the caretaker conventions, I would stand my ground and, potentially, provide difficult advice or decisions to the government of the day. Generally speaking, by law, we are required to be responsive to the government of the day. That’s in the Public Service Act. On those rare occasions—and in my experience it doesn’t happen very frequently—that a government of the day might do something inadvertently that relates, for instance, to the records of decisions of previous governments or to the application of the caretaker conventions, I’ve got a duty not simply to say, ‘Well, I work for you, so we’ll just do whatever you say,’ but to say, ‘Hang on—that is unlawful,’ or, ‘That is contrary to Westminster conventions.’

Senator Roberts: Final question: would you fully cooperate with the royal commission which Mr Albanese promised before he was elected if it were tasked with examining these take-down notices around COVID?

Mr Pezzullo: I would cooperate with any commission of inquiry, royal or otherwise, commissioned by the government and instituted pursuant to letters patent. It wouldn’t matter what the topic was. We would always engage dutifully and conscientiously with any commission of inquiry.

Senator Roberts: Thank you very much, Mr Pezzullo.

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