Malcolm’s Official Speeches in Parliament

Return of Cheng Lei is NOT a Labor Government Achievement

The return of Cheng Lei is good news and I can only imagine how relieved her family must be. My intention here was not to discuss Cheng Lei’s release but to highlight the misinformation from Labor around this story, and how this relates to the ACMA Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill the government is aiming to implement.

Penny Wong, as Foreign Affairs Minister, last week took credit for the release of Australian journalist, Cheng Lei. That may be misinformation. According to a Chinese government post, Cheng Lei was released after serving her sentence in China for publishing information under an embargo. In other words, she completed her sentence and was sent home.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it himself: Cheng’s return was not part of a deal struck with Beijing and her release followed the completion of China’s judicial process. It couldn’t be more clear.

Yet the Labor government is passing off Cheng Lei’s release as a Labor government achievement with Penny Wong taking credit herself. The PM even advised his caucus in the aftermath of his failed $450 million Voice referendum to “focus on achievements” and placed the release of Cheng Lei at the top of the list.

Why did I feel this was important to point out in the senate and on the record? It’s an example of misinformation from a government that is about to censor everyone except itself and the accredited media. To a bureaucracy with a censorship hammer, every bit of unapproved information looks like a nail.

I think most of us agree after the past few years that if we are to combat misinformation and disinformation then the government and its media mouthpiece would be the best place to start.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Wong. It’s based on a constituent’s inquiry. Australian journalist Cheng Lei was convicted in China of illegally providing state secrets to overseas parties and imprisoned. Cheng Lei was recently released and arrived back in Australia last week. Minister, can you inform the Senate what role you had personally, your department had and the Prime Minister had in the release of Cheng Lei? 

Senator WONG (Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Government in the Senate): I thank the senator for his question. Obviously, as you would expect, this is an issue on which there has been a lot of discussion at various levels with the Chinese authorities, urging the return of Ms Cheng and urging her to be able to return to Australia. I can indicate to you—and obviously some of this is at officer level—that, as I said publicly at the time, this was my first engagement with the then foreign minister Wang Yi, when I first met him at the first bilateral discussion in Bali. It is the practice of Australian governments to ensure that we raise consular cases with other countries, China included, at all appropriate meetings. 

I can indicate to the senator that Ms Cheng Lei was the subject of representations from me, the Prime Minister and officers, just as with other consular cases such as Dr Yang’s and with those obviously facing criminal charges. We made those representations at the Prime Minister level, at the foreign minister level and at officer level, and we will continue to do so. I would acknowledge also that this has been the practice under successive governments. I spoke to former senator Payne after I had met Ms Cheng Lei at the airport to let her know before the news became public. I acknowledge that she also raised this with the Chinese authorities— (Time expired) 

The President: Senator Roberts, first supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: The Chinese ministry of state has posted on Weibo that Cheng Lei had been sentenced to two years and 11 months in prison and had been deported after completing her sentence. Minister, your words on Cheng Lei’s arrival at the airport, as quoted in the Guardian, made it clear that the government was taking credit for her release. They quoted you as saying: I made them a promise some time ago we would do everything, I would do everything I could, to bring her home …Minister, who is telling the truth—you or the Chinese government?

Senator WONG: Senator, you and I have differences of opinion, but I regret that you would use something I said about what I said to her children in that way.

An opposition senator: Seriously?

Senator WONG: No—not ‘seriously’. It was an expression of hope, emotion and a degree of humanity, because, like all Australians, I wanted to see a mother return to her children. That was also what I said publicly. The Chinese legal system has been completed. We have seen what they have said—that is, the articulation of the Chinese legal position. What I can say is that we made a priority to make representations— (Time expired)

The President: Senator Roberts, second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, is this a case that proves the Albanese government’s misinformation and disinformation bill should not exclude ‘government misinformation and disinformation’ and
instead should include ‘government misinformation and disinformation’?

The President: Senator Roberts, I’m not sure how it relates, but I’m sure the minister will respond as she sees fit.

Senator WONG: Senator Roberts, there is no misinformation on our side. There is no disinformation on our side. What we have said—and if you had actually tracked every engagement I have had with the Chinese authorities, what I have said afterwards when I have articulated, at least in summary version, what I said to the Chinese authorities and what the Prime Minister said to his counterparts—you would know that we have made these representations. All I can say is this: this is not a partisan issue, and this is not a political issue. This is an issue about an Australian who is now home with her children. Behind her were many Australians across this country and across the political divide who made the same representations to Chinese authorities at all levels that Australians wanted to see a mother united with her children. I think that is a good thing. It was a great privilege to have the opportunity— (Time expired)

Transcript 

Senator ROBERTS: I move: 

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice asked by Senator Roberts today relating to the reporting of the release of Chinese Australian citizen Cheng Lei. 

The Chinese government announced that Cheng Lei’s release was simply a matter of her completing a sentence of two years and 11 months. In her explanation though the minister claimed an emotional high ground that is not supported by events at the airport. Minister Wong was most welcome to make remarks to Cheng Lei’s children in private, and she did so. The minister then restated and expanded her remarks to the press, which were widely reported. Further, at that press conference the minister stated that the release of Cheng Lei was a result of Senator Wong’s perseverance, which the minister did not restate in her answer to me. Did her representations have any effect on the Chinese government? Not according to the Chinese government. Who is right? We may never know. 

One Nation is concerned about the Albanese government’s misinformation and disinformation bill as applied to this situation. As drafted, the government and mainstream media are exempt from the bill. The Guardian‘s slobbering all over Minister Wong and the Albanese government over Cheng Lei would be exempt from this bill. The government can say whatever it likes and the mouthpiece media can repeat and even embellish those claims and that would be legal. Bloggers and social media companies who question the narrative though would be guilty of misinformation and fined or shut down. Weibo, which announced the Chinese government’s side of the story, has an office in Sydney and would be regulated under that bill. There’s no provision in the bill for truth as a defence. There’s no definition of what is misinformation. If this bill is passed, democracy itself will be at risk from an unending one-sided glorification of the ruling party. Last weekend, Australians rejected this sort of propaganda in the referendum campaign. The government proceeds with a misinformation and disinformation bill at its peril, because the people will see through it, just like they saw through the lies in the ‘yes’ case. This is about censorship. 

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Lack of Accountability Breeds Contempt

The government is defying the senate and ignoring its orders for the production of documents. That is contempt and must be punished as such by the Senate.

In this speech I made it clear to the Coalition and to the Greens, if they are serious about orders for the production of documents, about the explanations for refusing, about transparency and accountability, and if they’re serious about being the House of Review, then bring on a motion of contempt or censure. We will support it.

I will be proposing an amendment to Standing Orders in relation to the production of documents. Senators should assess public immunity claims and be able to decide if they are genuine. That assessment can be done confidentially so that the public interest is still protected.

No more slaps on the wrist in response to the callous disregard for the orders of this Senate on behalf of the people the Senate represents. It’s time to enforce the will of the Senate on behalf of the people of Australia.

Transcript

Unfortunately, we are here again for yet another slap on the wrist. This government continues to defy the orders of the Senate. There is no other word for this behaviour. It is contempt. It’s time that the Senate started treating contempt with real punishments. Orders for the production of documents are a vital part of our democratic process. The Senate is constitutionally superior to every law or excuse that government might try to use to justify not handing over documents.

Right now, we’re stuck in an ineffective cycle. The Senate makes an order demanding that the government table documents. The government may have a different opinion, yet these orders are not optional. They’re Senate orders. The government defies the Senate anyway and refuses to hand over the documents. The Senate makes even more orders, rejecting the excuses from the government and affirming that the documents must be produced. The government yet again ignores the Senate’s orders. That, ladies and gentlemen, is called contempt. We must punish it as such. Instead the minister is hauled in here for 15 minutes to give more excuses, and everyone lines up to give them a slap on the wrist and call them a naughty boy or a naughty girl. At the end, the minister sits down pretty chuffed with themselves because they haven’t had to hand over any documents and haven’t suffered any real punishments.

I say to the coalition and to the Greens: if you are serious about orders for the production of documents, about the explanations, about transparency and accountability, about being the house of review and about serving the people, bring on a contempt motion against the minister. We don’t need a referral to the Privileges Committee to tell us whether it is contempt or not. The minister is now in direct defiance of multiple orders from the Senate. Bring on a motion of contempt or censure, and you will have our support.

I foreshadow that I will be introducing, before the end of this year, a confidential process to review documents where any public interest immunity is raised, such as these documents. Public interest immunities are raised on the basis that sensitive information should not be released to the public. Whenever the government makes that claim, it needs to be assessed. Senators should assess public interest immunity claims. That assessment can be done confidentially so that the public interest is still protected. I’ll say it again: that assessment by the senators can be done confidentially so that the public interest is still protected.

To this end, I will be proposing an amendment to standing orders in relation to orders for the production of documents. This would trigger a formal process whenever a minister wishes to raise a public interest immunity claim. This process would require the relevant minister to explicitly outline to the Senate the actual harm that they say would flow from releasing information to the public, who we are supposed to serve. The minister would then be required to confidentially produce the documents to a Senate committee, where the documents would be made available only to senators for confidential viewing purposes. The Senate chamber as a whole would be able to confidentially make an assessment of the public interest immunity claim and whether or not there is any merit to it. If the minister does not comply with the process, it will be very obvious that the public interest immunity claim is not genuine. The Senate can then be more confident in applying sanctions such as censure and contempt. This would be fair to everyone.

This government continues to show callous disregard for the orders of this Senate on behalf of the people we represent. It’s time the Senate punishes such behaviour appropriately. No more slaps on the wrist. Instead enforce the will of the Senate, acting on behalf of our constituents, the people of Australia.

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The Cost of Living with Labor

PM Albanese has failed Australia. His failed Voice referendum cost the Australian Electoral Commission a hefty $450 million alone. That’s $100 million over budget.

Added to this, the official Yes campaign was bankrolled by major corporate interests including the Big4 banks, the 3 major supermarkets, Qantas, Wesfarmers, Rio Tinto and BHP. Many of these companies made donations in the millions when they have been laying off staff to cut costs. Their donations to the Yes camp show how out of touch they are with the Australians they provide goods and services to.

The PM has swiftly moved on from his failure to warn that Australia is heading for economic and financial trauma. This is not news to Australians. In fact, it was made abundantly clear during the Voice campaign that Australians were more worried about the cost of living and felt it was inappropriate to hold the referendum.

Why was dangerous virtue signalling the government’s top priority? Why? I’m saddened to be the one to break the answer to you: this government does not care about you.

Will the government listen to the people now? It’s committed to Net Zero by 2050 but may as well be committed to driving us all off a cliff.

Every other country that’s tried to force their power grid onto wind and solar has had their power prices go up by a proportionate amount. When plotted on a graph, it’s nearly a straight line heading upwards, and it’s all for nothing.

The hard data shows that Australians’ carbon dioxide production cannot affect the climate above natural variability. The lie that wind and solar are cheaper is easily debunked by the fact that with more wind, solar, batteries and hydro on the grid than ever in our history, power bills have never been higher. It’s all a crock designed to fill the pockets of parasitic billionaire wind and solar proponents, fraudulently taking subsidies and donating to people in this Senate who support wind and solar.

Australians have already paid billions in subsidies to these billionaire predators and pay again as their power bills skyrocket. Yet both Labor and the opposition are committed to the UN’s net zero by 2050. The cost-of-living crisis cannot end until we ditch the United Nations’ Net Zero agenda.

Transcript

The failed Albanese Voice referendum is the latest spit in the face Australians have had to cop from the government. At a time when bills are going up and bank accounts are going backwards, Australians are going to be furious when they hear how much Anthony Albanese’s Labor government just wasted on a referendum. All I can say is: brace yourself for the answer. Four hundred and fifty million dollars—that’s how much the Australian Electoral Commission is estimating last week’s referendum cost. If you woke up with a hangover after some celebrations on the weekend and were scared to check your bank account, spare a moment to think about the Australian Electoral Commission. If their estimates are correct, the AEC have blown their budget for the referendum by nearly $100 million. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, Anthony Albanese has blown $450 million, almost half a billion dollars, on his personal vanity project. 

What did Australians get for this? Australians rightly rejected inserting racial division into the Constitution, with a thumping victory for the ‘no’ case. Not a single state reached a majority yes. Only the small Canberra territory, the bubble, recorded a ‘yes’ majority. The ‘yes’ side spewed divisive, racial, abusive rhetoric while claiming the high moral ground. The country is worse off for being put through this divisiveness, at a huge cost and for a proposal that should never have been put forward. Australia rightly asks: why is this Voice issue distracting government as mortgage payments skyrocket, grocery bills shock budgets and life continues to get tougher? Why was dangerous virtue signalling the government’s top priority? Why? I’m saddened to be the one to break the answer to you: this government does not care about you. 

While I thank the Liberals for bringing on this matter of importance and allowing us to discuss it, they weren’t any better in government. Honestly, the Liberals put a wrecking ball through the economy and handed it over to the Labor government in one of the greatest hospital passes in political history, yet Labor doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of navigating us out of this one. Neither the Liberal Party nor the Labor Party can fix the cost-of-living crisis because they’re both committed to the UN’s net zero pipedream that caused the cost-of-living crisis. 

This government is committed to net zero by 2050. They may as well be committed to driving us all off a cliff. If we keep going down this path, the number of Australians who can pay their power bills will be next to zero. 

Australia doesn’t have to do this by ourself and find out the hard way. We can learn from many other countries further down this pipedream path than we are. Every other country that’s tried to force their power grid onto wind and solar has had their power prices go up by a proportionate amount. When plotted on a graph, it’s nearly a straight line heading upwards, and it’s all for nothing. 

The hard data shows that Australians’ carbon dioxide production cannot affect the climate above natural variability. The lie that wind and solar are cheaper is easily debunked by fact—this fact: with more wind, solar, batteries and hydro on the grid than ever in our history, power bills have never been higher. It’s all a crock designed to fill the pockets of parasitic billionaire wind and solar proponents, fraudulently taking subsidies and donating to people in this Senate who support wind and solar. Australians have already paid billions in subsidies to these billionaire predators and pay again as their power bills skyrocket. Yet Labor, the Liberals and even the fake farmer friends, the Nationals, are all committed to the UN’s net zero by 2050. 

After all the talk about truth telling, here’s some cold hard truth: the cost-of-living crisis cannot end until we ditch the United Nations’ net zero plans. One Nation is the only party that accepts those facts and can deliver cheaper power bills for Australia, turn the coal fired power generators back on, cut all the subsidies with the parasitic wind and solar industry and just get back to common sense, hard data and truth. 

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Net Zero Wind Turbine Destruction Unmasked

We are witnessing permanent environmental vandalism under Labor.

I spoke today on the Green’s motion to increase the rate at which net zero policies are turning our natural environment into wind and solar industrial landscapes.

A year after Kaban wind turbines turned pristine Australian bushland into an industrial landscape, the heavy machinery is still crushing the rock that was bulldozed and blasted off the top of mountains in the Atherton Tablelands to make way for wind turbines. Rock that is releasing arsenic into the environment with unknown consequences.

Koala habitat has been taken, and while the Greens talk frequently about saving the koalas, they pick and choose which koalas they care about.

This vandalism must stop.

At the end of a mining operation, the mine can be filled in and remediated. In fact, legal contracts require it. Not so with the destruction created by wind and solar. There is no replacing a mountain top after it has been blasted off and bulldozed to make way for wind turbines.

Transcript

One Nation joins Senator McKim in mourning the current environmental damage as a casualty of destructive net zero climate policy. We do, though, disagree on who’s responsible. As we speak today, heavy machinery using diesel engines are still crushing the rock that was bulldozed and blasted off the top of mountains in the Atherton Tablelands to make way for wind turbines. A year after Kaban, when turbines turned pristine Australian landscape into an industrial landscape, the crushers are still going. There was that much destruction. That act of environmental vandalism disturbed arsenic in the rock, released into the environment with an unknown cost to our flora and fauna and to humans.  

Koala habitat has been taken. While the Greens talk frequently about saving the koalas, they pick and choose which koalas they care about. The Morrison government refused the Lotus Creek wind installation because of the amount of koala habitat the industrial landscape would remove. The Albanese Labor government reversed the decision and approved the creation of another industrial landscape holding 55 turbines. Native habitat protecting biodiversity included the masked owl, the magnificent broodfrog, the sarus crane, the red goshawk, the northern greater glider and the spectacled flying fox—and the devastation is just starting. Mount Fox will have 193 of these machines—these destructive wind turbines; Chalumbin, 94; Windy Hill, 20; High Road, 20; and Mount Emerald, 37. This is in just 300 kilometres of pristine North Queensland mountain range. 

At the end of mining, a mine can be filled in and remediated. Chopping the top off beautiful mountains and cutting 70-metre-wide roads into a mountainside to bring in the wind turbines on diesel powered trucks is permanent environmental vandalism. 

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Australians are the Masters of the Government, NOT Servants to the Government!

On Saturday over 60% of Australians realised that the people are parliament’s masters, not their servants.

I spoke this morning on the Voice to Parliament, which saw 5 electorates with the largest Aboriginal population give the Voice a thrashing.

Australia voted NO to feelings-based governance and NO to elevating one group within our community over all others based only on skin colour.

Saturday’s result clearly shows Canberra no longer represents the values and beliefs of everyday Australians.

It’s time to dismantle the Canberra Aboriginal industry and deliver resources directly to those in need in the bush. It’s time to stop preventing rural Aboriginals from owning their own homes and running their own affairs.

I asked the Senate a simple question – who is better to run Aboriginal affairs: the Canberra Aboriginal industry, or local Government who are in the bush ready to build the roads, utilities and community facilities rural Aboriginals need so badly.

Transcript

Last Saturday was the day Australians said no — no to feelings based governance, no to elevating one group within our community over another based only on race, no to a Prime Minister whose chief skill is to cry on cue and no to spending more tax dollars than our taxpayers can afford. Australians are already struggling with a cost-of-living crisis as a result of shoddy governance from successive parliaments. People need to keep more of their own money, not less. On Saturday, Australians realised that the people are the parliament’s masters, not its servants. The irony is that the referendum did give Aboriginals a voice, and they used it. The five electorates with the largest Aboriginal population gave the Voice a thrashing. It was a result which clearly shows that Canberra no longer represents the values and beliefs of everyday Australians.

For those in this place who supported racism and apartheid—and you were the majority—now is the time to ask yourself, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ How could you think it was okay to take a system that has failed Aboriginal people for 120 years and embed, enshrine and perpetuate that system in the Constitution? We don’t need to preserve a broken system that’s failed Aboriginals in the bush; we need to tear it down. It’s time to dismantle the Canberra Aboriginal industry and deliver resources directly to those in need in the bush. It’s time to stop preventing rural Aboriginals from owning their own homes and running their own affairs. It’s time for city grifters in comfortable offices thousands of kilometres from rural communities to stop keeping money meant for the bush—money that’s used to fund their own empires and line their own pockets. Enough money goes into the funnel to make things right. A drip comes out the bottom. It’s time to turn the damn funnel around.

Today is a new day for Australia’s Aboriginals. Let’s not waste the chance to ask ourselves this question: who’s best to run Australian Aboriginal affairs? Is it Canberra bureaucrats and the Aboriginal industry, or is it best run from local communities and councils right there in the bush, ready to get cracking on housing, roads, power and community facilities?

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Heads in the Sand as Immigration Fuels the Housing Crisis

I asked Senator Tim Ayres, Assistant Minister for Trade, why the Albanese Labor government has allowed one million people to arrive in this country in just one year. Those one million arrivals is made up of around half migration and half student visas. Every single person need a bed and a roof over their head. There’s also an additional 200,000 arrivals with other visas. That’s a total of 1.2 million people, making a population flood the size of Adelaide in just 12 months.

The housing and rental crisis is completely government made. If your rent has gone up, you can’t afford a house, you can’t even find a place to live like those in regional Queensland towns living in caravans, tents, in parks, in cars and under bridges, remember this Labor government brought in over 1,000,000 people into this country in just one year.

With this bill, the Albanese government is claiming that it will build a few thousand houses to ‘fix the problem’. Supply chains for materials are still damaged from the government’s COVID response. Those shattered supply chains are further hobbled under Australia following the United Nations’ 2050 policy driving up energy costs.

The Greens want more houses built, but they won’t let us use timber. In fact, they have a bill on notice to end logging of sustainable forestry. Timber is a renewable resource yet we can’t harvest the wood for the frames. What about steel frames then? The two main ingredients for steel are coal and iron ore,which are Australia’s two major mining commodities, yet the Greens want to end all mining in Australia.

The Greens SAY they want to build more houses, yet if Australia implemented all their policies we’d have no wood, no steel and only expensive and unreliable sources of energy to build these houses.

A cut to immigration would allow our housing and essential services time to catch up.

As you will hear, Senator Ayres completely failed to address my concerns.

Transcripts

Minister, I’m a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia. In that capacity, I note that this bill is completely unnecessary. It’s not needed. Here’s why: if the government cut Australia’s immigration intake by just 10 per cent of the current one million arrivals, it would save the building of many more houses than Labor claims this fund will build. The housing crisis will lessen. Instead, we are here dealing with dirty deals done dirt cheap. The deals are cheap for the Greens, yet taxpayers will be paying billions. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I note that the people of Australia are disgusted to look at this parliament and see the rotten horse-trading and deal-making going on. The Greens hold themselves up on their moral high horse and virtue-signal to the world that they are the pure ones while telling everyone what to do. In reality, they’re down in the mud doing dirty deals like the rest of them.

What deal do we have to look at today? The government is going to build and own houses—not the people of Australia but the government. This is full-blown communism delivered express to your door. As the infamous Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum has repeatedly told the world already, ‘You will own nothing, and you will be happy.’ The goal of the Greens and Labor is to come into this chamber to preach to the world that they’re helping Australians—helping you. The Greens’ rent caps have already led directly to faster rent increases, because landlords understandably want to get ahead of the rent caps. The Greens are already hurting renters. The housing crisis is a problem that government created entirely.

The government is now claiming to have the solution. That’s a fraud, Minister. The Albanese Labor government has allowed one million people to arrive in this country in just one year. That’s 460,000 in net migration and 540,000 students visas. Every one of those needs a bed and a roof over their head. That’s not to mention the additional 200,000 other visas. That’s 1.2 million. A population flood the size of Adelaide has hit this country in 12 months. That’s the cause of the housing and rental crisis. It’s completely government made. If your rent has gone up, you can’t afford a house or you can’t even find a place to live, like the people in regional Queensland towns living in caravans, tents, parks and cars and under bridges. Just remember this: the Albanese Labor government brought one million people into this country in one year.

With this bill, the Albanese government is claiming that it will build a few thousand houses and fix the problem. Who will build them? Supply chains for materials are still damaged due to the government’s COVID reaction and mismanagement, which shattered supply chains. The energy crisis has been inflicted due to the government adopting the UN 2050 net zero policy and driving up energy costs. Australia’s tradies already build houses at the fourth-fastest rate in the OECD. There’s a question that has to be answered: can we more quickly build even more houses? Trying to flood this industry that is already at capacity with huge amounts of taxpayer money is only going to make the funnel spill over. That will mean millions and potentially billions of your taxes wasted. Let’s not forget the government’s figures. They think they can build a house in Australia for $83,000. What kind of house is that? They must be smoking some powerful stuff over in the ministry for housing. It doesn’t matter how many billions this government wants to spend; we will never be able to build enough houses to catch up with the current rate of immigration. That is a clear fact. It’s basic arithmetic. It’s practical.

Next: what do the Greens want us to use to build these houses? They won’t let us use timber. There is a bill on the Notice Paper right now that the Greens introduced to end sustainable forest logging. Timber is the only resource that’s truly renewable, yet the Greens have a bill saying we can’t harvest the wood used in house frames while claiming with this bill that they want to build more houses. I guess that is okay. We can just build houses with steel frames, right? Not according to the Greens. Too many ingredients in making steel are coal and iron ore, Australia’s two major mining commodities. The Greens want to end mining in Australia, so we would have nothing with which to make the steel. So the Greens say they want to build more houses—virtue signalling—yet if Australia implemented their policies we would have no steel, no wood with which to build houses. And if our coal, iron ore and timber industries survived the Greens blight, prices of house timber and steel will be far higher thanks to the Greens restrictions. The hypocrisy is so damn thick we could cut it with a knife.

The Greens policies are antihuman. One Nation’s policy includes many solutions to the government-created housing crisis, taken together holistically because the problem is many factored. Among these immediate solutions to the housing crisis is that we must cut immigration immediately, reduce our arrivals to zero net immigration, meaning only allow the same number of people into the country as the number that leave so departures cancel out arrivals. As Australians know, this country is already bursting at the seams. A cut to immigration would allow our housing stock, our essential services—hospitals, our schools—and other services time to catch up. If we don’t stop immigration or cut immigration, life is going to get far, far worse for Australians, and it is already getting bad with the cost of living being the No. 1 problem on people’s minds. To continue this unprecedented immigration intake in the face of the housing and cost-of-living crisis is an act of criminal negligence against the Australian people.

Minister, why is the government allowing one million students and permanent migrants into the country in just 12 months? How many houses does the government expect the million student and permanent migrant arrivals will need? How many houses does the government expect to build in 12 months? How many houses will the government’s allocation of taxpayer funds build?

Senator Ayres (Assistant Minister for Trade and Assistant Minister for Manufacturing): There was, in fact, a question at the end there. The government does not support the policy prescription that you’ve offered on migration. While you can hear echoes of the proposition that you’ve just put in relation to migration in some of what is best described as circular comments of the Leader of the Opposition on migration and
housing, in fact, migration will be an important part and has been an important part of the housing industry in Australia since World War II. In fact, if you spend time on any building site in Australia, what you will find are migrants, permanent and temporary—mostly permanent—who in fact make up a very large part of the labour force building homes, building apartment blocks, building shopping centres all over Australia.

The government’s migration settings will be made over time and will be made in the national interest. I hear your argument with your colleagues down here in the Greens’ political party. The government has always made it very clear: where there are constructive suggestions from anyone on the crossbench we will work with people—senators and members—across the parliament in the national interest where there are sensible amendments proposed to reach agreement on legislation in its passage through this parliament.

There is nothing like the disappointment of a crossbench senator who doesn’t feel like they’ve got their way in the process, but I’ve heard the complaints from crossbench senators over the short time I have been here. I’ll just assure you, and all of the crossbench senators, that the government’s approach has been consistent in terms of this legislation and will be consistent in the future. Where there are opportunities for constructive discussion about government legislation then we will engage in that.

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Faith in Healthcare Attacked by Canberra’s Autocrats

Speaking in support of the ACT Self Government Amendment Bill 2023, I commend Senator Canavan for introducing this bill. I strongly support pushing for an inquiry into the ACT government’s seizure of the Calvary Hospital in Canberra. This is a blatant attack on religion in healthcare. It cannot be dressed up as anything else.

The issue that is being tiptoed around is the clash between religious principles that stand against abortion of a living, viable foetus. Those same principles stand against ending life through euthanasia of a person who may make a different decision, free from coercion or momentary despair, on a different day. The ACT has legislated abortion and euthanasia whilst the Catholic Church insists on putting humanity around those rules.

This has inflamed the ACT autocrats who have decided that there is no place for religion in healthcare. So much so that they planned this takeover for 12 months without telling Calvary who continued to negotiate on a new Northside Hospital in good faith.

These are the same mindless, hypocritical zombies that push for drag queens to expose themselves and read adult porn to young children in libraries and schools. Their answer to the uproar against this perversion is “if you don’t like it, don’t go”. This works both ways. If you don’t like religion in healthcare, aged care or education, the remedy is simple. Don’t go. Freedom of choice! Except the Canberra autocrats don’t like freedom either. They’ve embraced a totalitarian agenda since COVID normalised such behaviour in Australia.

Federal Parliament has precedence over ACT law and this matter is rightly within the Senate’s purview. My message to the Canberra Health Bureau autocrats is this: God decides who lives or dies. Not you.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia I speak in support of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Amendment Bill 2023. Senator Canavan is quite correct to want an inquiry into the ACT government’s seizure of Calvary hospital. I commend him for introducing this bill to the chamber. I was the first senator to speak out against this takeover—on 27 May 2023 at the March for Life rally in the Rockhampton Riverside Precinct. Senator Canavan was in attendance as well. I commend him for taking it up. 

This is a blatant attack on religion in health care. It cannot be dressed up as anything else. I note that the Catholic archbishop has avoided using those words. That may be because the archdiocese is reliant on government funding across many health and welfare areas and does not want to ruffle feathers. It wants to protect that funding. What has happened to churches in this country is that they’ve been captured. I consider the Catholic archbishop’s decision a poor decision. Bending in the wind is not what religion is about. Defending religious theology is a central function of the Roman Catholic Church. 

This issue is a clash between religious principles that stand against abortion of a living viable fetus and health bureaucrats that would kill such a fetus, a human. It’s a clash between religious principles that stand against ending life through euthanasia of a person, who may make a different decision free from coercion and momentary despair, and health bureaucrats seeking to use euthanasia as a device to balance their budget. The only god autocrats respect is the god of power. 

The ACT has legislated abortion and euthanasia. The Catholic Church insists on putting humanity around those rules. That has inflamed ACT autocrats. The common reply repeated verbatim from a legion of social media bots and mindless zombies is: ‘There’s no place for religion in health care.’ It seems to me that this is the most hypocritical statement. When religious groups protested drag queens exposing themselves and reading adult sex stories to kids in libraries in drag queen story time the religious groups were told, ‘If you don’t like it, don’t go.’ Well, let me direct your argument right back at you: if you don’t want religion in your health care, don’t go to a Christian-managed hospital. While we are at it, if you don’t like religion in aged care, go to another aged-care facility. If you don’t like religion in education, don’t send your children to a religious school. See how it works? Freedom of choice. That is what is irking the Canberra autocrats—freedom. We know how much autocrats have embraced totalitarian agenda since COVID normalised such behaviour in this country. 

Calvary hospitals have treated millions of Australians who are happy to be treated in a religious hospital and who are grateful for it. We know from many media reports the enabling legislation was prepared a year ahead of this takeover. Calvary were not informed of this and continued to negotiate on a new northside hospital in good faith. We know the ACT government just had its credit rating reduced. There has been no progress on negotiations over the cash compensation the ACT government must pay to Calvary for the seizure of its assets. I wonder if they have the money to pay? 

Federal parliament has precedence over ACT law. This matter is rightly within the Senate’s purview, and I am strongly in support of this bill. I said this before and I’ll say it again: my message to Canberra health autocrats is God decides who lives or dies, not you.  

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Miners and Businesses from QLD and the Hunter Valley Let Down by the Fair Work Act

I’ve been raising the issue of the exploitation of miners for years. Miners and small businesses need to be heard because they are the losers in this ongoing rort. We need an extensive inquiry into it now.

The Fair Work Act is designed for the “industrial relations club,” not for workers and not for small businesses.

I’ve written twice about this issue to the previous member for the Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon. I’ve also written and hand delivered a letter to Dan Repacholi’s office. I asked them to get involved. Both have failed to respond, yet they stand up and talk in this chamber about closing the loophole.

There is no loophole! There is only people not doing their job and letting down miners and small businesses.

When will these people find it in themselves to care, or at least do something about the fact that everyday Australians are being ripped off and the authorities are enabling it?

Transcript

Thank you, President, Senator Birmingham. For four years, I have been raising the issue of the exploitation of the permanent-casual rort in central Queensland miners and Hunter Valley miners—four years!

I have written twice to the previous member for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon. I have written once and hand delivered to Daniel Repacholi’s office a letter asking them to get involved. They both have not replied. They never replied. They stood up and spoke in this chamber about closing the loophole. There is no loophole. We know what the cause of this is. There is no loophole; it is people not doing their jobs.

Four years and Labor has not done a thing. They put the crow bar through the spokes to stop me. This is an insult to miners. We need an inquiry that is going to have hearings in Central Queensland and in the Hunter because these miners need to be heard.

We’ll show you where the loophole is. There’s a huge loophole but it’s not the loophole the Labor Party is talking about. This bill has an Explanatory Memorandum 520-something pages long because it’s a cover-up bill. The bill itself is up to 240 pages.

I’ve been talking in this chamber on many occasions about how the Fair Work Act is already complex, intricate and designed for the IR club, not for workers—and not for small business. This will make it far worse. We need to have a complete and thorough inquiry of it, and extensive scrutiny.

I will not be supporting the government’s amendment of the coalition’s amendment.

Miners need to be heard and small business, in particular, need to be heard because they’re the two losers from the Fair Work Act, due to its complexity and its prescriptiveness.

So I will not be supporting the Labor government’s amendment of the coalition amendment. I will support the coalition amendment.

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Playing Politics With Water Feeds No One

An issue that matters to many of my constituents is water. Minister Plibersek has hijacked the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to win votes in the city at the expense of the bush.

One Nation calls on the state and federal water ministers to end political grandstanding. Suspend the 450 gigalitre acquisition and provide the funds to complete stage two of the south-east drains restoration project. This is how we get the extra water to open the Murray mouth and finally reverse the last 50 years of environmental damage to the Coorong and lower lakes due to political lies.

Our amazing farmers use their water to help feed and clothe the world. Stop treating them like criminals just to win votes off the Teals and Greens in the city. It doesn’t serve Australia’s best interests to play politics with this water.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community it’s my job to raise issues that matter to constituents. Minister Plibersek has hijacked the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to win votes in the city at the expense of the bush. The minister has just announced a 42 gigalitre buyback of agricultural water—farming water—which is 42,000 million litres of water now, with the threat of another 450 gigalitres in buybacks before 2027. Originally there was never any intention to get the last 450 gigalitres of water, which was only intended to flow out to sea, through buybacks. The water was always supposed to come from measures to reduce water loss from natural and man-made constraints right across the basin.

Justifying the weaponisation of this last 450 gigalitres as the only way to open the Murray mouth is spurious. Flow from the Coorong water system can open the mouth, yet this has not occurred in living memory, because South Australia spent 140 years digging drains to divert surface flow, and with it aquifer flow, away from the Coorong catchment and out to sea. The South Australian government’s south-east drains restoration project is now correcting that mistake at last and last year returned 100 gigalitres to the Coorong.

One Nation calls on the state and federal water ministers to end political grandstanding, to suspend the 450 gigalitre acquisition and to provide funds to complete stage 2 of the south-east drains restoration project, which should eventually return at least double stage 1. This is how we get the extra water to open the Murray mouth and to reverse 50 years of environmental damage to the Coorong and lower lakes due to political lies. Our amazing farmers use their water to feed and clothe the world. Stop treating them like criminals just to win votes off the teals and Greens in the city.

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NSW Handmaid’s Bills Will Hurt Women and Children

New South Wales State MP Alex Greenwich has introduced two horrific anti-human bills in the NSW parliament. These bills are so bad I had to raise my concerns in a Senate speech.

In 2023 women are becoming simultaneously invisible and exploited. Women’s rights are being removed by the Left under the cover of ‘inclusive’ gender diversity and a ‘progressive’ facade. This attack on femininity is taking the women’s movement backwards, which will come at a terrible cost to our society. When public figures are too cowardly to even define what is a woman, society is in trouble.

In a nutshell, Alex Greenwich proposes legalising sex self-id, making official documents reflect the individual’s self-image rather than biological reality. This undermines the safety of women and girls in female only spaces. He also seeks to fully deregulate prostitution, removing protections for all prostituted persons.

In a bid to make it easier for the gay community to become parents, Alex Greenwich’s proposed bill also seeks to remove bans on commercial surrogacy if it happens outside NSW. Although it’s an understandable goal for gay couples to parent a child, this would make it legal for NSW residents to use foreign baby farms.

Such a bill would encourage the exploitation of poor, vulnerable women. It reduces them to the status of a womb for rent and turns children into products for sale. We’re living through the beginnings of a modern day handmaid’s tale. Bills such as these would remove many of the protections in law women have worked so hard to achieve.

This attack on women’s rights is also an attack on society’s values and religious freedoms. The final thing this bill seeks to introduce is that religious belief will no longer be an acceptable employment criteria for religious schools. If someone from the LGBTIQA+ community wanted to infiltrate a religious school then woe betide that school for turning them down. It’s clear that those responsible for the moral decay of society see Christianity as the resistance and want it destroyed from within.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I draw the Senate’s attention to the New South Wales parliament, where independent MP Alex Greenwich introduced two bills, the Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Bill 2023 and the Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2023. Both bills are anti-women and anti-children. The proposed changes include, firstly, introduction of sex self-ID, allowing anyone to change their legal sex on official documents such as driver’s licence and birth certificate. These documents will no longer represent physical reality; they will show mental self-image. Men will be able to legally identify as women and access female-only spaces including bathrooms, changing rooms, refuges and prisons, undermining the rights and safety of women and girls. Women and children escaping domestic violence will be forced to share emergency accommodation with men. Imagine the additional trauma this will create. A recent Victorian event in Dame Phyllis Frost Correctional Centre shows the danger of these laws. A biological man convicted of violent assaults against women was transferred into a female prison. Female prisoners unsuccessfully petitioned to remove him. A wider public campaign raged for weeks before the transfer was eventually reversed.

Many women in jail have suffered abuse from men that lowers women’s self-esteem and then they go on to drug abuse, crime and illegal behaviour. To TIGA+ campaigners, the mental and physical effect on female inmates from having men in with women seems irrelevant. It appears that many in the TIQA+ community believe women are only to have rights that do not compromise men’s rights.

Secondly, fully deregulated prostitution will remove protections for prostituted persons, mostly women, as well as the wider community. While many may enter this line of work willingly, prostitution is the world’s oldest form of slavery and exploitation. To remove penalty based regulation is an insane idea that will remove the rights of exploited women to enjoy the protection of law. This is despite the global movement to combat, not foster, this abhorrent form of sexual exploitation, violently making women’s bodies commodities.

Thirdly, removing bans on commercial surrogacy if it takes place outside New South Wales, legalising the actions of New South Wales residents using foreign baby farms. This bill will encourage the exploitation and commodification of vulnerable women who will be reduced to the status of a womb for rent, and children reduced to products for sale. This is a modern-day form of human trafficking that’s broadly opposed among human rights defenders. I understand that the homosexual community want to parent a child, and the research on this issue is generally supportive. Yet allowing poor women in Third World countries to be exploited for the benefit of gay couples in the West is an outrage. Women are more than just uterus owners and chest feeders. Women have the right to be protected from exploitation, not to have exploitation enshrined in law.

Fourthly, this bill removes religious protections in current antidiscrimination laws. It will be illegal for religious schools to discriminate against an LGBTIQA+ person, allowing an openly trans person to apply for employment and to prevent discrimination against their employment. Religious belief will no longer be an acceptable employment criteria for religious schools. It seems that people responsible for society’s moral decay see Christianity as resisting that moral decay and therefore they want to destroy Christianity.

Turning to the second bill, the Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2023, this bill criminalises medical professionals and parents trying to help those suffering with gender dysphoria in a way that doesn’t simply affirm a person’s gender identity. As one constituent, a qualified psychologist, said to me recently, ‘If a child presents to me believing they are a giraffe, I must treat them as though they are a giraffe.’ In the TIQA+ world, this masquerades at health care. This bill ignores mounting medical evidence that the affirmation-only approach is causing gender dysphoria, harming children through irreversible medical transitioning leading to shattered lives filled with regret, regrets the 7NEWS Spotlight show brought to mainstream Australia last Sunday.

Women’s Forum Australia has launched a campaign to protect women, children and our community from these harmful measures. One Nation supports that campaign. Every person deserves respect, equality and care under our laws. Alex Greenwich’s measures are counterproductive to these principles. In 2023, women are becoming invisible handmaidens, servants, with their identity as women being taken from them. One Nation stands opposed to this antihuman agenda. (Time expired)

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