Malcolm’s Official Speeches in Parliament

A Fairer Deal for Aussies

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One Nation is proud of its comprehensive, detailed seven-page immigration policy, designed to fix the daily challenges facing everyday Australians.

While critics, particularly from the Uniparty, dismiss our policy, we recognise that their opposition is either politically motivated or stems from an ignorance of the facts.

And let’s be clear, backpacker, PALM and tourism numbers will remain unchanged under our policy.

Backed by Treasury’s FIONA model, it shows that while prime working age migrants (aged 25 to 35) yield a positive lifetime contribution of $198,000 per person, family reunions, older migrants and non-working arrivals create a net financial COST of $126,000 per person to taxpayers. Our policy seeks to increase young, skilled workers in critical areas like construction, nursing and aged care, while screening out non-producers to maximise overall economic value.

Our policy almost mirrors Canada’s successful approach, where recent immigration slowdowns have already eased rental pressures and supported workers. Australia currently has 690,000 unemployed and 1 million underemployed citizens who deserve to be prioritised and trained first.

One Nation will always put Australians first!

Transcript

Liberal Senator Hume described One Nation’s immigration policy as ‘a headline number and a few slogans’. I have the policy here. It’s seven pages of details and facts. It took months of research to source the numbers and formulate the measures, which are comprehensive, detailed, consistent and will fix so many of the problems Australia is facing in housing, household wealth, service delivery, social cohesion and the current per capita recession in which Australians are suffering. It’s clear that people criticising the policy have never read it or are lying out of political self-interest. For clarity, there’s no change in backpackers, no change in PALM workers, no change in tourism numbers. All three can increase if the market can sustain more. Labor Minister Watt made this criticism: ‘One Nation policy will destroy the economy and drive the economy into recession.’ The minister is not alone in this deceit. Some Liberal-aligned business leaders and Labor-aligned media have repeated this unfounded fabrication, contrary to the facts.  

The Treasury’s Fiscal Impact of New Australians model, FIONA, looks at the lifetime contribution of a new immigrant—the cost and the benefit. A young migrant in the sweet spot of 25 to 35 years of age—someone who assimilates, works his or her whole life and stays out of trouble—will add $198,000 to the economy in their lifetime, increasing GDP and wealth for all, which is why we are not reducing that cohort; we are increasing it. This is our immigration target demographic.  

FIONA shows each person arriving under the family program, though, costs the Australian economy $126,000 across their lifetime. FIONA shows a migrant arriving after the age of 50 will never pay back the taxpayers either. In addition, their lifetime value is negative. The current mix of this government’s new arrivals is heavily weighted towards older migrants, family reunions and nonworkers, and there are hundreds of thousands of fake students working in the gig economy, cheating on their tax and sending home as much money as possible. Children of new arrivals or family reunions have a huge lifetime economic cost. The younger the child, the more likely it is that they will have a negative lifetime economic impact. This is why FIONA only puts the average lifetime contribution of all migrants that this government is letting in at $41,000. The more committed, young, educated or skilled workers we let in, the more nonproducers we can screen out. It only takes 20 per cent of all arrivals to be our target young demographic for the total value of arrivals to hit the $41,000 figure. So what do other arrivals contribute? They don’t. They add costs to Australians. Do the maths.  

Prime Minister Carney grew Canada’s economy with the same approach One Nation is proposing. He grew it. Canada’s largest banks report that Canadian immigration cuts were easing rental pressures and supporting employment. In Canadian provinces where the immigration cuts were most significant, rents are falling fastest. The banks concluded the immigration slowdown has been great news for Canada’s battlers.  

Speaking last night on—of course—the ABC, George Megalogenis said our cut would cause the worst depression since the 1890s. Talk about seeing what you want to see! What utter nonsense—a lie. The data I have just presented shows the reverse will be true. Canada proved the reverse will be true.  

As for a supposed labour shortage, One Nation is not changing backpacker numbers. We’re offering skilled visas to genuinely skilled workers in areas we need them, including construction; the care economy, such as nursing and aged care; and rural industry. Let’s be clear; only one per cent of skilled arrivals last year under this government were construction workers, half a per cent were aged-care workers and one per cent were nurses. Our numbers leave plenty of room for more skilled and educated workers where we need them.  

Our policy looks after those who are already here. Right now, there are 690,000 Australians out of work—690,000. There are another 1.65 million Australians looking for extra work. Business lobbies should start there—with Australians who want a job. It’s industry’s fault that workforce planning was sacrificed on the altar of high profits and lazy management. The workers are here in Australia. It’s time for industry to get back in the business of training the new generation of apprentices and staff, instead of lazily importing them. 

Under One Nation, the cheap-labour gravy train will be over, and Australians can begin to restore Australian productivity and living standards. Together we Australians can restore Australia.  

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Zero Tolerance for Neo-Nazis

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The Prime Minister and Attorney-General have called on One Nation to disavow the Nazi party, and media outlets like the Sydney Morning Herald unfairly claimed that One Nation refused to denounce Nazis despite quoting speeches where we explicitly did so.

One Nation completely disavows neo-Nazis and ethno-nationalists who distort nationalism to promote supremacy.

Transcript

Recently, the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General called on One Nation to disavow the Nazi party. Last Friday, Paul Sakkal, the Sydney Morning Herald chief political correspondent, tried to smear One Nation on this. Yet, a week earlier, I had published my Spectator Australia article denouncing the Nazi party. Last Wednesday, in my senator’s statement, I doubled down on my denouncement. In the Spectator and in my senator’s statement, I asked why the Labor Party and the political left did not stand against violence in word and deed from all sides of politics, left and right—as One Nation does. The Sydney Morning Herald used that comment yet not the next sentence, which I’ll quote: 

Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, nationalists and ethno-nationalists exist in this country. We disavow them completely. They stand in opposition to everything One Nation believes. 

The Sydney Morning Herald ran its story as One Nation refusing to denounce Nazis, when we had denounced them in a speech the article quoted. 

Since then, I’ve been asked why I included nationalists in the list of those I denounced. I’ll clarify. The Nazi party in Australia no longer uses that name nor the name National Socialist. The new name for the same tiny group is nationalists. The dictionary defines nationalism as a political ideology and sentiment that promotes the interests, cultural identity and political independence of a particular nation above all others, yet Australian Nazis are distorting this to redefine nationalism as an ideology pushing a nation’s cultural or political superiority and dominance over others. That’s why I prefer the term ‘patriotism’: a love of one’s country and its shared civic values. 

Everything I and One Nation do is to benefit Australians. We denounce vested interests and globalist agendas clearly. The Nazis are trying to corrupt the meaning of the word ‘nationalist’. I’m pleased to celebrate being a patriot. Be careful: language is powerful. 

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The Terrifying Scope of the eSafety’s Power

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One Nation strongly opposed the Online Safety Management (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026 and its draconian amendments – which passed the Senate today.

The social media minimum age framework has fundamentally failed because a nanny state cannot outsmart tech-savvy children using VPNs and other “workarounds”. Instead of protecting kids, it isolates them and pushes them into less supervised spaces like game chat rooms, peer-to-peer apps and Tor.

This Bill increases penalties to nearly $100 million and grants the eSafety Commissioner terrifying, unchecked powers over Australians, including the power to compel people to travel (at their own expense and under threat of prison) to answer questions before her.

Which platform do you think she will demand appears first?

And more importantly, the dangerous abolition of the right against self-incrimination without proper age protections or mandatory legal representation.

The eSafety Commissioner’s office has become a heavily politicised weapon rather than a protector of children. When in government, One Nation will abolish this position, moving staff back into the department of media communications so they can focus on their actual, vital work of removing abuse material, revenge porn and deepfakes.

The legislation relies on vague definitions of “reasonable steps” completely dictated by the commissioner. The government is simply doubling down with massive fines because their initial unworkable ban is failing in the courts.

How much government is too much government? This is too much government and too much control over the people.

Transcript

Officially, the Online Safety Management (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026 amends the Online Safety Act 2021 to strengthen the operation of the social media minimum age framework, the SMMA. The bill expands the eSafety commissar’s information-gathering powers and increases civil penalties for noncompliance to around $100 million—$100 million—depending upon state. In reality, the social media minimum age framework legislation has failed, and now the government is doubling down. 

One Nation does not support the social media minimum age ban, for two reasons. Firstly, what children do online is the responsibility of parents, not the nanny state. Secondly, the technology will never be smarter than a resourceful and tech-savvy child. 

In November 2024, I moved an urgency motion arguing that a blanket ban expropriates parental power. Parents in the home can supervise a child’s device better than a tech company or a Canberra bureaucrat. No country has made age limits work, and the ban would make parents who let children watch educational YouTube content law-breakers. I call for better parental locks from platforms and device makers instead of a nanny state rule. Parental locks from platforms and device makers have been proven to work. 

I quoted the Australian Human Rights Commission warning that a ban would isolate young people. I predicted that the ban would fail because of VPNs, impersonation and other tricks while pushing children onto less supervised spaces, such as game chat rooms, peer-to-peer apps and Tor. This is exactly what’s happened. The ban has failed, and the answer from the eSafety commissar is bigger fines, more power over you and more removal of human rights. A government amendment circulated overnight is draconian and terrifying. The amendment will provide powers for the eSafety commissar to demand that a person travel at the person’s cost to appear before her in person and includes penalties of up to a year in prison for refusing to do so. Which platform do you think will be the first that the eSafety commissar demands to appear? No doubt X, to continue her obsession with Elon Musk. If the commissar thinks she will be demanding that witnesses appear from overseas, I would point out that Julie Inman Grant, the commissar, refused to appear before a US congressional inquiry into her actions last year. One can’t demand a higher degree of accountability than the commissioner was prepared to demonstrate herself.  

The amendment abolishes a basic human right against self-incrimination. While it does say the evidence can’t be used in a court of law against a person, there is a known backdoor entry to this. The amendment does not protect young people, which is ironic, given it sits in a bill supposedly designed to protect young people. The subject of an examination order can be a person of any age. There is no age restriction on that power. There are no protections requiring a minor to be legally represented or have a parent present—none. There is a right to have a lawyer and not the requirement for one. We know how that works in practice. In short, turn up and get done over or go to jail. That’s life in the ‘Soviet Republic of Australia’ under this Albanese Labor government. 

One Nation will oppose the amendment. We will oppose the bill and, when in government, we will abolish the position of the eSafety Commissioner. The role was intended all along to be a political appointment, and the incumbent is proving the truth in that statement. One Nation will not, though, throw the baby out with the bathwater. We will maintain the functions of the office of eSafety and move the staff back into the department of media and communications. The staff are doing very good work taking down abuse material, revenge porn and deepfakes and must be allowed to continue that work. 

Other provisions of the bill include a doubling of fines on social media companies for failure to demonstrate reasonable steps to comply with the ban. The problem with the legislation is and continues to be the definition of ‘reasonable steps’, which is—hang on, there is no definition. The commissar sets the rules in a legislative instrument titled ‘Social media minimum age: regulatory guidance’. Then the commissar enforces them as the commissar sees fit. Reasonable steps is anything the commissar decides it should be. Defy the commissar, and you will cop a fine that’s been increased from $48 million to almost $100 million in this bill. What next? How about $200 million fines? No, $500 million fines. Do I hear a billion? That’s not how legislation is supposed to be drafted, and this is not how government power is supposed to be used. This is power over the people. They should be serving the people. 

The real problem around compliance from social media companies, though, is the inconvenient truth that the eSafety commissar has lost all except one court case her office has started. Perhaps strengthening the legal basis for these fines in the first place would have been more important than simply allowing the commissar to threaten a larger fine. I say ‘threatened’ because no social media company has been fined under legislation relating to age verification—not one. So why increase the fines—the ones that haven’t been used yet? The government continues to pursue a strategy it can never win. Harsher penalties are a typical bureaucratic response to being defied when in fact the defiance is because the ban is not technically feasible. 

Moving on, the bill enables the commissar to compel the production of information or documents from any person. All that’s needed is for the commissar—or the commissioner—to believe on reasonable grounds that the person has information or documents relevant to compliance from a provider of an electronic service that is or may be—notice the opening of the envelope!—an age restricted social media platform. If this looks like unchecked power, it is—unchecked power over not just children and social media platforms but over every Australian, adults included. For example, information from third parties, such as age assurance providers or app store operators, may assist in validating or testing claims platforms made about their compliance with the minimum age obligation. Once again, these powers are not limited by age. An individual who discovers a workaround may be compelled to provide information around how they did that, no matter the age. The committee report recommended the bill pass as written. There were concerns from submitters whether the measures imposed, increased discovery and higher penalties, were necessary and proportionate to enforce the social media minimum age framework, the SMMA ban. the office of the information commissar made a great point that the information-gathering powers in the bill should be extended to their office. This would allow them to determine if the information that age-verification companies are collecting was being dealt with according to Australian privacy legislation. 

The Law Council of Australia criticised the new information-gathering powers under section 63G as being too powerful for the stated outcome, as did Free Speech Union, and X sounded like they were lining up to challenge them in court. Multiple submitters complained about the very high fines, up to slightly over $100 million, depending upon the state. The Australian Human Rights Commission recommended a review after 12 months into the effect of the social media minimum age framework, SMMA ban on children, which is faster than the statutory two-year review. I would recommend that submission to the government. How much government is too much government? This is too much government and too much control over the people. 

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Tearing Up Competition and Consumer Rules

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The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026 gives the ACCC and the minister wide ranging power to exempt large corporations from anticompetitive and fair trading laws during crises like the Iranian oil shock.

It lets the government “tear up the rulebook” by rubberstamping illegal anticompetitive behaviour through a Ministerial instrument.

Using the Iranian fuel crisis as an example, major fuel importers deliberately withheld fuel from the spot market to inflate prices, hurting independent regional stations and everyday consumers while securing windfall profits.

The Labor government is backdating the bill to retroactively cover up corporate profiteering, which is being done to push high fuel prices and artificially boost lagging electric vehicle (EV) sales to advance its Net Zero agenda.

The Albanese Government is turning out to be the most totalitarian government in Australian history.

Transcript

This is not a matter of urgency; to the contrary, it’s a matter for considered scrutiny. Let me explain. The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026 provides the ACCC with significant new powers. These powers create a new framework for actions that can be taken in exceptional circumstances such as the Iranian oil shock. These powers allow the ACCC to exempt big business from normal fair trading and anticompetitive laws—exempt. This allows big business, once an exceptional circumstance has been declared, to do whatever they like. The framework is wider than fuel; it can be used for anything the minister decides to use it for. This otherwise illegal behaviour will then be simply rubberstamped in the minister’s office using a legislative instrument that cannot be disallowed. It won’t even come before parliament. The ACCC already has the power to allow uncompetitive behaviour in the national interest—it already has the power, in the national interest. This legislation clarifies those rules but little more. I note the proposed amendment from the crossbench which changes that provision to make these legislative instruments disallowable in the parliament. One Nation will be supporting that amendment, as the government should. 

This bill is, in effect, the government granting itself the power to tear up the rulebook to allow large corporations to use their market power to screw the competition, expand their market share and leverage that market share to make more profit at the consumers’ expense. There is a real example of this occurring. In the early days of the Iranian fuel disruption, Australia’s fuel importers—major importers of fuel—despite having full storage tanks, withheld from the spot market. The major importers of fuel deliberately withheld fuel from the spot market, despite having full storage tanks. This is the market into which fuel importers and refiners supply their fuel once their own supply contracts have been met. This is where the smaller independent petrol stations, especially in rural and regional Australia, get their fuel. In the first weeks of the Iranian oil crisis, petrol went above $2.50 a litre—we all remember that—and diesel went over $3 a litre. The increase in the oil price did not justify those retail prices, which were high because of price gouging and manipulation. We know what these large multinational companies did. They held their supply back from the spot market to inflate the retail price, even for fuel which was already in the supply system at the old price. This delivered windfall profits to multinational oil companies—for doing nothing except colluding. 

Labor is now advancing this bill with a clause backdating the bill to the start of the crisis to cover up this profiteering. Labor is covering up this profiteering. Why would the Albanese Labor government excuse foreign multinational fuel companies for profiting at the expense of everyday Australians? The answer is simple: to sell electric vehicles, whose sales had been languishing. Remember all those stories about people rushing out to buy EVs because petrol was so dear? How evil is that? With all the financial hardship in the bush and the regions and the suburbs which resulted from big oil profiteering, the government is using this bill to cover it up to advance its net zero agenda—yet another hidden cost of the net zero agenda. This Labor Party does not give a damn about everyday Australians; it does not care at all. And now they’re helping companies cover it up. If the Greens support this bill, they will be supporting foreign multinational corporations price gouging everyday Australians. I’ll say that again to the Greens. If the Greens support this bill, they will be supporting foreign multinational corporations price gouging everyday Australians. 

I note the amendment from the Nationals to remove the retrospective nature of the cover-up in this bill. One Nation will support that amendment. 

Competition law exists for a reason. It protects consumers and small business. It stops large players from coordinating in ways that damage competition. Any exemption from competition law needs to be treated very seriously, because it’s the people who pay. We can’t normalise anticompetitive conduct. It will lead to more and more exceptions, less and less consumer protection, higher and higher prices, and weaker and weaker service. Clearly, when Labor talks about consumer protections, they don’t really mean it. I’m just checking; this is still a Labor government, isn’t it? Is that right? 

One Nation is the party of everyday Australians now. One Nation wants this bill to go to a committee inquiry so everyone can have their say, and, from that, a fairer bill will have emerged. We want the public to have their input, yet here we are. Once again this Labor government is talking about ramming through without proper debate, without transparency, legislation which contains significant provisions. 

In 2019 the then opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, frequently criticised the coalition for lacking transparency in key legislation and vowed Labor would operate differently, including better parliamentary scrutiny. This bill is not getting committee scrutiny. We want better parliamentary scrutiny, as Anthony Albanese sought back in 2019. In his victory speech in 2022, Prime Minister Albanese promised to end secrecy, to lead with integrity and to treat the public with respect, framing his win as voters choosing accountable government versus the previous cult of secrecy. He repeatedly claims a mandate with just 34 per cent of the vote—one-third of the vote. That’s why he’s got no accountability now. Where is that accountability? Where is the transparency now? Where is the parliamentary scrutiny now? Unless all the substantive amendments presented to the Senate are passed, One Nation will oppose this legislation. 

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Reforming the Copyright Act

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The Copyright Amendment Bill 2025 is the culmination of two years of consultation aimed at fixing a long-standing issue with orphan works, expanding online education exemptions, and making minor technical updates.

Division 2AAA in the Copyright Act 1968 limits remedies against those using copyrighted works when the owner can’t be found after a “reasonably diligent” search. While we still need clearer industry guidance on what qualifies as “reasonably diligent,” modern tools like TinEye, web searches, and AI make checking copyright straightforward.

This bill introduces requirements for copyright owners to issue a takedown notice before seeking a charge. Crucially, any claim must now be reasonable. I’ve seen copyright trolls demand over $1,000 for minor, low-traffic uses of dormant works. This new requirement gives small businesses leverage to negotiate and provides courts with clear guidance to lower litigation costs.

This is a major win for our galleries, libraries, museums, and educational institutions. With up to 70% of some collections categorised as orphaned, this bill grants them the freedom to finally share these works.

However, this bill completely misses the elephant in the room: AI training and data scraping.

Under current law, using copyrighted material to train AI generally requires a license, and reproducing substantial parts of works in AI outputs is an infringement. The real danger is how search engines and AI platforms (ChatGPT being a primary offender) scrape copyrighted websites to generate direct answers. By doing so, they eliminate the need for users to visit the original creator’s site, effectively appropriating their work. This critical issue must be addressed in the very near future.

Although One Nation supported this bill, we will be watching closely to see how it performs in practice. If small businesses acting in good faith aren’t adequately protected from predatory claims, we will push for further measures.

Transcript

The Copyright Amendment Bill 2025 is the result of consultation over two years to solve a problem that’s existed around orphan works. Schedule 1 of the bill creates a statutory framework that enables lawful use of orphan works when the copyright owner cannot be identified or located despite a reasonably diligent approach. Schedule 2 makes clear that copyright exemptions for learning institutions teaching in person extend to lessons taught online. Schedule 3 makes minor technical changes and updates. 

The orphan works scheme creates division 2AAA in the Copyright Act 1968 to limit remedies for copyright infringement where the owner cannot be found despite a reasonably diligent approach. It would be good to have that further guidance on what ‘reasonably diligent’ means. I do expect there will be guidance from industry and media around that definition when the bill commences. Using internet search and websites like TinEye or asking AI if something is copyrighted is not hard to do; it’s quite easy. The act already limits backdated claims to six years; where the use predates that, only the last six years can be claimed as copyright infringement. 

The bill requires a copyright owner who has detected use of their material to give the offending use a notice to take down the material. If they do, a charge does not result. It’s the copyright owner’s discretion. Any charge they do claim must be reasonable—there’s that word again. There’s a real issue with copyright trolls, who buy up dormant copyrights, look to see who has used that writing, photo or art then send a copyright claim. I’ve seen many examples of copyright trolls making claims above $1,000 for insignificant use such as a photo on a website that attracts little to no traffic. This legislation does introduce words like ‘reasonable’ to describe the charge. That is new, and it should help in these cases, because it gives a small business a chance to negotiate the charge. It may stop claims being made for minor use when no quantifiable benefit has resulted. The legislation provides the courts with clear rules and guidance that will reduce the cost of litigation for both parties. 

One Nation will watch how this legislation works in practice. If small businesses are not being properly protected for in-good-faith breaches, further measures may be necessary. The good news is that this bill will allow galleries, libraries, museums and education institutions greater freedom to use works they have on hand. With an estimated 70 per cent of some collections being orphaned, this is a significant step forward. 

The bill does not address the major concern about copyright law, which is using copyright material to train AI. Under the Copyright Act 1968, teaching and AI on copyrighted works generally requires permission or a licence from the copyright owner. Reproducing producing substantial parts of copyrighted works in an AI’s output, such as quoting long excerpts or reproducing poems or images is usually an infringement. The exception is a narrow fair-use exception for academic and news purposes. Where this becomes a problem is in areas of search where the old ten blue links in Google’s page of search results have been replaced with an AI answer, which uses information from a copyrighted website, generally removing the need to visit the site. Many artificial intelligence sites—ChatGPT being a major offender—will use data from a copyrighted site to answer a user question and even make recommendations for which website to use based on the data from a different site. The issue of AI appropriating copyrighted works or copyrighted webpages is an issue that will need to be addressed in the near future. One Nation will support this bill. 

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Canberra, Wake Up!

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Fuel costs are skyrocketing!

When harvest fuel bills double and take weeks to recoup from supermarkets, family farms simply can’t finance the food on our tables.

If Canberra keeps treating our fuel sovereignty like someone else’s problem, store shelves will empty fast.

Our food producers are already feeling the heat.

Government needs to step up and start looking after Australia.

Transcript

Yesterday, I met with Johanna Brighenti from NSW Farmers and member organisations across horticultural and meat industries. They raised issues caused by the Albanese government’s fuel crisis that are terrifying. The cost to get produce to market is going up by between 25 per cent and 75 per cent because of increased fuel costs.

Farmers and truckers using diesel are only getting 30 per cent of their fuel order. This is making Australian produce unaffordable. After the drought years, family farmers have nothing left to get through this.

It’s even worse for farmers in the middle of a harvest. One farmer saw their harvest fuel costs double, from $15,000 to $30,000 a week. Fuel bills have to be settled in 14 days. Supermarkets pay two months. Farmers can no longer afford to finance their harvest, and food will not get to supermarkets.

If the Canberra bubble think that this is someone else’s problem and that they need do nothing about it, I can assure you it’s going to get very real very quickly. For food producers it is already real. 

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Empowering Terminal Patients

When someone is facing a life-threatening illness and all standard treatments have been exhausted, waiting shouldn’t be a barrier to hope.

That’s why One Nation will be introducing legislation for the “Right to Try.”

If a patient’s condition is terminal and existing measures have failed, they can request, or a doctor can suggest, an alternative therapy or unlisted drug.

Patients enter voluntarily, creating a safe pathway that expands the market for pharmaceuticals, drives down drug prices and ultimately saves lives.

With nothing to lose and everything to gain, it’s time to give patients and doctors the freedom to choose.

Transcript

One Nation will introduce legislation in the next parliament for the right to try. This means that, if a person is being treated for an illness the outcome of which could be death and all existing measures have failed, the patient has a right to request from their doctor, or a doctor has a right to suggest, a drug not listed for that condition. It may be an alternative therapy or an unlisted drug. To put this simply, the patient has nothing to lose and everything to gain. This may expand the market for existing pharmaceutical products—who knows? That’s the point. It’s a free clinical trial that a patient has voluntarily entered into, reducing drug prices and saving lives.

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The Creeping Threat of Socialism

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The Albanese government’s reckless May budget is an anchor on our economy, overtaxing productive Australians to fund a woke, bloated public sector and wasteful infrastructure like Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop.

Slapping new taxes on small scale investors, such as Crypto, punishing business owners and fuelling inflation through overspending is stifling wealth creation, driving record small business bankruptcies and pricing young Australians out of the housing market.

To fix this mess, One Nation will rebuild Australia’s real productivity through a clear, common-sense model:

➤ Invest $30 billion annually, backed heavily by eager private finance, into cheap, reliable Australian energy, high-speed regional rail, roads, ports, and fuel security.

➤ Slash petty red tape alongside UN-driven green and blue tape to restore the freedom to take risks and keep what you earn.

➤ Respect private enterprise to generate real, non-taxpayer-funded jobs, while expanding funding to the ACCC and the Administrative Review Tribunal to protect worker rights and maintain fair competition.

One Nation will build real wealth and opportunity for every business and worker across Australia.

Polls confirm what we already know: working Australians trust One Nation to deliver.

Transcript

Taxation is an anchor on productivity growth, reducing wealth creation for all Australians. The Treasurer has produced a budget that overtaxes and undersupports productivity. The social alliance—the Labor Party, the Greens and teals—have never seen a dollar they don’t think belongs to the government to finance their woke UN social agenda. The Treasurer learnt, from the weight of public opinion, that his new capital gains tax threatened future productivity within the business sector and the investment market. He fails to understand that when you take too much of people’s wealth, they stop creating new wealth. 

One example is young people using small-dollar investments in things like crypto to grow their home deposit faster and get into the housing market before they get too old to pay off a 30-year loan, which is what most young people said they intend to do with their capital gains. Because of these new taxes, young people will purchase fewer homes. It’s one example of stifling economic growth in favour of short-term tax grabs. 

The government has disincentivised productive risk-takers: investors. Business owners are punished, and overtaxed workers are conditioned to blame their employers for economic hardship. This sets workers against workers—more division from a divisive government. Instead, the true culprit is government’s acute failure to contain inflation and tighten its own belt. In fact, the Treasurer is still spending money he doesn’t have on things this country does not need, such as $3.8 billion for Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop—billions that, like the billions before, will disappear into the pockets of organised crime and eventually produce a railway from nowhere to nowhere that nobody wants, and, according to Victoria’s Parliamentary Budget Office, will cost over $200 billion. That cost is in addition to the fraud and corruption in Big Build projects. The Commonwealth government is just getting started shovelling money into the Allan government’s black hole. 

Meanwhile, businesses are collapsing at record rates, and small business bankruptcies are at record levels. The public sector is bloating; two thirds of full-time equivalent jobs that the Albanese government conjured since 2022 are taxpayer funded through some arm of government, notably the NDIS. For years I’ve said that for every job created in solar and wind—so-called renewables—two jobs are lost in the productive economy. Data now verifies this. That’s not sustainable. No wonder the government refused to support my motion to implement indexation of tax brackets to stop bracket creep. This government needs higher taxes to pay for this level of public service growth. Private enterprise can no longer provide the jobs needed to grow the economy and create new wealth for our huge number of new arrivals. 

At some point, this Ponzi scheme will come crashing down and a One Nation government will have to clean up the mess. This is how we’ll do it. Real productivity comes from cheap, reliable, Australian sourced energy. It’s good roads connecting regions with cities. It’s high-speed rail lines and Australian controlled ports. It’s fuel refineries guaranteeing supply when the world is in crisis. It’s a competitive construction industry. It’s cutting petty, unnecessary red tape, and green and blue tape from the UN and foreign agencies. It’s high-speed, reliable internet everywhere, including along highways and in regional areas. It’s the freedom to take risks and earn a reward. It’s a reliable nation of stable economic rules to encourage investment. This will be life under a One Nation government; real, breadwinner jobs and the freedom to keep more of your own money to enjoy life. 

Our policies detail how One Nation will invest $30 billion a year in Australia’s infrastructure to drive productivity and increase wealth for everyday Australians without having to work harder. Everyday Australians are working hard enough. Polls show One Nation is the most popular party amongst working Australians. We will fulfil your faith in us. A lot of this infrastructure is private finance, not taxpayers. In working with companies promoting new infrastructure projects, I’m amazed to see how much finance is available for these projects. Merchant banks and investors are jack of so-called solar and wind renewables. They want bricks and mortar investments again. We’ll give it to them. 

One Nation knows private sector productivity requires placing trust and respect in businesses, freeing them of unnecessary cost burdens to hire staff, reward the hardest workers and voluntarily pay above the minimum wage. To ensure this does not turn into a corporate free-for-all, we have a system of industrial relations tribunals and competition protections. Our policy is to grow the economy, to create wealth and opportunity for all—businesses and workers. This is why our policy is to expand funding for the ACCC and the Administrative Review Tribunal, to protect workers rights. Polls show, as I said, One Nation is the most popular party among working Australians. We will fulfil your faith in us. 

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Seven Years On: The Battle for Miners’ Entitlements

Seven years. That’s how long we’ve been fighting Australia’s largest wage theft case for thousands of underpaid casual coal miners.

Some workers are owed up to $211,000. Others have been stripped of more than $40,000 a year.

When we first exposed the broken governance and dodgy practices surrounding Coal Long Service Leave (Coal LSL), they told us we were wrong. Now? We stand completely vindicated.

A new bill is moving through parliament and we have serious concerns. It actually gives delinquent employers a 20% discount on entitlements they should have paid in full.

The system has been a mess for so long that miners simply want certainty now rather than letting this drag on in court for years.

Our 3 core goals since 2019 have been to:

🡪 Get Central Queensland and Hunter Valley miners every dollar of their just, moral, and legal entitlements.

🡪 Stop the use of unlawfully processed enterprise agreements once and for all.

🡪 Deliver justice against the employers, union bosses, and agencies who colluded to rip off these hard-working Australians.

I’m not backing down. We’ve been chasing this for seven years, and we will keep chasing it until our miners get the justice they deserve.

Transcript

One Nation has a second reading amendment to the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. I move: 

At the end of the motion, add “, but the Senate calls on the Government to immediately pursue backpay for workers who were underpaid as a result of the use of casual labour hire contracts in the coal mining industry”. 

The ‘workers’ are the casual coalmine workers. 

There are thousands of casual miners who have been underpaid in Australia’s largest wage theft case. I’ve been chasing this up on their behalf for seven years. We are chasing this and we will continue to chase it. They have been underpaid for many years. Some are owed up to $211,000. Others are owed more than $40,000 a year. 

We have some concerns with this bill but it’s going through as a noncontroversial bill—I’ll explain why in a minute—because we have listened to the miners. Long service leave in the coalmining industry has exhibited poor governance and broken government contracts. This has now been exposed. We exposed it. We were told, ‘No, you’re wrong.’ Then they found out that we were correct. We were vindicated. 

This bill is rewarding delinquent employers by giving them a discount when they pay. They get a discount for being delinquent and underpaying their levy. There has been such a mess made in coal long service leave for so long, and such shoddy governance, but we’re informed that the miners would rather have some certainty on this being resolved hence giving the company the 20 per cent discount on entitlements that they must pay in order to have this resolved—otherwise it could drag on for years. We are listening to miners. 

We’ve had three aims for our work on this since 2019: (1) to get Central Queensland and Hunter Valley miners their just, moral and legal entitlements; (2) to stop the practice of using unlawfully processed enterprise agreements—we’re pursuing that; (3) to bring justice for the miners against those employers, union bosses and agencies that have been colluding against and ripping off these miners. 

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The Digital Trap: Don’t Let Them Ban Cash

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The Albanese government promised to protect cash usage following a private member’s bill from regional MPs, yet he went ahead and introduced regulations that weaken and phase out cash.

Concerns raised by National Seniors Australia noted that pharmacies are omitted from the mandatory cash regulations, which risks leaving vulnerable or non-digital citizens unable to buy vital medication.

The government sides with major banks, which are closing regional branches and driving up digital transaction fee revenues while shifting the burden of cash logistics onto Australia Post and taxpayers.

Political donations from banks have influenced both the Liberal and Labor parties and the government’s attempts to pass these rules using regulation rather than transparent parliamentary debate is shameful.

There is a “war on cash” and we need to do everything we can to protect access to cash.

— March | Senate Speech

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: I move: That the Competition and Consumer (Industry Codes—Cash Acceptance) Regulations 2025, made under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, be disallowed. 

These regulations were a broken promise from the government. In the other place, the House of Representatives, Mr Bob Katter MP, Ms Dai Le MP and Mr Andrew Gee MP, submitted a bill called the Keeping Cash Transactions in Australia Bill 2024. This bill highlighted the importance of cash to the regions and to the cities and sought to ensure the continuation of banking services in rural and regional areas to support the use of cash. The Albanese government did not support that bill, but there was a communication between Mr Gee and the government which resulted in the production of a set of regulations which claimed to guarantee the continued use of cash, yet these regulations failed to achieve the promised outcome. They undermined cash and helped destroy it. 

As I said hurriedly this afternoon and can now say with more clarity, the promise of protecting the use of cash has been broken. It was a deceitful lie. The Competition and Consumer (Industry Codes—Cash Acceptance) Regulations— 

The Deputy President: Senator Grogan? 

Senator Grogan: I believe Senator Roberts is deeply misleading and is throwing around some pretty heavy language. I would seek to ask you to get him to withdraw.  

The Deputy President: My opinion is that this is a debating point. You have an opportunity to participate in the debate. I will seek some advice. I will stand by my first thought. Senator Roberts, you have the call. I will caution you to consider your language.  

Senator ROBERTS: I will prove my point as I continue. The Competition and Consumer (Industry Codes—Cash Acceptance) Regulations 2025 are promoted as mandating cash, yet, in a display of rank dishonesty, these regulations allow almost every business in the country to not accept cash. That’s why I say it’s deceit. 

Firstly, small businesses with a turnover of under $10 million are exempt, which is 97 per cent of businesses in Australia. Then every other business is excluded from the regulations except fuel stations and supermarkets. Then this mandate is shrunk even further through limiting the cash that fuel stations and supermarkets can take to only $500 at a time. It’s reduced further again with a provision that only requires that cash be accepted between 7 am and 9 pm. I’ll say it again: cash can only be accepted between 7 am and 9 pm. So there’s no cash anywhere between 9 pm and 7 am—none anywhere. 

But wait, there’s more. Further exemptions can be given to a business where accepting cash is not feasible. In Senate estimates, the ACCC gave the example of a country town with no bank to give or receive cash. In that town, the cash mandate would not apply to their supermarket or petrol station—if they have one. These regulations, which are promoted as protecting cash, have the effect of limiting cash acceptance to perhaps one per cent of businesses, and only during certain times of the day. Outside of those hours: no cash. What a scandal! 

There is an agenda here, which I will now go into. We’ve seen many inquiries into bank closures in rural and regional Australia. The big four banks have thumbed their noses at these inquiries and continued to close branches even as the Senate inquired into bank closures. That is a fact. I was on that inquiry. A cash mandate would ruin their plans to shut down all of their presence in the bush, dumping the provision of limited banking services on Australia Post via Bank@Post. This provides a real problem for licensed post offices in the bush because they are not set up to handle large amounts of cash. They simply can’t get it into town or out of town. The money they make from the transaction, coming from the banks, is insufficient to cover their costs in many cases. The banks will save a fortune through the closure of their branches, dumping the cost on Australia Post and ultimately on the taxpayers. Always with Labor, the taxpayers pick up the bill—we, the people, pay. 

Labor voters will have to ask themselves why the Labor Party is so quick to provide the big four banks with additional profit, as if $30 billion a year between them already isn’t enough. Could it be the millions the Australian Labor Party put in their pockets in gifts, known as donations, every election cycle from the banks? I read the list out earlier today. It’s right there as public record. Even the Guardian reported on it. I can remember for the 2022 election that ANZ had the smallest donation, at almost $100,000, Westpac and the Commonwealth Bank gave nearly $200,000 and NAB gave $138,000. In the last election, the banks gave $1.3 million to Labor and the Liberals and Nationals. One Nation has taken nothing—zero—from the banks. Our policy is to put everyday Australians first, not big business or big banks, as the Labor Party does. 

The Liberal Party tried this on a few years back and were defeated when One Nation combined with the Greens and the Labor Party branches—your own branches—to vote down a bill that was nowhere near as bad as these regulations are. This occurred because the Labor Party’s ethnic branches, in particular, got wind of their support and forced the Labor Party to oppose the bill. The decision to sneak—yes, sneak—an effective cash ban through in regulation was an attempt to hide what the government is doing from their ethnic branches. You want to hide it from your own people. Bad luck—One Nation saw you, and you’ve been caught. 

This morning I met with representatives from National Seniors Australia, whose members are distraught at the prospect of losing their ability to pay in cash. They were in my office here in Canberra. Many of their members do not operate electronic banking, cannot pay for computers and internet or live in areas where the service is so poor that cash is still the most common method of payment. That is a fact. The government’s failure to make the NBN work in rural and regional areas and their decision to shut down the 3G network is an argument for another day. I could pile into that here, but I won’t tonight. 

The Canberra bubble, who reside here in their ivory towers and author regulations like this, have no idea how an economy works in the bush, nor in the cities. They refuse to accept that many Australians are not engaged in digital transactions. Many protect their constitutional right to use cash. The Canberra bubble’s fingerprints are all over this inscrutable, dishonest document. 

National Seniors Australia pointed out a glaring hole in these regulations: pharmacies. If you are an Australian who does not have an active credit or debit card and you need medication, as many seniors do, what will the outcome be? Do you come back when you can pay with a card? People could die because of these regulations. I accept that chemists may choose to keep accepting cash for now, but what happens when the local ATMs go—as is happening all over Australia, in the bush, in the suburbs and in the metropolitan areas—and people can no longer get their hands on cash to pay for pharmaceuticals? What happens when a rural business closes their local branch, then the one in the next town and then the one in the next and petrol is $3 a litre—thanks, Labor, for that, by the way. If a supermarket is not in this town, you have to drive hundreds of kilometres to the next town to get food and come back. It’s a matter of life and death. 

This regulation allows businesses that are suffering profit-decline to look at the cost of maintaining cash and say, ‘Look, I want to support cash, but I can’t afford to.’ Instead of having to front their customers and explain why they no longer accept cash, they can simply blame the government and the policies of the banking industry. 

And the banks—what’s in it for them? Control—control over cash and control over fees, because, whenever you use an electronic method, there’s a fee involved. 

This is the outcome these regulations are framed to create. This is a war on cash. It’s a war on Australian lifestyles and freedoms. 

Banks want everyone to pay with a card, and to pay the banks for the privilege with a transaction fee. And Labor is helping the banks to greatly increase income from fees. They’re helping the banks, who already make $30 billion in profit, to increase their profits. Once consumers have no choice except to pay that fee, the fees will go up—and up, and up, and up, because you won’t have a choice. 

These regulations will provide one of the world’s worst environments for cash payments, if not the worst. I’d remind people that Liberal and Labor supported the bank bail-ins in 2017 and 2018. These banks can never lose, because you’ve enabled that to happen. You privatise the profits for the banks and you socialise the losses. This banking industry has got so little risk. 

It is being done without the debate this sort of a move should have. At least the Liberals had the guts to put their cash ban in a bill, put it on the Notice Paper in plain sight and have a fair debate—even though you supported them in the lower house. The Albanese government, instead of being open, has tried to sneak it through, lie about it and be deceitful. Yet you still have the hide to talk about transparency. What a joke, and what a cruel joke. 

Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands have realised their cash bans were a mistake, and they have wound them back. These countries have introduced regulations to actually encourage the use of cash and the provision of cash through their banking system. 

Labor’s regulations are already behind international best practice. They are a mistake. They are a deceit. They will cause untold suffering. And I ask the Senate to disallow them. 

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