Malcolm’s Official Speeches in Parliament

Northern Australia left behind by terrible government

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In North Queensland I met local visionaries with commitment, competence and dedication to a better North. But that was matched, sadly, on the other side of the scale by the incompetence of state and federal governments.

The North is simply waiting for good governance, I hope they get it before it is too late.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to relate my travels through the Flinders catchment area, which is the fourth biggest river flow in Queensland. There is rich soil, vast grassy plains with no trees and water: abundant water, regular water yet untapped. The potential is being wasted. I felt excited, supported, encouraged and inspired by the people I met in North Queensland, but I also felt worried and disappointed because of the atrocious state and federal governments that are cruelling that area. My needs in the people were met entirely: commitment, competence, dedication. But that was matched, sadly, on the other side of the scale by the inability of the state and federal governments to meet their needs for support and good governance.

We went to look firstly at the Bradfield Scheme, to do our due diligence. We’ve done it at the Murray-Darling Basin; now we’ve done it in the Flinders. The Bradfield Scheme is a visionary scheme to turn the waters that are flowing to the east and being wasted to the west and into the Thomson. We wanted to look at the Murray-Darling Basin catchment, which we have, and also at the Flinders, and this was a chance to see the Bradfield Scheme source and then to go across the Flinders. What we saw flying up the coast was naturally wet area in the tropics, the coast, Ingham and Tully. We then swung west over the Tully midstream and all the way down the Burdekin River to the Burdekin Falls Dam. We then turned west and went back across the Flinders catchment area, through Charters Towers, Hughenden, Richmond, Julia Creek, Cloncurry. We touched down in Cloncurry to fuel and then went north to Normanton, where there are huge vast plains, and then back south-west to Townsville where we started.

We then spent a week driving on the ground, listening to people, getting the lay of the land and the lay of the people. What impressed us were the locals with vision, real vision, complemented by their energy, their knowledge, their competence and their practicality. It was very inspiring, as I’ve already said. And there was plenty of water. They all said: ‘We don’t need the Bradfield Scheme water here. Let it go to the Thomson, as the original visionary plan from Bradfield suggested.’

In particular, I was impressed with the Richmond council; John Wharton, who is I think Queensland’s longest serving mayor—25 years if my memory is correct; and his very young but very competent CEO, Peter Bennett. They have a plan and a project that the locals are onboard with, called the Richmond agricultural project. It’s very simple: no dams, just divert water to 8,000 hectares of irrigable and rich, fertile soil. With agricultural production comes people and with people come services. Instead of Richmond bobbing around at 900 people, we can get it back up to 3,000, maybe even 8,000, people. It could be a really vibrant area in the north.

We also visited Hughenden, where the same recipe is being followed: water captured not in a dam but in weirs and diverted into storage areas or underground water. We saw Jane McNamara leading her team there; and Daryl Buckingham, who’s had experience in the Murray-Darling Basin and who’s transferring it to the north. We also visited HIPCo, Hughenden Irrigation Project Corporation, with Shane McCarthy. The council sponsored projects there, as I said, follow the same recipe.

We then went to Julia Creek on the ground, and we went to Etta Plains where we saw a very dynamic young Lucas Findley from Findley farms escaping the Murray-Darling Basin and the devastation of the regulations, the bureaucracy and the poor governance in the south. And we saw something fresh.

I could go on, but time will catch me here. What they’re all waiting for is good governance, which the state government and the federal government are not providing. The state government won’t allocate water allocations. They can’t do anything without that.

Ironically, the state government talks about capturing carbon dioxide, which the evidence shows is not necessary, but crops absorb carbon dioxide, and dams create crops that will absorb carbon dioxide. If they were fair dinkum, they’d do it. Ironically, the challenges up north are land tenure, water and energy. While they’re looking for it up north and have it in abundance, they can’t use it, because the same policies are destroying governance in the south.

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Industrial Relations Omnibus Explainer

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The Government’s IR omnibus was gutted last week before it passed the Senate. I was disappointed to see that the wage theft and enforcement measures were not passed. The insertion of a detailed definition of casual worker is good for certainty.

The inclusion of a right to get conversion from a casual position to a permanent position was also a welcome addition. Industrial Relations must return to the fundamental relationship between the employer and employee. The complexity of the Fair Work Act is the cause of many of our problems in IR. It must be simplified if we are going to have a productive country.

Transcript

Last Thursday’s industrial relations changes are a win for employees and for employers. I was disappointed though to not see more, especially the wage theft and enforcement measures in Schedule 5. I’ve been very vocal and active working for casual miners and workers, and want to share what last Thursday’s changes mean.

Firstly though, the government agreed to my demand for a comprehensive review into the employment of casuals in the Hunter Valley. The government committed to the Fair Work Ombudsman doing a thorough review. Secondly, after almost two years supporting injured casual coal miners, it’s time to look for a broad and complete solution.

I invite the key stakeholders to join me at a round-table to discuss solutions for the problems that I have identified facing many workers in the Hunter and throughout Australia. I will be inviting key stakeholders including unions, employer groups, and government to come together to work cooperatively and then report back on the results.

It’s time the facts came out and are addressed. Thirdly, the IR Club, class-action lawyers, and political parties with vested interests have driven a dishonest misinformation campaign protecting their easy profits and their power over workers.

So now, here are the industrial relations changes and what they mean:

Casual workers now have a pathway for conversion to secure permanent work. There are 2.5 million casuals in Australia. In some industries casuals want to stay as casuals for the loading or for the lifestyle. 830,000 casuals are employed in small business, our country’s largest employer and largest provider of jobs.

Most awards already include casuals. The Black Coal Mining Industry Award though, did not have provision for casuals on production, and only in staff jobs and the unions refused to fix that. Despite that prohibition on casuals, the Hunter Valley CFMEU negotiated and signed enterprise agreements that allowed abuse of casuals.

It did that without casual conversion and that had locked many miners into being casuals forever. Some enterprise agreements that the CFMEU had agreed to were for substantially lower pay rates than mine owner enterprise agreements. I tried many ways to overcome this, yet once I realised that union bosses had signed these enterprise agreements with lower pay, I knew that the workers were then legally bound by that deal.

It’s important to know that some workers value casual employment as a way of getting into the coal industry or as a way of getting more money quickly and then leaving the industry. Workers and employers have a definition of casual employment now that provides clarity to protect all businesses, small and large, and gives workers a fair go.

The definition is complex yet detailed and comprehensive. We negotiated a 12-month review of the new law to identify and rectify any unintended consequences, it’s one of our amendments to protect workers. Employers will be protected from paying twice for casual workers’ entitlements as that could have driven businesses, especially small businesses, insolvent.

And workers can still get their entitlements, and will get their entitlements. Permanent workers will get their entitlements while casuals will continue to be paid a casual loading in lieu of the entitlement, it just means people won’t be paid twice.

This protects small business from double-dipping where workers are paid a casual loading in lieu of entitlements, and then paid for those same entitlements in addition. Now following my commitments and my comments opposing double-dipping, I should have been no surprise that I voted for this Offset clause.

The class-action lawyers and some union bosses who profit from signing the abusive enterprise agreements and then taking employers to court are worried about the changes. Employees in small businesses will have the option to ask for conversion to permanent instead of adding to busy small business employers’ paperwork having to track people.

This will ease small business red tape, and that’s an amendment we added. Preserving all workers’ entitlements and rights means that workers will still be able to file claims for wage theft or to vary enterprise agreements made incorrectly, we made sure of that. Now some enterprise agreements were for substantially lower pay rates than mine owner enterprise agreements on the same site.

Again, it’s the union bosses that signed those agreements and made them law, we can’t do anything about them. Workers have greater flexibility now in seeking to convert to permanent work when it suits them, while the many who want to stay casual can now have that option too.

Having worked at the underground coalface for three years, I proudly admit to having a soft spot for miners. Yet while taking care of miners, I have a responsibility as a national Senator to our whole country, including small business, Australia’s largest employer. Out of the hundreds of awards in place across Australia, only 12 don’t have clauses for casuals.

This law now covers all awards, including coal mining and small business, and miners now have a casual conversion option at last. Though we are also asking the Fair Work Commission to ensure that the awards align with the legislation. When this legislation was first introduced into parliament last year, we immediately wrote to more than 80 stakeholder groups, and invited feedback.

The CFMEU construction division said it was the only invitation they received from a politician. In total, we listened to around 100 groups, some more than once, including the ACTU who had three meetings with me. The big problem for casual coal miners were the cracks they fell through because union bosses were happy to sign agreements knowing there was no definition for a casual coal production worker, and this disadvantaged casual coal miners.

The union didn’t care about that for years. The lack of a definition of casual coal mine worker that the union bosses, the Fair Work Commission, and the Fair Work Ombudsman, and the Government ignored for years until now has caused huge problems for workers. Now we have a definition, and this should only be better for workers.

Groups representing small business as well as individual business owners have been very positive about the changes that One Nation advocated for economic recovery.

These include: the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia, COSBOA,

the Small Business Association of Australia,

the Australian Retailers Association,

the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman,

the Australian Hotels Association, taking care of pubs,

the Australian Industry Group,

the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry,

and the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Opponents of these reforms have been treated harshly by employers and employees alike. For example, the ACTU reportedly copped it from small business employees. Simply saying it’s bad for workers, it’s not enough to describe this legislation, that’s nonsense.

Some workers are taking time to understand the changes, yet small business employees and employers have been quick to see the benefits. The main negatives we faced have been from class-action lawyers and the Industrial Relations Club, so we must be doing something right for workers.

The negotiation process has confirmed some core truths: Firstly, the Fair Work Act is the real culprit. It’s six bloody inches thick. How can any worker or small business know their entitlements, rights, and protections? They can’t. And that’s why workers have lost entitlements and unions have lost members.

The Fair Work Act is the root cause of the complexity and problems, and we must do something about that. And we had success during negotiations with unions and employer groups agreeing to my invitation to them to discuss what employers and employees need in order to restore Australia’s productive capacity, and to give workers a fair go.

The Rudd-Gillard-Shorten Fair Work Act has led to a drop in union membership and a deterioration of management and executives right across our country. People are going around the laws. Workers and employers are both losing and hurting. Employers could not afford the complex system or the cost, and nor can the workers.

We need to restore the primary workplace relationship between employees and employers to make work safer and more satisfying for our workers and employers, and make it more productive for our country’s future.

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Protecting scientists like Peter Ridd: Academic Freedom is essential to University

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Too often, we are seeing ideas silenced and censored at our universities. University is a place where the exchange of conflicting and opposing ideas should thrive and be encouraged. Thanks to One Nation lobbying, this bill ensures that the definition of academic freedom to do that is put into law.

We only need to look at examples such as Peter Ridd to see why we need to protect academic freedom. He describes his experience of standing for academic freedom against that university as feeling ‘hunted’.

Peter’s so-called crime was to question the quality assurance of research outcomes related to reef science. But it is his duty, as a scientist, to question, to be rigorous and to protect the integrity of science. Every scientist’s first duty is to be a sceptic and to challenge what he or she is being told.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to start my contribution to the debate on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2020 with the statement that central to scientific endeavour is an environment that gives permission for the work of talented people to challenge the status quo, to develop ideas and to deepen our knowledge and understanding. This work demands a creative and innovative spirit, courage and objectivity, and a deep respect for the scientific method. Universities had, and should once again have, a central role to play in advancing thought and finding better ways of doing things. Therefore, their scientific staff must work in an environment that supports academic freedom. The Dalai Lama said:

In order to exercise creativity, freedom of thought is essential.

One Nation introduced these concepts and requested action from the then education minister, Dan Tehan, and I commend Senator Stoker for commenting that the government supports this initiative. Mr Tehan took these concepts from One Nation, particularly from Senator Hanson. He made sure that the now education minister, his replacement, Minister Tudge, continues to champion true freedom of speech in academia.

Therefore, One Nation wholeheartedly supports the new and expanded definition of academic freedom and hopes that no-one will ever need to endure what Professor Peter Ridd is still going through to fight for these fundamental academic freedoms. Professor Ridd was an employee of James Cook University for nearly 30 years. He describes his experience of standing for academic freedom against that university as feeling ‘hunted’. Peter’s so-called crime was to question the quality assurance of research outcomes related to reef science. But it is his duty, as a scientist, to question, to be rigorous and to protect the integrity of science. Every scientist’s first duty is to be a sceptic and to challenge what he or she is being told.

Quality assurance is a concept that many corporate organisations are familiar with. They do not invest money, time, energy and effort without that quality assurance. Yet it seems that some of our universities have strayed away from the discipline of the scientific method so much that they don’t feel the need to justify research outcomes or to deal with challenges to quality and assurance. Considering that billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money is funnelled into policy development based on so-called research, it is not negotiable that these research outcomes must be above reproach. When we consider that the opportunity costs and the consequent costs for some policy based on so-called science are in the trillions of dollars for our whole nation, it is essential that science is challenged.

I have listened firsthand to many canefarmers and industry bodies from North Queensland and Central Queensland who attended the hearings into water quality in the Great Barrier Reef. These farmers and community members are exasperated, with one saying:

They trusted reef scientists to get the science right, … that trust has been destroyed. Instead cane farmers are being publicly demonised …

They also said that the reef regulations reflect a systematic abuse of science, based on assumptions and not evidence.

Communities are being gutted. Apart from the destruction of so many livelihoods, think of the cost to our society, to Queensland, to communities and to our nation when policies are knowingly based on poor science—which, by definition, is not science. Energy policies, climate policies and renewable energy policies based on so-called science are costing $13 billion in addition to the normal costs of electricity. That’s an average of $1,300 per household across Australia in addition to the cost of electricity. For every so-called green job created, 2.2 jobs in the real economy are destroyed. The Murray-Darling Basin act—the Water Act 2007—is now destroying communities across the Murray-Darling Basin, our No. 1 food bowl, and it’s based on rubbish that contradicts the empirical evidence.

Any scientist worth their professional reputation should have the freedom to stand against poor scientific outcomes and the lack of appropriate peer reviewing. I’ll go beyond that: it is the duty of every scientist to do so. The professional integrity of scientists should compel them to defend spending billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on policies that do not have a robust scientific basis and which are destroying people’s livelihoods.

Professor Peter Ridd has over 100 scientific publications and he has co-invented a worthy list of instrumentation, including an instrument for monitoring the effect of sediment on the reef, which is technology now used around the world; a water current meter, which is marketed by James Cook University worldwide; an optical system for measuring pipeware, which is used in mines Australia wide; and a system for managing agricultural weeds, which is marketed through AutoWeed. This is an impressive list of achievements. After three decades of work, such a scientist ought to be held in high esteem. If a scientist of this academic calibre and such commercial achievements and practical nous can still feel hunted down by a university for challenging the quality of research results in other departments—and hunted to his emotional and financial detriment—how the hell can we ever expect our upcoming brilliant minds, with far fewer runs on the board, to ever have the courage to do the same? We can’t. The simple answer is that these newcomers will not challenge, because they do not have the safety of freedom of speech and can’t risk their careers crashing and burning before they’ve started. Instead, these upcoming brilliant minds will fall into line and continue to expand the increasing pool of homogenous groupthink. And there is the death of creativity and the narrowing of truly great solutions to tomorrow’s problems.

In recent decades we’ve seen our society, our country, being decimated by policy driven science—and that is not science. It’s costing us trillions. We need to return to science driven policy—policy that is driven by science, true science that passes quality assurance tests and questions from sceptics. Professor Ridd has become the modern-day Galileo, for daring to challenge the common myth that farming methods in the Great Barrier Reef catchment areas are damaging the reef. Professor Ridd’s research shows that commonly held myth to be incorrect, to be a lie. James Cook University didn’t like it, maybe because there is no doubt, in their view, that there would be a gaping hole in James Cook University’s funding for Great Barrier Reef research if water quality was indeed just fine, as Professor Peter Ridd’s work and the work of others confirms and suggests.

I acknowledge that universities are required to enshrine in their policy statement clear messages around freedom of speech and academic freedom. While we cannot intrude upon the enterprise agreements between universities and their employees, the amendment I will put forward today in the committee stage requests that higher education providers must take reasonable steps to ensure that enterprise agreements include provisions to uphold the freedom of speech and academic freedom. This commitment to academic freedom needs, wherever possible, to move beyond a policy statement that sits on the shelf and to enter the enterprise agreements, since that is where the cultural change will be brought about.

We cannot afford to be timid and ordinary when it comes to scientific endeavours. One Nation supports this bill, because we must give our scientific staff the academic freedoms they need to be at their creative best. Universities, businesses and governments all need to be prepared to update their outdated views when our brilliant minds in academia show us a better way. I’ll finish with the words of the late Steve Jobs, talking about his company Apple, one of the leaders in the world in new technology:

It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.

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Legalise Vaping in Australia

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It is currently illegal to purchase any e-liquids or e-cigarettes containing nicotine in Australia. It shouldn’t be. Thousands of pages of science and data support the effectiveness of e-cigarettes as an aid to quit smoking. Public health England has found the available evidence suggests that e-cigs are likely to be considerably less harmful than cigarettes. I support e-cigarettes being available given the evidence that is available.

Transcript

One Nation opposes this motion. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I’ll explain why. Vapes and e-cigarettes are as safe as the vaping solution’s contents. E-cigs should be available in Australia using the established Therapeutic Goods Administration procedure for schedule 3 pharmacy-only medications. This would allow local producers to submit their products to the TGA for testing and approval. Those approved devices and solutions would then be made using good manufacturing process right here in Australia. This would offer complete assurance to Australian consumers that the product they’re using is safe. The approval process is quick and cheap, as compared to potential sales revenue. Distribution should be limited to pharmacists.

Our policy follows a review of both academic research and empirical data from around the world. Thousands of pages of science and data support the effectiveness of e-cigarettes as an aid to quit smoking. Public health England has found the available evidence suggests that e-cigs are likely to be considerably less harmful than cigarettes. A peer-reviewed article published in the latest edition of the International Journal of Drug Policy found there was no support for the argument that vaping is a gateway to smoking, no support. The article produced empirical evidence that clearly shows e-cigarettes have accompanied a reduction in smoking rates in countries where quit rates had previously stagnated.

What is wrong with paying attention to the science and the reality? It’s debates like this debate around e-cigarettes and vaping that leads One Nation to call for an office of scientific integrity. These matters are far too important to be decided by a selective quoting of reports so as to support any pre-conceived position. Good government requires the truth—not duelling reports, not fear, not ideology, not vested interests, not uninformed opinion, not emotions—facts and data. An office of scientific integrity and quality assurance would allow independent scientists and advocates to test these important issues and from that process the truth would have the best chance of emerging.

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How to restore Australia’s productive capacity

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Australia used to have one of the highest household incomes in the world. What has happened since then?

Decades of weak leadership under Liberal and Labor governments, and it doesn’t look like it will get better anytime soon.

Transcript

The government at the moment is proposing industrial relations reform. It is tinkering. That’s all it is. What I want to do is discuss the bigger picture that we need to consider. First, let’s look at the decline of our country. Look at the decline since 1944, with the stealing of property rights from 1996 onwards and with the destruction of the electricity sector, the guts of our manufacturing sector and our agriculture sector. And yet, at a time when other countries have been reducing their electricity prices, Australian electricity prices have doubled or even tripled. We’ve got a taxation system that’s counterproductive, and there’s the neglect of our water infrastructure. Overregulation is decimating our manufacturing sector and, in fact, all sectors, especially small business—our biggest employers. Now let’s look at the recent devastation from the COVID restrictions, or rather government restrictions imposed as a result of COVID. They’re capricious, unsafe and devastating on small business and employees. If you look at Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia, COVID is managing us. Pretty soon JobKeeper ends—in fact, it ends at the end of next month—and then what will happen?

Let’s come back to what we need. We will work with the government to fix a bad bill—that is, its latest proposal. We will work with them in an attempt to do that. The three aims guiding us are: protecting honest workers, protecting small business and restoring Australia’s productive capacity. But not just to recover back to where we were last February before the COVID restrictions from government but to recover back to where we were when we were at the top of the world. We were literally number one for per capita gross domestic product. If I had a wish list, these are the things that would be on it—at least some of them.

I would want an inquiry into local government corruption in Queensland. Right across the state the waste of federal funding runs into the billions, with the fraud, the extortion, the corruption, the threats and the intimidation. We want to end that.

I would wish for a Commonwealth integrity commission, especially now that, during the last week, we’ve learnt what happened in this building. We need a proper corruption-ending system in this parliament and in this building. We need to restore integrity. We also need proper industrial relations reform—not the tinkering, the increased complexity nor the abandonment of small business. We need proper reform that looks after all employers and employees. We need proper reform that enables, first of all, employers and employees to restore their primary relationship without the IR club dipping into their pockets and putting handcuffs on them. We need to restore primary workplace relationships. We need to make it easier for people to work. We need to remove the complexity and remove the lawyers and the vultures.

We need to reform taxation. We need proper taxation reform—not tinkering and not adding more complexity to tax. We need to make it simpler for companies and small businesses to employ people. We need to make it easier for employees, honest workers, to keep more of their pay for their families.

We need reform of the family law system. We need reform of water. We need to do much, much better with our water. We need to return environmental water management to the states. We need to introduce a water register—it’s 14 years overdue. We need to introduce a weirs-for-life program and turn around drains in the south-east. We have a comprehensive plan we’re going to release soon about what we would do with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and water right across the country.

We need to restore farmers’ property rights that were stolen in 1996 by the John Howard-John Anderson government. We need to make sure we have lower energy prices. We need to restore coal-fired power stations in this country—build a new one at Collinsville and build a new one in the Hunter Valley. We need to address the PFAS problems that are gutting so many areas. We need to look at infrastructure—the national rail circuit, Inland Rail, the Bradfield Scheme—and do it properly. Above all, we need a government with vision that provides real leadership, not tinkering. Get back to basics.

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GREENS LAUNCH ATTACK ON… Trucks?

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Electric vehicles might be okay for suburb hopping in big cities, but I doubt there is a farm in Australia that would be able to run without any petrol or diesel. The Greens’ calls to ‘rapidly transition to electric vehicles‘ for their net zero economy by 2035 shows they have no clue of the energy requirements in transport, industry and agriculture.

Transcript

Let’s have a bit of fun with some facts. Neither H2O, water, nor CO2, carbon dioxide, is a pollutant. Neither water nor carbon dioxide is a pollutant. The two products from burning hydrocarbon fuels—coal, oil, natural gas—are water and carbon dioxide. We have carbon in every cell of our bodies. The term ‘organic’ refers to something that contains carbon. Earth: the thing that makes our planet so livable, the thing that makes our planet so unique, is the fact that we have more carbon concentrated on our planet than is the case across the universe.

Carbon is essential for life, but the Greens don’t understand that carbon is not carbon dioxide. They tell us that we need to cut our carbon dioxide from the use of coal, oil and natural gas, but then they talk about carbon. Carbon dioxide is a gas. Carbon is a solid in every cell of your body.

So let’s deal with some facts. Let’s have a bit of fun. Carbon dioxide is just 0.04 per cent of Earth’s air. That is 4/100ths of a per cent. Carbon dioxide is scientifically classified as a trace gas, because there’s so little of it. There’s barely a trace of it. Now, some people are going to say, ‘Oh, but cyanide can kill you with just a trace.’ That’s true. That’s a chemical effect. But the claimed effect of carbon dioxide from the Greens of global warming, climate catastrophe and the greatest existential threat that we now face is a physical effect. A trace gas has no physical effect that can be recorded, as I’ll show you in a minute.

Next point: carbon dioxide is non-toxic and not noxious. It’s highly beneficial to and essential for all plants on this planet. Everything green that’s natural relies upon carbon dioxide, and it benefits when carbon dioxide levels are far higher than now. Carbon dioxide is colourless, odourless and tasteless. Nature produces—and this is from the United Nations climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—97 per cent of the carbon dioxide produced annually on our planet. That means that nature produces 32 times more than the entire human production of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide does not discolour the air. Carbon dioxide does not impair the quality of water or soil. None of what I’m talking about is new. I’ve compiled it, but none of it’s new. Carbon dioxide does not create light, create heat, create noise or create radioactivity. It doesn’t distort our senses. It does not degrade the environment, nor impair its usefulness, nor render our environment offensive.

Carbon dioxide doesn’t harm ecosystems and, in fact, is essential for all ecosystems. Carbon dioxide does not harm plants and animals, nor humans. In fact, we put it in our kids’ soft drink. We put it in our champagne. We put it in our beer. We put it in soda water—we carbonate it by putting carbon dioxide in there. It’s essential for all plants and animals. Carbon dioxide does not cause discomfort, instability, wooziness or disorders of any kind. It does not accumulate. It does not upset nature’s balance. It’s essential for nature and life on this planet. It remains in the air for only a short time before nature cycles it into plants, animal tissue, the oceans and natural accumulations. It does not contaminate, apart from nature’s extremely high and concentrated volumes of carbon dioxide from some volcanos and even then it’s only locally and briefly under rare natural conditions when in concentrations and amounts are far higher than anything humans can produce.

Carbon dioxide is not a foreign substance. In the past, on this planet, under the current atmosphere, there have been times when carbon dioxide levels were 130 times higher than the concentration in the earth today. In fact, in the last 200 years, scientists have measured carbon dioxide levels up to 40 per cent higher than they are today. But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, from the UN ignores those measurements, which were taken, in some cases, by Nobel Prize winners—science prize winners. All they do instead is take one reading from one place over the last 70 years.

As you can see from the list I’ve just read, carbon dioxide is not pollution. The Greens are talking about doing an inquiry into carbon, yet they say it’s the carbon dioxide that’s causing this climate change that’s supposedly going on. Let’s look at something else then, as carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

Let’s have a look at this climate change crisis that the Greens are talking about. I’m unique in this Senate for holding the CSIRO accountable. All of the other senators have not done their jobs. Former Senator Ian Macdonald, from the Senate in 2016, pointed that out to me. He pointed out that no-one in this parliament ever debated the science until I arrived. We still haven’t had the debate, because I’ve challenged the Greens and they have gone without responding to my challenge for a debate more than 125 days. Senator Waters has gone more than 10¼ years without responding to my challenge for a debate. They won’t debate me, because they haven’t got the science. Let’s listen to the people that the Greens rely on for their science.

I have cross-examined the CSIRO. I’ve had three presentations and several sessions at Senate estimates. In their first presentation under my cross-examination the CSIRO admitted that they had never said that carbon dioxide from human activity is a threat or a danger. Never. That means we don’t need any of these policies. Let’s go to the next session we had with the CSIRO. Each of these sessions were 2½ to three hours long. The CSIRO said that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented—that’s referring to the blip that ended back in 1995. We have had stasis of temperatures since then—no warming in the last 26 years. The current temperatures are not unprecedented.

My third point is that the CSIRO admitted that they and other bodies around the world rely, for their predictions, on unvalidated, erroneous computer models. That says two things. Firstly, the models are wrong. They’re erroneous and invalidated, yet they’re using them to make projections. Secondly, it confirms they don’t have the evidence. If they had the evidence, they would have presented it. Instead, they’ve come up with some lame models, which have already failed.

The fourth thing that I will mention about the so-called science is that, when they failed to provide me with the empirical evidence proving that carbon dioxide from human activity affects the climate and needs to be cut, I gave them a very simple test. I asked them to show me anything unprecedented in the earth’s climate in the last 10,000 years. They failed that. I then gave them the absolutely simplest goal of providing me with empirical scientific evidence showing that there has been a statistically significant change to any factor in earth’s climate. They failed that. They can’t even point to a change in climate, because we all know that climate varies quite naturally, most of it cyclically, but sometimes a combination of cycles makes it look like it’s highly random. That’s the point. Not only that, there are scientists whom I’ve communicated with directly, including members who are lead authors for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, such as Dr John Christy. He was a lead author until he left the United Nations climate body because of the corruption. He was disgusted and sickened by it. These and many other scientists have confirmed to me that nowhere in the world has anyone ever presented any empirical scientific evidence showing that carbon dioxide from human activity affects climate and needs to be cut—not NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, not the UK Met Office, not the Bureau of Meteorology, not the CSIRO, not any university, not any academic, not any science paper and not any journal. Check for yourself and tell me if I’m wrong.

The third thing I want to say is that the Greens lunatic policies are not based on science. You’ll notice that Senator Rice, in her comments, never once mentioned any proof of causation. Instead, as substitutes for science, they use emotion, stories, fantasies, dreams and promises. That’s all they have. Policy needs to be based on specific, quantified cause and effect—this much carbon dioxide is growing because of humans, and this much is the impact. That has never been presented anywhere in the world. The CSIRO’s failed three times with me, and it has never been done by anyone. Once we have that measured effect, which no-one has produced so far, then and only then can we shape a policy. Then and only then can we measure the progress along the road of implementing that policy. Without that, it’s fundamentally flawed. Then, if we had the connection, specified and quantified, we can cost it to see the benefits of Senator Rice’s dreams and fantasies versus the impact on our human species of this climate madness that people are going on with. As a result of this madness, both the Liberal-National government and the Labor Party have driven our electricity prices from being the lowest in the world to the highest in the world, all on unicorn farts and rainbows, and nothing else—nothing substantial; claims of carbon pollution.

Then we have this telling factor. The No. 1 factor that drove the rapid improvement in human’s standard of living over the last 170 years was the relentless decrease in the price of energy from 1850 until the mid-nineties. Since then, in Australia, we have gone the other way. We’ve started to increase prices. We’ve now doubled and tripled prices for electricity in some areas and nothing has changed. Coal-fired power stations have become more efficient. Yet we have an increase in price because of the artificial regulations and the artificial impediments on the most productive and efficient source of electricity generation and the subsidies for the dreams of solar and wind, which are inherently high and will never catch up with coal, hydro or nuclear.

We had a relentless decrease in the price of electricity over 170 years until 25 years ago. That relentless decrease in the price of electricity and energy meant an increase in productivity and an increase in wealth. That’s what has led to humans now living lives that are longer, safer, easier, more comfortable and more healthy and having far more choices than anyone could ever have imagined. This Greens lunacy, calling carbon dioxide a ‘carbon’—calling a gas a solid—is driving a decarbonisation that is, in effect, deindustrialisation. Look around us. What will disappear is all the material benefits we’ve had over the last 150 years.

Opinion and emotion are not science. There is no need to have this reference to the committee, because there is no science underpinning the Greens’ call for this reference. We need to get back to the facts, get back to straight logic, stop dreaming, think about the many people who benefit from the wonderful hydrocarbon fuels—natural gas, coal and oil—and look after the people of this planet.

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One Nation doing more for workers than Labor

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Workers should be concerned that Labor and some union bosses have abandoned them. Casual workers are being abused and the needs of small business—Australia’s largest employer of workers—have been all but ignored by everyone except One Nation.

Transcript

In serving the people of Queensland and Australia, I note that Labor is fixated on the problems not the solution. The facts are that the government listened to One Nation’s legitimate concerns for employers and employees and it booted out the BOOT. One Nation achieved that. One Nation is doing more for Western Australian workers and employers than Labor. That is, in part, thanks to our Western Australian team, Robin Scott, an ex-Freo sparky who works hard for the people of the mining and pastoral region in WA, and Colin Tincknell, the One Nation WA state leader who proudly represents the South West region. Workers should be concerned that Labor and some union bosses have abandoned them. Casual workers are being abused and the needs of small business—Australia’s largest employer of workers—have been all but ignored by everyone except One Nation.

I have stood up to put a stop to these abuses for casual workers that the unions, the Labor Party and politicians like Joel Fitzgibbon knowingly ignored for years. Recently, the CFMEU mining division agreed with me that their union has ignored casuals for many years. I applaud that person in the CFMEU for having the courage to do that, and lawyers for the ETU and CFMEU confirmed that, in their opinion—and I agree with them—the IR system needs to be free from lawyers. For Labor to say that it’s going to be easier for employers to cut wages and conditions is not enough. Labor need to step up and show everyday Australians what Australia’s IR problems are and what they would do better. Labor, like Joel Fitzgibbon, are all talk and no action.

One Nation wants genuine industrial relations reform for the benefit of employees and employers, especially for small business and their employees, and the best way to do that is to listen and contribute to a better system. We have been listening widely and hearing the concerns from industry, union bosses, employer and employee groups, welfare groups, casual and injured workers, and small business. I care and I will fight to protect workers’ legal and moral entitlements, just as I am doing in Queensland and I am doing in the Hunter Valley, even though it is not in my state. One Nation stands for the workers that Labor and Joel Fitzgibbon continue to ignore.

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Corruption in Local Government must be investigated

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The government voted down my inquiry into local government corruption despite concerning evidence being presented to them.

Recent royal commissions into aged care, institutional abuse and banking practices only came about after much opposition. Look how much evidence surfaced when people were able to come forward to tell their stories. This inquiry is urgently needed.

Original Inquiry: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/government-dodges-corruption-investigation/

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I wish to further discuss the corruption that continues in Queensland local government. This corruption is ripping off hundreds of millions of dollars of Commonwealth and state taxpayers’ money. These moneys are being redirected, not spent on their intended purposes, not spent at all or corruptly provided to persons in exchange for overvalued materials and services. Emergency Management Australia, EMA, administers the National Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements, the NDRRA, and the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, the DRFA, funding on behalf of the Australian government. Seventy-five per cent of the funds are from the Australian government, and the remainder is reimbursed by the Queensland state government. The Queensland Reconstruction Authority, QRA, and Emergency Management Queensland, EMQ, coordinate disaster funding in Queensland. Queensland councils received $5.4 billion in NDRRA funds from 2011 to 2019. This may be a billion-dollar scandal.

Recent royal commissions into aged care, institutional abuse and banking practices only came about after much opposition. Look how much evidence surfaced when people were able to come forward to tell their stories. This inquiry is urgently needed. The councils and the Local Government Association of Queensland facilitate a system where contractors make huge profits from road-building by fraudulently claiming payments and stripping 40 to 60 per cent out of NDRRA funding as private profits. These practices are widespread across Queensland. At the heart of this local government corruption has been the Local Government Association of Queensland, the LGAQ, a private company that has a special relationship with the Queensland government and is not obliged to go to tender when contracting with councils.

This lack of transparency breeds corruption. What makes the LGAQ unique is the special statutory provisions that make the LGAQ virtually unaccountable for their actions. Under rule 234 of the Local Government Regulation 2012 a council is exempt from calling contracts to tender or calling quotes if the contract is entered into under an LGA arrangement. Can you imagine that? This includes a contract made with the LGAQ. Every contract the LGAQ enters involves a substantial fee being paid to the LGAQ. I will say that again. Every contract the LGAQ enters involves a substantial fee being paid to the LGAQ. It is classic cartel arrangement prohibited in any other state except Queensland, where it is legalised by rule 234.

Some of this information has been disclosed in the Queensland state parliament and directly to the CCC, which inexplicably declined to investigate. Many complaints to the CCC about a council are sent back to the council to investigate itself; actual CCC investigation is rare. A research paper prepared by Professor Timothy Prenzler into the complaints sent to the CCC found that less than two per cent of complaints were investigated and the other 98 per cent largely disappeared. Why?

After I alerted the Senate that I wished to put a motion to support a Senate select committee inquiry into this corruption, the LGAQ sent representatives to Canberra to try to stop the inquiry. Some mayors contacted the office of the local government minister, Mr Coulton, objecting to the inquiry. What are they afraid of? What do these mayors all have to hide? What do they think an inquiry will reveal? Is this an admission of guilt? A council with nothing to hide would welcome an opportunity to show how well it uses public money. Yet, when the motion was put to the vote, the government, Labor and the Greens voted against this anticorruption motion.

This was quite stunning. The government wishes to introduce an integrity bill, yet voted against an anti-integrity motion. The Greens believe the lies that complaints brought to the CCC had been investigated and found to be without substance. This is false. Key witnesses were never contacted, let alone questioned. Key locations were never inspected or visited. How could the Greens say this constituted an investigation? Crossbench senators Jacqui Lambie and Rex Patrick know I’m right and supported my motion. I thank these senators for their integrity. The mechanics of the corrupt practices are known and have been brought to the attention of the authorities. I call on the Senate to do the right thing. I will continue exposing this corruption and continue to seek a Senate select committee to protect taxpayers’ money and to restore integrity.

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Liberal-Nationals have abandoned reliable energy

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The Energy Minister must be asleep at the wheel if he hasn’t even looked at the States’ plans to wipe out reliable coal fired power with unreliable renewables. The WA Liberal-National’s plan is to build 4,500 megawatts of wind and solar to replace the 1,050 megawatts of base-load power that coal provides. This puts the unreliables at a disgustingly low deliverability of just 23 per cent of rated capacity.

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Labor has no solutions for IR problems

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Labor has no claim to the high ground on industrial relations, they have abandoned the working class. A graph of our median and average wages over time is untroubled by changes in government.

Liberal, National, Labor or Greens, it makes no difference; workers just keep going backwards. Only One Nation has a vision for the future that returns our productive capacity, manufacturing and better wages for Australians.

Transcript

This motion is one of the least self-aware that I’ve seen out of the Labor Party. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I note that the median wage has not increased in real terms over the last 30 years after adjusting for dramatic increases in the cost of housing, health care and education, yet Australia’s gross domestic product per capita has increased over that period from $13,600 to $65,400 in real terms—as are all my figures today. Gross domestic product is up by a factor of five, and the wages of everyday Australians have not increased. Where’s the money gone? Average wages for Australians at the upper end of the scale have seen an increase of 50 per cent, and at the very top end the increase is over 100 per cent. A graph of our median and average wages over time is untroubled by changes in government. Liberal, National, Labor or Greens, it makes no difference; workers just keep going backwards.

Wages as a share of GDP have fallen from $116 billion to $96 billion over 30 years. The share of our gross domestic product being paid to Australian workers is at an all-time low yet corporate profits have grown from $20 billion to $120 billion—six times. Globalist economics has crushed the wages of everyday Australians and deposited the spoils from an expanding economy into the pockets of the big end of town in salaries, bonuses and dividends. Globalist free trade agreements have seen more than one million high-paid, skilled manufacturing and heavy industry jobs moved overseas. Labor is a big fan of globalism—voting in favour of every one of these free trade agreements.

Recently the Senate voted for a UN funding bill to direct money into funding economic development in countries with which we have a free trade agreement. This facilitates increases in their productive capacity to take yet more Australian jobs. One Nation was the only party to oppose the funding bill. The Labor Party voted in favour—in favour of losing yet more jobs overseas.

COVID restrictions have had a role to play as well. The government’s COVID restrictions measures have moved consumer spending away from small businesses who employ everyday Australians to corporate retailers who pay minimum wage. Online growth has gone to Amazon, owned by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos. Social media are calling the COVID restrictions on businesses ‘a war on capitalism’; it is no such thing. In corporate Australia, the biggest crony capitalists have record sales, record profits and have paid higher dividends and bonuses. As a result of government coronavirus restrictions and measures, the world’s 400 richest people have increased their wealth by $1 trillion. Much of this new wealth is money that was once spent in local communities—in hardware stores, community supermarkets, butchers and grocers. This was money that held up real wages paid by local businesses to their loyal staff. Now those businesses have been forced to close or to sack workers. So the real outcome from coronavirus measures has been the largest transference of wealth from small businesses to foreign-owned or controlled corporations in Australian history. We expect this sort of thing from the globalist Liberal Party and their sell-out sidekicks—the Nationals—yet this has been brought to you by Labor in Queensland, Labor in Western Australia and Labor in Victoria. Almost every government measure during the COVID period has been waved through the Senate by the Labor Party, working in conjunction with the Liberals and Nationals.

Labor don’t get to complain now; they should have seen this coming. The only thing that was not in this profligate spending was a permanent increase in JobSeeker. The constant pressure from One Nation in this place directly with the government across many years has today had a result. One Nation will continue to stand up for everyday Australians. The destruction of wages and entitlements for Australian workers has many other causes. At the heart of the problem is supply and demand for workers. At the same time that Australia is sending jobs overseas, we are importing workers. Over the last 30 years, Australia has added 10 million new Australians. While many of these do not go into the productive economy, the bottom line is simple: we are importing workers for jobs that have already been exported to lower-cost destinations, especially China. There are more workers than jobs and that can only have the effect of reducing wages. Labor defend Australia’s high immigration rate and suggest One Nation are racists for wanting a reduction in the rate of arrivals. The use of the word ‘racist’ means they have no argument to counter us. All One Nation are doing is standing up for everyday Australians who will never get a decent pay rise a as long as the government keeps bringing in more new arrivals than there are jobs. The Rudd Labor government and the Gillard-Rudd Labor-Greens government increased permanent migration from 160,000 in 2007 to 205,000 in 2013. Labor cannot pretend to care about workers when it was Labor that initiated the largest spike in arrivals in the last 30 years.

The other issue around stagnation in real wages is foreign temporary workers. The Senate inquiry into temporary work visas found temporary migrant workers experienced widespread wage theft and gross violations of Australian minimum work standards including: failure to pay minimum wages, long work hours and lack of health and safety training leading to workplace injuries. Temporary work visa holders are being exploited to drive down wages and conditions. Indeed Bill Shorten, as minister, set the record for temporary work visas in this country, a record that Labor still holds. I don’t hear Labor complaining about this.

This may be because their beloved free trade agreements facilitate foreign workers. The Indonesian free trade agreement section 12.9 removes labour market testing and allows additional contract workers across 400 skilled occupation. It allows for 4,000 temporary working holiday-maker visas per year, and these workers are highly exploited because they’ll be deported if they lose their jobs. Wage theft is not entirely restricted to vulnerable foreign workers, although it does account for most of the cases. The problem of falling real wages, job insecurity and wage theft, which Senator Walsh mentions in this motion, results from Labor Party policies. One Nation is accused of wanting to wind the clock back. Well, on this issue we do want to wind the clock back, back to when workers got a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. We need to start putting Australia and Australians first, back to when workers settled here, became Australian citizens and contributed to the future of our marvellous country.

Full Motion: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansards/c18a4b03-69cc-4413-9438-08e33693f884/&sid=0102

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