Hong Kong is a lesson of what happens when communism is imposed on democracy. China assured the citizens of Hong Kong they would be respected, and then promptly broke that promise. The top 10% of income earners in Hong Kong own 40 times the wealth of the bottom 10%, with income inequality worsening every year under communism. This confirms that free enterprise lifts people out of poverty, while communism puts them in it. Communism promises joy and inclusion – while delivering misery and repression.
China is improperly imprisoning freedom journalist and businessman Mr Jimmy Lai. China is taking a well-worn path of totalitarian governments seen throughout history. We must remain alert here in Australia against the actions of a government with its own totalitarian tendencies.
One Nation firmly stands for free enterprise, small government, and the primacy of the family—unlike Communist China.
Transcript
Hong Kong is a lesson in what happens when communism is imposed on democracy. China assured Hong Kong citizens that they would be respected, and then promptly broke that promise. In Hong Kong, the top 10 per cent of income earners now own 40 times the wealth of the bottom 10 per cent. Every year under communism makes income inequality in Hong Kong worse. It confirms that free enterprise lifts people out of poverty, while communism puts them in poverty. Communism promises joy and inclusion, while delivering misery and repression. Repression leads to everyday citizens having less, leading to more repression, which leads to more inequality, and on it goes.
China is improperly imprisoning freedom journalist and businessman Mr Jimmy Lai. China is taking a well-worn path of totalitarian governments across history.
Australia has cause for reflection. We’re discussing this motion in the shadow of a looming Senate legislation guillotine. In a guillotine, the government gets the numbers to do whatever it wants, and it does just that, which is how communism starts—with unchallenged power. Senate guillotines have become commonplace. They should not be. Both parties have silenced democratic debate during guillotines, although it seems that Labor is wearing out its guillotine faster than Robespierre.
Three days of hearings into the misinformation and disinformation bill heard from expert witness after expert witness, all criticising the government for introducing a ministry of truth tasked with issuing sanctions against any social media platform which resisted removal of what the ministry considered ‘misinformation’. This is how communism starts. The committee report had little in common with witness testimony. The report was nothing more than the government’s ‘truth’. The first target for the Albanese government’s ministry of truth should be the Albanese government.
I welcome calling out Chinese communist repression, and I look forward to a wider conversation on where our actions in this chamber are leading Australia.
We all know the real intent of the Digital ID agenda. The United Kingdom, with laws similar to ours, has shown alarming developments. In the last two weeks, British police have visited and advised hundreds of journalists and commentators to stop criticising the Starmer government’s policies. Some have even been arrested and imprisoned merely for expressing their opinions.
The Digital ID, misinformation laws and facial verification systems are all part of the control mechanism that facilitates government surveillance and tyranny. The mask has come off quickly. Only recently, Minister Gallagher reassured Australians that digital IDs would not be compulsory. Yet, without one, life will become impossible.
Now, there is a proposal to introduce age verification for social media. This would require every user—not just adults, as initially told to us, but also children—to have a digital ID.
Age verification has never been successfully implemented anywhere in the world. The only way it can function is through a Digital ID with facial recognition, which would require constant re-scanning of the user’s face, potentially every minute, to confirm identity. This setup would necessitate keeping the computer camera permanently on, exposing children to significant privacy risks, including hacking.
One Nation firmly believes that the best person to oversee internet use is the one present in the room with the children: their parents. We oppose intrusive government and support the primacy of the family in raising and protecting their children.
Transcript: Question Time
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Communications, Senator McAllister. During Senate estimates on 5 November, the age assurance verification trial and social media age verification proposals were examined. For those who missed it, let me see if I have this correct. The system the government is considering will require two things: firstly, a digital ID to access social media for all users and, then, to make sure nobody is using a dodgy digital ID, age verification assurance technology, which will scan the user’s face, monitor their key strokes for content and technique and calculate their age. If it finds the person might be underage, it will compare it back to the biometric data in the person’s digital ID and check their identity and date of birth. Is that an accurate, concise explanation of the system being examined?
Senator McALLISTER: No. I suppose I could sit down, but, no, that is not accurate. We are obviously engaged in an important policy reform process to protect children from some of the harms that they are exposed to on social media. I would be really surprised, Senator Roberts, if you hadn’t heard about this amongst the people that you talk to in your constituency. I think every senator in this place has had a conversation with a parent or perhaps with a teacher who was concerned about the kind of information that children are seeing online and accessing online and the inability of parents to actually engage and protect their children from some of those harms.
We want Australian parents to actually know that we’ve got their backs. That is the underlying motivation for embarking on the reform. It’s, of course, about protecting kids. We still want them to be connected. We don’t want to punish children. We don’t want to isolate them. But we do want them to operate in an environment that is safe, and that’s the reason that we have committed to bringing forward legislation for a minimum age limit for social media this fortnight. We have worked with a pretty wide range of stakeholders, and we’re very grateful for the support that we’ve received in doing this work. Obviously, the National Cabinet has taken a very strong interest in this, and first ministers in that forum have agreed that the Commonwealth will legislate a minimum age of 16.
I think one of the implications of your question and the way that you framed it was a concern around privacy, and that’s a legitimate question to ask. We will not put at risk the personal information of Australians, and the regulations will include robust privacy protections for personal information with significant penalties for platforms that breach— (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary?
I predicted during the digital ID debate that one person could sign a younger person into social media, and the only solution is keeping the device camera on permanently, which is an outrageous breach of trust and privacy. While you’re peeping into the camera feed of all social media users, hackers will have an easy hack to spy on families in their bedrooms, to learn daily routines and to work out when the home can be safely burgled. Minister, in the name of supposedly keeping children safe, are you building a surveillance apparatus for perverts and thieves?
Senator McALLISTER: No.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary?
The government’s solution still requires a camera to be permanently on. There will be continuous surveillance of the computer user in their own home by the government. If a parent has a child on their knee watching a children’s video or a cooking video on social media, will the system lock them out because the child is under 16? Minister, in your brave new world of internet regulation, do parents have any rights over their children’s lives or is the Albanese government cancelling parents?
Senator McALLISTER: Almost nothing in the set of propositions put forward by Senator Roberts in his question to me were accurate, true or based on anything that has been said publicly by the minister or anyone in the government, and I want to make that very, very clear. Our focus is, in fact, on protecting children from an environment that has not been designed to secure their safety, and the reason that we know that is we hear that all the time from the parents that speak to us.
Our interest, in fact, is in creating an environment that is supportive of parents who are trying to engage in a constructive way to deal with the information that their children are exposed to. Our interest is in supporting those parents who say, ‘We wish to do better in terms of the harms our kids are experiencing, but we don’t have the tools.’ That is the focus of our legislative— (Time expired)
Transcript: Take Note of Answers to Question Time
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Emergency Management and Minister for Cities (Senator McAllister) to a question without notice I asked today relating to age verification on social media:
We all know the real intent of the digital ID agenda. The United Kingdom has almost the same laws that we have here, and in the last two weeks the British police have visited and advised hundreds of journalists and commentators that they should stop criticising the Starmer government’s policies. Some were arrested and imprisoned for nothing more than an opinion. The digital ID, misinformation laws and facial verification laws are all part of the control mechanism that facilitates government surveillance and tyranny. The mask has come off quickly. Only recently, Minister Gallagher reassured Australians that the digital ID was not compulsory, yet, without it, life will be impossible.
The digital ID started life under the Morrison Liberal government. As recently as April, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, championed the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024, and the Liberals support social media age verification. Age verification means the government forcing the digital ID on everyone, paired with frequent facial scans from the camera on your device. That means the camera on your internet enabled device will be on permanently. One Nation opposes a world where children become hackers and subversives before they’re old enough to drive, just so they can keep in contact with their friends and relatives on social media. Children will be forced into the dark corners of the web like peer-to-peer messaging, where no protections exist against illegal material, hate, phishing, hacking and sextortion. Adults will no longer express their opinions for fear of that 4 am United Kingdom-style raid from the thought police. Australians should have the option of a regulated private verification service if they see fit, because mandating digital ID is an unacceptable infringement of personal sovereignty. The government running the scheme and having all your data in real time is absolutely terrifying.
Senator Hanson and I tried to move a Senate inquiry into the referendum to enshrine freedom of speech in our Constitution—it was opposed. One Nation will repeal the digital ID and related bills. We will protect free speech, protect the rights of parents and defend the human rights of all Australians.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/AgRLQbnShXY/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-11-21 10:09:262024-11-21 10:09:43Social Media Ban for Under 16’s: A Gateway to Government Surveillance and Control
The shiny generals at Defence headquarters have spent huge amounts of taxpayer money on recruitment, yet the number of people employed has declined.
I’m worried that the Defence Force is stocking their numbers with university educated desk jockeys rather than the fighters we need.
Let’s see how they respond to this on notice.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: The defence minister has proudly declared this week the Defence Force is growing again. I’ve read what I think is your statement, and I’ve certainly read the secretary’s statement. Is the official one—yes, it is your statement.
Adm. Johnston: From this afternoon?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes.
Adm. Johnston: Yes, that’s my statement.
Senator ROBERTS: The last time we heard that we were on a growth path, Senator Shoebridge pointed out you were actually on a shrink path going backwards in personnel. How many infantry sergeant positions do you have across the Army?
Adm. Johnston: I might invite the Chief of Army to come up to better answer that question.
Lt Gen. Stuart: While I’m looking for the specific numbers, I would offer to you that the sergeant rank is one of the areas where we are significantly under the requirement. I’ll have to come back to you with those numbers.
Senator ROBERTS: In June, you confirmed you were deficient by 143 sergeants. You said that you were responding to this with ‘early promotion opportunities’. That just sounds like you may be skipping people ahead without the necessary experience. How many corporals have you early promoted?
Lt Gen. Stuart: I don’t have that number on me. You’re correct that one of the ways of filling those supervisory gaps is to promote people earlier than we would otherwise do. But, in order to do that, we obviously have an obligation, and it makes sense to invest in those individuals in terms of their own development and then, through our collective training, make sure that we step up the rate of experience that they’re able to glean. For example—
Senator ROBERTS: I think I understand what you’re getting at. They must have the necessary experience, and you want to promote them to give them more experience. I get that. How many corporals have you early promoted? Could you get that on notice, please?
Lt Gen. Stuart: I can get you that on notice. I don’t have it with me.
Senator ROBERTS: Also take on notice the number of infantry sergeant positions you have across the Army.
Lt Gen. Stuart: Will do.
Senator ROBERTS: What is your current headcount for ECN 343, the infantry soldiers?
Lt Gen. Stuart: Again, I don’t have those figures to hand, but we’re doing quite well when it comes to ECN 343 privates.
Senator ROBERTS: What has the headcount for ECN 343 been over previous periods? Could you put that on notice too?
Lt Gen. Stuart: It’s been reasonably healthy. If I recall, it’s north of 90 per cent in terms of the fill rates. It’s not an area that’s on the—
Senator ROBERTS: I’d like the actual headcount for the last five years, please, including the latest year.
Lt Gen. Stuart: Sure.
Senator ROBERTS: Are you padding out the Defence Force numbers with non-combat roles to look good on the headline number?
Lt Gen. Stuart: No.
Senator ROBERTS: Could you please provide on notice your headcount for combat versus non-combat roles over the previous five years?
Lt Gen. Stuart: I just want to make sure I get you the right information here. Are you talking about across the entire Army or in infantry battalions?
Senator ROBERTS: Infantry battalions and Army as well, please.
Lt Gen. Stuart: So you want a breakdown from ECN 343, which is infantry. There are other infantry ECNs, as well, in our special operations. Would you like those included?
Senator ROBERTS: I would like to know basically how many are actual fighting, operational people and how many are non-combat roles. I want to make sure that we’re not padding figures with non-combat people.
Lt Gen. Stuart: I can assure you we’re not padding any figures—
Senator ROBERTS: I’d like to see that.
Lt Gen. Stuart: Of course, combat in terms of functions, is broader than just infantry. It includes armour, which includes tank and cavalry, combat engineers and artillery and air defence as well as field artillery.’
Senator ROBERTS: You’re going beyond my capability at the moment
Lt Gen. Stuart: I just want to make sure—
Senator ROBERTS: I’d like to know how many are non-combat roles and how many are combat roles.
Lt Gen. Stuart: Everyone in a formation is in a combat role. The function that they perform will differ across three functional lines: combat, combat support and combat services support. Obviously, each of those begins with ‘combat’ because we fight as teams but people fulfill different roles in those teams, if that makes sense.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll leave it, as a matter of trust, in your hands. I’d like to know how many are combat and how many are non-combat. I know you’ve just explained that to me, but it doesn’t have a lot of meaning in my mind. I’d like to know what the numbers are, combat and non-combat, if you can give me the flavour for that and explain it.
Lt Gen. Stuart: We’ll endeavour to do our very best. I’ll give you a full breakdown across the Army in terms of combat, combat support and combat service support, and we’ll make sure that you get a breakdown in terms of core and the specifics in relation to ECN.
Senator ROBERTS: And if you could define the terms, please.
Lt Gen. Stuart: Yes, we will.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I’ve got no or minimal understanding of the Army, so treat me as completely ignorant.
Lt Gen. Stuart: We’d be very happy to sit down with you and give you the army 101 brief, if that would be helpful, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: It may be, but let’s get the figures first. Thank you so much for the offer.
Many graduates are asking whether attending university and getting a HECS debt was worth it. For many, the answer is no.
With Vice-Chancellors earning over $1 million a year, degrees are costing more yet worth less.
One Nation would stop universities ripping off students and cut the HECS debt being accumulated. We’ll also require universities to publish the average salaries of graduates for each degree, so you know what you’re signing up for.
Transcript
I speak on the Universities Accord (Student Support and Other Measures) Bill 2024. The university degree system is failing our students and our country. Schoolies is happening right now on the Gold Coast and across the country. These school leavers are too busy celebrating finishing high school to be listening to this speech. Yet maybe their parents will be listening. To schoolies I say: this is the last break some of you will have before heading to university. Enjoy it. Be warned: universities do not have your best interests at heart. Today, they act like a greedy corporate business, and you’re their cash cow. For people heading to uni, please be aware that you’re taking on a very big HECS debt. That debt is meant to be in return for something. Uni is meant to give a good qualification that students can turn into a sound career. For many people, though, universities aren’t doing this any more. Instead, unis are loading up school leavers with millions in debt for degrees that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
Many people watching might wonder how they’re getting away with this. If a uni doesn’t give you a degree that can enable you to earn money, and you can’t pay back the debt, then the unis should go broke, right? HECS is completely different. The uni gets the money upfront from the government—from the taxpayers. Then you owe HECS to the government, seemingly forever for some students. The uni gives you a degree that doesn’t live up to its promises and immediately laughs all the way to the bank while you’re stuck paying HECS debt to the Albanese Labor government. The universities’ lust for money shows up in the data. In 2005-06, an average person with a HECS debt owed $10,400. Today, the average debt is an astonishing $27,600. That’s nearly triple in a bit under 20 years.
The entire system needs a fundamental reset. One Nation believes that the future students at schoolies right now should be given all of the information to make an informed choice about their future. This bill does not help students do that. Every university should be forced to publish the average salary of graduates from each year and degree at one year, five years and ten years after completion as a form of accountability and quality control, putting responsibility back on the universities. This would break the university scam of treating students like cash cows to load up with debt for useless degrees. It would empower school leavers to make a choice that matches their goals based on real-world data, not leave them in the dark. This data is available. Every uni student is required to have a unique student identifier number—a USI. Everyone with a HECS debt has a tax file number. These have been going for years. It would be simple to match up tax file numbers with unique student identifiers and publish graduates’ average earnings, anonymised to protect identity.
But the government won’t do this, because universities are powerful. They earn unfathomable amounts of money with amazingly overpaid vice-chancellors at their heads—and there’s the core. As the Australian Financial Review’s journalist Julie Hare reports:
In 2022, Paddy Nixon, the then-vice chancellor of the University of Canberra, which was ranked equal 421st best university in the world, took home a salary package of $1,045,000—the same as Dame Louise Richardson who was running the world’s best university—Oxford.
In South Australia, Colin Stirling, boss of Flinders University—which ranked 380th in the world—took home a pay packet of $1,345,000. That’s not bad, considering it was over $100,000 more than the salary of Lawrence Bacow, who was head of Harvard University! At the University of Queensland, the vice-chancellor earns over $1.2 million a year—more than double what the Prime Minister earns.
Despite being defined as not-for-profit and exempt from tax on revenue, these universities are making billions of dollars. In 2023 the University of Queensland generated $2.6 billion in revenue. Half of that, $1.3 billion, was spent on employee expenses, like the vice-chancellor’s salary. The University of Queensland sits on a piggy bank of more than $4.1 billion in net assets alone. These universities are not simple little charities. They’re huge businesses rivalling the top 10 companies on Australia’s stock market. They have abused the social contract with our country and the generous guarantees that governments—taxpayers!—give them.
This bill would make some minor changes to the indexation of HECS debt, bringing it down from 16 per cent over 2½ years to 11.1 per cent. But it only tinkers around the edges. This bill does nothing to address the fact that the average HECS debt has tripled in two decades. It does nothing to make sure that it’s worthwhile getting into debt for a degree. It does nothing to address the fact that many people going to university would be better off getting a trade qualification. It does nothing to address universities using prerecorded lectures, sometimes more than three years old, and playing them back once a week forever. There’s no expense, just lots of revenue.
One Nation’s plan for HECS debt and universities would fix all the things this bill does not fix—all the things that this bill neglects. Inflation is compounding in a way that the original architects never expected. We need to stop the pile-on and give people time to pay down their debt. To do this, One Nation would freeze HECS indexation completely for the next three years.
Secondly, universities must be made accountable for the degrees they’re delivering and the education they’re not delivering. One Nation would force universities to publish the average salaries of graduates from their degrees one year, five years and 10 years after graduation, so that students know what they’re signing up for. Is the debt going to be worth it?
Delivering degrees is getting cheaper, so course fees should be getting cheaper too. One Nation would cut the fees for subjects that use repeated, prerecorded lectures and large numbers of group assignments. Our universities should be focused on delivering a good education for Australian students first. They should be focused on students first and on delivering good education. One Nation will enforce English standards for international students, so that universities aren’t sacrificing Australian educations to increase profit from international students—to the detriment of Australian students. We’ve discussed that in the past. I’ve raised it.
Finally, having a HECS debt shouldn’t mean graduates are locked out of buying a house, which they are at the moment. In combination with our people’s mortgage scheme, offering five per cent fixed-rate mortgages, people with a HECS debt would be able to roll their debt into a home loan and pay it off together. Where they can’t get a loan from the bank because of their HECS debt, One Nation will get HECS debtors into a stable, clean, cheap home loan.
Mr Andrew Norton, a professor in the practice of higher education policy noted during the inquiry into this bill:
All parts of the system – the original fees charged, the indexation arrangements, and the repayment system – need to work together in a coherent way …
The parts of this system are not working for the country. Instead, they’re working for highly paid vice-chancellors and the consultants in the education sector.
One Nation believes in a university system that works for the students that choose to study there and in the same type of support for people doing a trade. Until we fix the core parts of the system, the Universities Accord (Student Support and Other Measures) Bill 2024 is merely tinkering around the edges. That’s all it’s doing. One Nation will make the changes needed to ensure a university system to serve students and to serve our country.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/I21FenMP8Rs/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-11-20 13:02:042024-11-20 13:02:09Universities are Ripping off Students and the Country
Australians deserve the truth about our economic reality, not sugar-coated statistics. While the official CPI reports 3.8% inflation, the actual cost of living for most working Australians is a staggering 6.2%
We need policies to end the inflation burden created by both major parties. Australia has everything we need right here to be the richest country in the world. It simply requires the guts to make common-sense decisions – and only One Nation has that guts!
Transcript
If you think you’re going backwards, you are, and faster than you think. Last Monday, we had an inquiry, as a result of a motion of mine, to understand the CPI figure from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. That’s what we wanted to find out: what the Australian Bureau of Statistics does. My inquiry revealed that, as everyone knows, the CPI is 3.8 per cent, but selected living-cost indices that the Australian Bureau of Statistics produces and publishes show that most employees—80 per cent of Australians—face a cost-of-living increase in their spending of 6.2 per cent.
I’ve got no criticism of the ABS. They do what they’re told. Chart 1 in their submission shows that in 2022, soon after the coalition left, the CPI was eight per cent, and food and beverages went up by nine per cent. That’s the legacy that the coalition left. The CPI price change for dairy and related products over the last four years has been 27 per cent; food products, 23 per cent; bread and cereal products, 23 per cent. This is the reality: both the Labor Party and the Liberal-Nationals are contributing to inflation. The prices of groceries, insurance, housing, rents and energy are all artificial and only One Nation has the policies to be able to solve them because we don’t do what the uniparty does.
Transparency and accountability are essential in a democracy, yet this government continues to hide behind a curtain of secrecy, especially when it comes to the higher brass in the Department of Defence.
The refusal to release the 20-year review of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force isn’t about national security—it’s about avoiding embarrassment. We need a process that allows senators to confidentially review sensitive documents, ensuring accountability while protecting the public interest. We must demand a government that serves the people, not itself.
One Nation will fight for our Defence Force personnel to be treated fairly by senior officers. One standard must apply to all.
Transcript
Well, the minister’s explanation is pitiful. Look at paragraph (a)(iv) of Senator Lambie and Senator Shoebridge’s motion. Senator Wong failed to comply. She did not provide the names. Who has been consulted in relation to the release of the report of the 20-year review of the office of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force? Why is the government continuing to hide? This is the stuff that comes out of the south end of a northbound bull. This is the government’s response. The claim isn’t that there was anything classified in the report of the 20-year review of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force that Senator Lambie had been seeking; the claim the minister makes is that this report wasn’t meant to be released because the government didn’t want it to be released, not that national security was under threat, not that there was classified information in it. The government didn’t want it to be released because that would be embarrassing and they would be asked to do something about it. That’s not good enough.
An order to produce documents that passes this Senate is constitutionally superior to acts of law. The government doesn’t get to decide that they can toss those orders in the bin. This is a rare occasion where we get to see the report even though the government refused to hand it over. Credit must go to Senator Lambie and Senator Shoebridge for pushing this and to their offices for managing to get a copy of the report. Usually, as senators, we’re left in the dark. The government makes a public interest immunity claim and refuses to hand over anything. The government tells us that if this report was released the sky would fall in, that there would be an earthquake that shatters the public interest. Now, as senators, we’re quite reasonable and responsible. We know that truth reinforces truth. While we might desperately want that information we somewhat trust that the government hasn’t lied to our face and that there would be an actual risk to the public interest if the document were published. Yesterday and today show once and for all, yet again, that the government is completely undeserving of that trust.
The minister’s explanation clearly isn’t sufficient, and the current process for ordering documents is failing the Australian people and the senators seeking information on behalf of the people—information that belongs to the Australian people. To that end, I’ll again be proposing a new, additional way for handling orders for documents. When ministers make a public interest immunity claim, the claimed harm results from releasing the document to the public. There’s a way to make sure this is a win-win. I’ll go through it again. It’s making sure sensitive information isn’t released while at the same time ensuring senators get the information needed to make informed decisions. The way to do this is to establish a process for senators to confidentially review ordered documents without releasing them to the public.
This proposal may sound familiar to some. I first raised it in 2022, and this Senate supported a reference to the Procedure Committee for inquiry. With respect to the senators on that committee, the response was lacking. The inquiry was given four months to report on the issue, did not seek any submissions and produced the Procedure Committee’s first report of 2023 of a towering two pages. While the committee declined to endorse the proposal, they did confirm that it’s feasible. The committee committed to further report on the process for the order for the production of documents later in 2023. No report was delivered. Imagine that. Given the increased frequency of orders for the production of documents and the nearly blanket ban the government seems to be applying on transparency, it’s time to deal with this issue again.
This proposal is relatively simple. If the minister makes a public interest immunity claim, they wouldn’t have to release it to the public but they would have to release it to us—the senators—confidentially. A majority of the Senate could then decide whether the minister’s claim is legitimate and the document deserves to be kept secret from the public. It’s true that, just like a normal order for the production of documents, the minister could refuse to hand over the documents to the committee. Since no harm could flow from public disclosure in this process, it would be apparent that the only harm the government would want to avoid would be embarrassment. That gives us a better reason to apply sanctions for noncompliance, which the Senate is rightly cautious to do under the current process. In making a public interest immunity claim the minister would be automatically required to nominate a standing committee to receive the document, and only senators would be allowed to review it.
I will be submitting a notice of motion with some draft amendments to the standing orders for senators to consider over the break. I welcome their input and any suggestions to make these changes better. The Australian public deserves transparency, and as the Senate, the house of review, we must deliver accountability on this government. Recent weeks in this chamber have shown debacle after debacle. The government is in chaos. Australia has a chaotic government, and the people pay for that—enlisted people and veterans pay for it. The Senate’s scrutiny will help the government to govern and reduce the chaos. We are willing to help you, and that’s what our help will do. The people deserve the truth, openness and accountability. (Time expired)
With a Digital ID framework established, our data is more important than ever. Why does it seem like the government is willing to hand Australian data centres over to foreign interests?
The government is more interested in serving their donors, who are connected to multinational corporations, than in looking after Australians. Only One Nation will put Australians’ interests first and protect their data.
Transcript
We have to wonder whether this government is capable of stopping any bit of Australia being sold to foreign multinational corporations, or is it all just part of its digital ID plan? We’re going to find out when the Foreign Investment Review Board makes its decision on the $24 billion buyout of Australian-founded data firm AirTrunk. AirTrunk is the largest data centre platform in the entire Asia-Pacific region. A conglomerate of multinational investment firms and foreign pension funds is about to buy it. It wasn’t that long ago the government somehow let China buy a 99-year lease to control the Port of Darwin, Australia’s most northern and strategically vital port. Less than a year ago, the Albanese government decided to keep letting China own the 99-year port lease. Many are still dumbfounded. How could we ever let this happen?
As data becomes as valuable as gold in an increasingly digital world, we may one day look back at the sale of AirTrunk in the same way. Data is fast becoming an essential utility for the entire world. All the opportunities a digital world presents are clear yet the risks of profit-hungry corporations and increasingly tyrannical governments abusing digital identity outnumber the benefits.
In a digital identity world, where privacy protections are paper-thin, sovereign control of our data centres is a matter of economic and national security, and personal security. Unfortunately, except in the most severe and blatant cases, the Foreign Investment Review Board has a track record of not appreciating the importance of Australians owning Australia. We can anticipate that the Foreign Investment Review Board will rubber-stamp this deal, like so many others. The data centres that Australians’ sensitive data passes through and sits in will become foreign-owned. Let’s put Australians first and ban foreign ownership of sensitive companies.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/xviUWc8vRG0/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-11-04 14:41:162024-11-04 14:41:18Australian’s Data Must be Protected
Electrification is an essential component of the Albanese government’s net zero strategy. It involves turning every device that consumes energy to electric: replacing petrol cars with electric vehicles, swapping gas cook tops for electric ones, removing gas hot-water systems in favour of electric, and even making barbecues electric. Everyday Australians will bear the costs of this insanity. To me, it’s unwise to place all our eggs in the electricity basket when we are reimagining our grid to depend entirely on weather-dependent generation. Yet, to the government, such heresy is “disinformation.”
Achieving electrification will require a massive upgrade to our electricity transmission network to meet the higher demand, especially from electric vehicles. However, even this alone will not achieve electrification, as there just isn’t enough generation capacity from wind and solar to ever meet the heightened demand. Consequently, the government is pursuing companion strategies.
First, people will be incentivised to purchase wall batteries to go with their rooftop solar systems, which will connect to the grid. To manage evening and morning peak demand, the government plans to draw power from these batteries, restricting users from operating power-intensive appliances like air conditioners and pool pumps.
If you have an EV, this strategy means the power stored in your wall battery—intended for overnight charging—will also be taken. There’s even a plan to plug EVs directly into the grid to draw any charge you may have managed to store in your battery if required to keep the grid working.
This won’t be enough on its own, so the government has introduced a new building code mandatory for new homes, which will add about $50,000 to construction costs. These changes include completely sealing homes to keep heat out, which may lead to moisture build up and mould.
Ceiling fans will replace air-conditioners, while rooms and homes will become smaller, ceilings lower and spaces more compact, with no garages and narrower streets, as people will not have cars.
Welcome to your future under electrification. Watch the video for more on this madness.
Transcript
Electrification is an essential part of the Albanese government’s net zero strategy. Electrification consists of taking every device that consumes energy and making it electric: petrol cars replaced with electric cars; gas cooktops replaced with electric ones; gas hot-water systems ripped out and replaced with electric; barbecues only electric—which is no fun at all. Everyday Australians pay the cost.
To me, it’s unwise to put all our eggs in the electricity basket when we are reimagining our electricity grid to rely entirely on weather-dependent generation. To the government, of course, such heresy is mere ‘disinformation’. I’m sure Minister Bowen is champing at the bit to declare any online critics of net zero as threatening the environment, leading to a ban on ‘disinformation’.
The truth is that electrification is something we must debate. There are real risks to the public, and the price tag is astronomical. So let’s start with safety. The internet is reporting that China has banned electric vehicles from underground car parks, following a Daily Telegraph story on the weekend. The inference is that the ban was from the government, when in fact the Telegraph made clear the ban was from car-park owners and from apartments above the car parks. It’s businesses acting to protect themselves and their customers. Local news reports that property owners were spurred into action after 11 intense battery fires in Hangzhou. The reports have revived fears in China that the new low-carbon-dioxide technology is more trouble than it’s worth. Definitely—yes, it is. One viral social media post involved a Hangzhou car showroom catching fire after a display car spontaneously combusted. It was a brand-new vehicle. There was no issue of faulty maintenance or handling. As has been correctly reported, the science is clear: ‘when EV batteries do overheat, they’re susceptible to something called thermal runaway,’ says Edith Cowan University academic Muhammad Zhar. This article goes on to say:
That’s when physical damage—
or a manufacturing fault—
triggers a chemical chain reaction within the battery.
It can be a short circuit. It can be a puncture. Or an external heat.
Such damage can lead to a high-temperature fire or toxic gas explosion.
“About 95 per cent of battery fires are classed as ignition fires, which produce jet-like directional flames. The other 5 per cent involve a vapour cloud explosion.”
That was written by Edith Cowan University academic Muhammad Azhar.
Recently, five cars were destroyed when a damaged battery fell from an EV parked at Sydney airport. A Tesla went up in flames on the road after contacting debris that fell from a truck near Goulburn. No ways have been developed of smothering a lithium-ion fire. The safest place for an EV is in the open air, where any fire can be contained until it burns out without destroying the property of others in the process.
Secondly, when it comes to electrification, the elephant in the room is cost. The process consists of rebuilding the national electricity grid, generation and transmission. Energex and Powerlink have identified emerging limitations in the electricity networks supplying the Brisbane CBD. The power grids in Brisbane and across Australia were not built for our modern population density and certainly weren’t built to take the full load of energy that’s now required to electrify houses, cars and businesses. They note corrective action is required to avoid network overload and to avoid load shedding—known as ‘brownout’—which is when the power is selectively switched off to houses and businesses to prevent a wider blackout. Smart meters will make brownouts easier, providing the ability for power companies to remotely turn off air-conditioners and power to living areas, leaving the kitchen circuit functioning to keep the fridge on. New houses are being built with that circuit arrangement. It’s control.
The cost to rewire the grid to convey solar, wind and pumped hydro from the point of generation to the cities and then rewire the city and suburban grid for the higher electricity demand has not been costed. I have asked the minister repeatedly in the last few weeks for those costings, and it is clear that none exist. Let me help the government. Visual Capitalist consultancy has done independent costings showing that the cost of rewiring the grid and adding firming—back-up batteries and pumped hydro—is about 30 per cent of the overall electrification cost, or $300 billion, on the consensus figure of Australia’s $1 trillion cost—which I think is about half of it.
In the electrification agenda, cost concerns relate to the national building code. The idea is to avoid having to rewire at least parts of the grid through lowering household electricity usage to make room for charging EVs in the existing power grid. The targeted production is 50 per cent less power—half of what you’re using. Remember that Australians are already using 10 per cent less power than five years ago. The Australian Building Codes Board has a rating system called NatHERS which rates housing standards from one star to 10 stars. The current code requires seven stars. The code includes a measure of whole-of-house energy efficiency, which rates your home compliance with a net zero ideology, including heating and cooling, hot water systems, lighting, pool and spa pumps, cooking and even plug-in appliances. Our Big Brother is poking their nose into every aspect of your home in the name of saving the environment.
The actual building code component of the building code calls for the sealing of homes to prevent outside air coming in. This creates issues with condensation, meaning mould, which other aspects of the code may alleviate—may. Clearly nobody involved in this new code has lived in a Queenslander-style home that relies on airflow to keep the house cool. The new ideology-driven code will add $50,000 to the cost of construction of a new home, partially offset through lower electricity costs. The reduction in electricity costs will not be a lot because your energy bill is composed mainly of a fee for poles and wires, margin fees and admin fees, not electricity usage. As I have explained, the poles and wires charge is going higher than Elon Musk’s spaceship.
The cost of the new code to everyday Australians will be massive. We have 11 million homes in Australia and, so far, only recently built inner-city apartments meet the code. A quick calculation: $50,000 per home times 10 million homes is a $500 billion theoretical cost. Not all homes will be done. Many will just be bulldozed and replaced with tiny apartments to house Labor’s new arrivals. Economies of scale may result. Yet the actual cost of building upgrades is expected to be 15 per cent of the transition cost. With a transition cost of $1 trillion, that’s building upgrades costing $150 billion. On the more likely $2 trillion transition cost, building upgrades will cost $300 billion. That’s money everyday Australians will have to pay or will lose when they sell a non-compliant property for a reduced price. In all the time I have heard net zero debated, the shocking cost of converting buildings has never been mentioned
And wait; there’s more! Converting transport—trucks, shipping and aviation—is not mentioned. It’s another seven per cent—$70 billion. Eight per cent of the cost is made up of hydrogen development, carbon dioxide scrubbing and industry conversion costs. Add another $80 billion. The cost of new generation to replace affordable and reliable coal power with weather-dependent solar and wind fairytale power is the remaining 40 per cent, or $400 billion. Remember, we already have this coal generation. Electrification requires us to shut down the generation we already have and build it over again in solar and wind. The problem climate change carpetbaggers are now running into is simply this: the best places for these things have been taken. New installations are going further out, requiring higher transmission costs and higher maintenance costs. Residents are starting to see the environmental damage caused to our native forest and animals, and to farmland. The resistance has started.
Let’s not forget wind and solar last for, at best, 15 years and then have to be replaced again and again and again. This means that every single industrial wind and solar installation will need to be replaced at least once before 2060, and more likely twice. The replacement process will be never-ending. Every 15 years the whole lot gets replaced again and again and again. The transmission network will require constant maintenance. Having added an additional 10,000 kilometres of poles and wires, the extra maintenance costs will remain in electricity bills forever. The truth is the public will never finish paying for net zero electrification.
The good people over at Visual Capitalist have given calculating the cost of net zero a fair crack based on data on US National Public Utilities Council. Their total cost to electrify Western countries before 2060 is US$110 trillion. Insane! Australia’s share of that is currently estimated at $1 trillion; however, looking through the US data, which is more advanced than ours, a cost as high as $2 trillion is much more likely.
The costings I’ve presented tonight are not firm. I hope they encourage the government to come clean with the costings they have to allow for an open, mature debate—one which asks: is it time to walk away and try something else? Like emission-free coal, for example. For a fraction of this money, we can simply retrofit coal plants with new technology that captures and converts carbon dioxide to useful products like fertiliser. Or stop collecting this because carbon dioxide is beneficial. For some reason, the government doesn’t want to talk about new coal plants. Hmmm; I wonder where that list of ALP donations is again? I suggest journalists go looking.
This energy fairytale is going to cost so much money it’s never going to happen. Australia can’t afford it. How can Australians who are struggling with the cost of living under Labor afford trillions for electrification? The further we get into this, the more stupid and the more dishonest the idea looks. Ideology-driven bureaucrats, politicians, academics and journalists have put us on a path to ruin. Climate change carpetbaggers will be this country’s death. The rorting, the boondoggles and the waste of taxpayer money is just getting started. One Nation will end the net zero electrification scam and make Australia affordable again. Net zero is a scam, and One Nation is the only party that will stop it.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/dIyRk7VbPRU/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-10-31 17:14:062024-10-31 17:14:56Electrification Overhaul: The Costly Future of Australia’s Energy Strategy
In October, the Climate Change Authority released its roadmap for achieving the “net zero transition,” which effectively is the destruction of our industrial and agricultural base and introduces communist level controls over every aspect of our lives. Named the Sector Pathways Review, this is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It should be compulsory reading for every Australian who is intent on joining the migration of lemmings over the net zero cliff.
The authors claim to have consulted widely, presenting this document as a consensus on the way forward, but this is far from the truth. Their so-called “consultation” consisted of a whip around at universities and government departments that financially benefit from the net zero scam. Unsurprisingly, these stakeholders welcomed the prospect of more money, power, and self-importance.
The climate change narrative has been structured to work backwards from the goals outlined in this report, which functions as a mechanism for Communist control. The unfounded confidence and hubris displayed is based on scientific fraud, data tampering and cherry picking.
The link to the report is on my website at:
One Nation is committed to ending the net zero destruction of our economy and way of life.
Transcript
I move to take note of the Climate Change Authority’s Sector Pathways Review, which is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It should be compulsory reading for every senator and every journalist intent on joining this migration of lemmings over the net zero cliff. Net zero is not some feel-good agenda; it’s a fundamental destruction of our productive capacity, our businesses and our freedom to rebuild in the image of the bureaucrats, academics and carpetbaggers that produced this report. The report authors hide behind the term ‘consultation’ yet consulted within their own urban bubble and got the answers they wanted—yes to more money, yes to more power and yes to more self-importance. The climate change narrative has been constructed to work backwards from the goal detailed in this report—I’ve read it with my own eyes—a Communist control mechanism, a control mechanism that I’ve never seen so clearly explained as in this document, with such unfounded confidence, such hubris, based on scientific fraud, data tampering and cherry picking.
Let’s go through it. Firstly, replacing petrol and diesel powered vehicles, appliances and industrial equipment with electric versions—that’s your car gone. The government will force you to buy an electric vehicle or have no vehicle at all. Gas heaters and hot water systems: gone. Gas cooking: gone. Gas barbecues: gone. Commercial kitchens: put over to electric, which will force many to close, as the cost is prohibitive. For families already struggling with the cost of living under Labor, these measures will mean losing their possessions without being able to afford a replacement. This will become reality once the circular economy arrives in full, requiring a much higher build standard and repairability and high levels of recycled components. That sounds great—just wait until we see the price tag. Appliances would have to be rented because most people won’t be able to afford them. Remember the famous promise from the World Economic Forum’s Klaus Schwab, ‘You will own nothing and be happy’? Are you seeing it yet? Secondly, we will need to generate more wind and solar power than ever before. For Australians living outside the urban bubble, this will mean every mountain and hill will have a wind turbine on top and even more farmland will be covered in solar panels and fractured with transmission line corridors and access roads where none were previously needed. Every home will need a solar installation connected to a wall battery—$15,000 right there. Yet the power is not yours; it’s theirs. To keep the grid on, your power company will take the charge out of your wall battery or your electric vehicle—yes, your electric vehicle. This is what the report means when it says ‘grid integration’. It’s sometimes called a virtual power plant. It’s not virtual power; it’s your power.
Thirdly, the report accepts that, while some technologies, like solar and storage batteries, are now proven, many other necessary technologies are not. They have no clue what’s coming. The decision to rely on unproven, speculative technology across much of their sector analysis—punctuated as it is with weasel words like ‘could’ and ‘may’—will inevitably underperform. The report says:
The authority has not attempted in this report to examine how, where or when such future breakthroughs could occur.
It’s hard to believe they’re jeopardising the whole country on this. We are spending between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, destroying everything we have, on the promise of a better future based on breakthroughs that we know don’t exist yet and are not even imagined. That’s criminal malfeasance—and, given the strong flow of money from net zero carpetbaggers into the climate change nomenklatura, a stronger word may be appropriate. As the Age reported today, the Clean Energy Regulator:
… has failed to manage conflicts of interest or properly investigate fraud … and … staff … concerns about its relationship with the companies it regulates.
Under net zero cronyism, the suffering of everyday Australians and their employers has only just begun. The last thing abattoirs will slaughter is farming itself. The plan uses the discredited claim that ‘livestock accounts for half of agricultural emissions’. This ignores the methane cycle. That’s high school science. I know the disciples of the sky god of warming have rewritten the methane cycle and discredited those using it and advancing it, yet science can’t be rewritten—only lied about, as this report does.
The reason for this spurious war on cattle is clear in the report: reducing our emissions will ‘require the conversion’ of agricultural land to forested areas, and ‘the supply of suitable land for reforestation is limited’. The farming sector must realise that the bad guys are coming to steal more of your rights to use the land you own. The people who will have the money to buy red meat and naturally grown produce after 2050 are the same people writing this elitist, antihuman garbage. The same people who gorge on filet mignon and champagne at Davos tell everyday Australians they will have to eat less. And you will have less, being forced into city high-rise homes and eating lab-grown meats and fast-cycle hydroponic greens with next to zero nutritional value. Based solidly on science and with every fibre of our being, One Nation opposes this agenda. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/msPzKRd8lk4/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-10-31 08:29:442024-10-31 08:29:49Stop the Net Zero Agenda and Protect Our Economy
The world’s predatory billionaires are continuing their quest to rule the world for their own benefit, with vassal states like Australia recently signing onto their latest power grab – the United Nations Pact for the Future.
Before this Pact can take effect in Australia, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties will need to conduct an inquiry, followed by both Houses of Parliament voting for ratification. The public still has time to bring to heel the globalists running the Albanese Labor government.
The Pact is essentially a comprehensive wish list for global governance. On the upside, it lacks detail, firm language, and binding commitments. These were in the original draft but were removed to push the diluted document through. Even then, nine nations voted against moving towards a vote, and 40 more abstained. The UN doesn’t have the support it needs to press ahead with any significant theft of national sovereignty. However, that won’t stop some traitors in our Parliament and bureaucracy from handing it over, claiming that “the UN told us to.”
Only One Nation is committed to standing against the transfer of wealth and power to the world’s predatory billionaires and their lackeys in the United Nations, World Health Organisation and World Economic Forum.
Transcript
Last week the United Nations passed its Pact for the Future. Before the pact can come into effect in Australia, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties has to do an inquiry, and then both houses of parliament vote for ratification. The public have time to bring to heal the globalists running the Albanese Labor government.
The pact is a comprehensive wish list for world governance with no detail and no implementation plan. There are 56 bold actions—really, they’re fluffy motherhood statements. For example, action 2, which I will quote in full, is:
Action 2. We will place the eradication of poverty at the centre of our efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda.
21. Eradicating poverty, in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is an imperative for all humankind. We decide to:
(a) Take comprehensive and targeted measures to eradicate poverty by addressing the multidimensional nature of poverty, including through rural development strategies and investments and innovations in the social sector, especially education and health;
(b) Take concrete actions to prevent people from falling back into poverty, including by establishing well-designed, sustainable and efficient social protection systems for all that are responsive to shocks.
That’s the entire section on eliminating poverty. It looks like the AI author trained only on children’s picture books.
Do you remember Labor’s failed slogan: ‘By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty’? The pact is not a pandemic treaty. The word ‘pandemic’ is not mentioned. COVID is not mentioned. The World Health Organization is not mentioned. There are no penalty clauses for noncompliance. There is no dispute clause, because the pact does not include anything tangible enough to dispute. In the formal vote to adopt, 45 nations opposed it or abstained. What happens now is that our globalist government will sign up to any and every theft of Australian sovereignty it can while saying, ‘The United Nations made me do it.’ No, the United Nations did not. Whatever nefarious attack on agriculture, standard of living, education and human rights the government is planning is entirely this government’s responsibility.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/9cfmO-jMTGo/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-10-24 17:18:042024-11-05 15:24:28United Nations Pact for the Future – A Power Grab by Global Billionaires
