CSIRO doesn’t have climate change evidence

, ,

Transcript

[Marcus Paul]

Around this time every week, we catch up with One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts. Malcolm, good morning to you.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Good morning, Marcus, you have got a hectic morning this morning, I hear.

[Marcus Paul]

Always busy, which is just how we like it, but look, I’ve got the next six, seven minutes to chat away with you, which I’m really looking forward to today. I know you’ve been doing a lot of travelling, haven’t you? You been…

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yeah, we’ve gone from Brisbane right through to Cairns. I’m actually sitting in a hotel room in Cairns, and we’ve been listening to people along the way. It’s been fabulous. A bit rushed, but very good.

[Marcus Paul]

Yeah, why are you doing this tour again?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Because we’re getting the word out on my exposing the fact that the CSIRO has never produced any evidence for our climate policies and renewable energy policies.

We’re just getting that word out through the media around Queensland.

[Marcus Paul]

And how has it been received? I mean, I know you’ve been from Brisbane to the Sunny Coast, Maryborough, Rocky, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns, Toowoomba.

I mean, you’re a lucky man, travelling through all these beautiful parts of Australia.

[Malcolm Roberts]

I am, indeed, and we look forward to New South Wales being us pretty soon once the borders are reopened again.

[Marcus Paul]

Yes.

[Malcolm Roberts]

But no it’s been very well received. People know in their guts that there’s never been any evidence, scientific evidence to these policies that are destroying our country, Marcus, and they’re just so pleased to see someone actually exposing this rubbish.

[Marcus Paul]

Now I’m gonna talk very soon with the New South Wales MP down in the Murray region, Helen Dalton. She is–

[Malcolm Roberts]

Oh yeah.

[Marcus Paul]

Helen is a regular on the programme, much like yourself. She’s been screaming out, screaming and really unfortunately not being had a lot of attention paid to her.

She’s copped a lot from politicians. They’ve tried every trick in the political book to silence her. She wants a water register.

In other words, she wants politicians and others like herself to have a register that’s openly publicly available where people can say exactly how much water interests they have and that should also include national companies, foreign multinationals and everybody.

She wants more accountability on water. And look, she’s had a hard time trying to get this thing through the Parliament. She’s gonna try again for a register this week. It’s very tough.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yes and we’ve been calling for exactly the same thing for a couple of years now, Marcus. It’s definitely needed. Pauline has been calling for it as well.

We want full transparency, full openness so that people can see what’s happening to their water. And you know, what we’ve seen is in the last week, just at the end of last week, we saw the Water Minister, Mr. Pitt come out and big headlines were generated.

The biggest change, to the Murray-Darling basin in 10 years. And then we saw Bridget McKenzie, the leader of the Nationals in the Senate saying, “You cannot take any more water from our communities. The 450 gigalitres will not be coming from our farmers.

Enough is enough. You have taken enough.” And that’s very clear, Marcus. Yet the bloody report actually recommends quote, “work with the States to accelerate planning and delivery of the 450 gigalitres SDL water acquisition.”

This is insane. We’ve been along the same path for a couple of years now. But what the Nationals are doing is they’re responding to the pressure that we have put on them and they’ve come out now, initially they rubbished us, then they realised they couldn’t stop us because we have the data.

Then they went quiet and now they’re coming out to pretend they embrace what we’re saying, but they’re not doing it real–

[Marcus Paul]

All they–

[Malcolm Roberts]

they’re doing it in lies.

[Marcus Paul]

Yeah, they need to. I mean, it’s always- excuse me. I’m very sorry. It’s the first time

[Malcolm Roberts]

Bless you.

[Marcus Paul]

I’ve sneezed for ages, anyway. Hay fever, time of the year. Look at the end of the day, the problem’s always been, as you would know very well, Malcolm,

Since water has become scarce and we are a country where we do have droughts, there’s a light bulb moment that’s gone off somewhere and they thought, you know what, we can take advantage of this capitalism at its worst, and we’ll commodify water.

Well, ever since water became a commodity, something to be bought, sold and traded, that’s when the rot set in and you’re right, particularly for the Murray-Darling basin, in particular for my New South Wales listeners, we know it’s our country’s food bowl and the people of Australia deserve damn well better.

Look, I see too the Office of Scientific Integrity, you’ve spoken to Dr. Peter Ridd from James Cook University in Townsville about this issue. Is that right?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yes we have, and Dr. Ridd has accompanied us on our travels from Brisbane right through to Cairns. Now he’s gonna join us again this morning.

Every one of the media conferences we’ve done with him. What he has been promoting for a while now is that we need a quality assurance system for the science.

That would then complete the scientific process. We’ve been arguing for an Office of Scientific Integrity.

There is so much dodgy science that’s not science, that’s killing agriculture in New South Wales and Queensland, Murray-Darling basin and its water allocations, international agreements that we’re supposed to be complying with, the so called vegetation protection legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act that’s used to strangle development climate change policies, electricity policies, energy policies, forestry policies, coastal land resumptions where they’re stealing land rights from people who own own their houses on the Coast.

In New South Wales and Queensland, farmers lost their rights to use their land. These have all been based on dodgy science and then it’s not science.

So what we want is a proper scientific process that has quality assurance around it because these policies are strangling our country, gutting our economy, and we want this to be done properly with real integrity on the science, Marcus.

[Marcus Paul]

All right, I just wanna move to another issue. Dan Andrews and the prime minister, Scott Morrison, you say, are using competitive welfarism to replace our constitution’s bedrock competitive federalism.

What exactly do you mean by that?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Well, competitive federalism is where you have the exchange between States. So for example, Joh Bjelke-Petersen removed death duties in Queensland, in the seventies.

And what happened then was people then moved to the Queensland, Gold Coast in order to have their final years there and eventually die there because they would leave more money to their descendants, their kids.

And so what happened then was the other States were losing their businesses, losing their wealthy, losing their retirees. And so they enacted policies as well to remove death duties.

So we had a better and more competitive taxation system because of competitive federalism, competing between the States. It’s not ruthless cut throat competition, it’s finding out the best ways of running the State.

And that was designed by our forefathers, the founders of our constitution. What we have now is sloppiness, and there are several examples of this, but you’ve picked on one right now with Dan Andrews.

He made a mess of his State, he fell over in doing his job.

[Marcus Paul]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Roberts]

He didn’t do his job, and as a result of that incompetence, Victoria is in a real mess. So what happens? The Prime Minister bails him out.

So the people of Queensland, the people of New South Wales, the people of South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory, ACT are paying for Dan Andrews’ lack of accountability and sloppiness and his dishonesty.

[Marcus Paul]

They’re doing that of course–

[Malcolm Roberts]

And that’s competitive welfarism.

[Marcus Paul]

Yeah, and that’s, that welfarism you refer to, the extension of job seeker payments, even though they’re being tiered now, but it just continues, and the longer that border closures remain in play, well, the longer the rest of the country is going to have to foot the bill for it.

What about Annastacia Palaszczuk up there? Has she be missing in action? What’s happening?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yes, she has been missing in action. What people need to understand about Queensland, the Labor machine runs the state. It’s ruthless and it’s not democratic government, nor is it caring and accountable.

And the corruption is flourishing across our State and local government markets, and we’ll be having much more to say about that in coming weeks, but it’s not Annastacia Palaszczuk who runs this state, it is the Labor machine.

Now what they’ve done is they’re missing in action to some extent, because they’ve handed over to the Chief Health Officer who has one priority, people’s physical health.

Well, Marcus, what about mental health? What about economic health? Because as they’re destroying our economy up here, this Queensland Labor machine that is appealing to the media and try to play to people’s emotions and heartstrings, they’re actually destroying our State and they’re not doing this in a humane way.

We have so many examples. Now your programme has led the way in exposing these things, we’ve got so many issues that are treating people inhumanely.

We’ve got kids with broken legs in hospitals, their parents from New South Wales can’t even visit them in Queensland.

We’ve got cancer patients, we’ve got babies in wombs dying, et cetera, and cancer patients not being treated all because the machine wants to be seen to be protecting Queenslanders when the machine is destroying Queenslanders.

If they really cared about people, they would identify the hotspots and ban people from there.

[Marcus Paul]

I mean, look. The other issue of course is you’ve got a lot of hypocrisy going on. We helped a gentleman yesterday who was, who’d been stuck on the Tweed Coast.

His father is in Royal Brisbane hospital. He’s had a massive head trauma, he’s on life support. They’re about to turn it off. He desperately, desperately needed to get to see his father in his dying days along with his sister.

We had to intervene. We had to go cap in hand to Queensland Health and we also spoke to the New South Wales health department and also to the wonderful people in Pauline’s office at One Nation.

We got this bloke across the border, along with his sister and we shouldn’t have to be doing this, we shouldn’t, but at the end of the day, the reason we shouldn’t be having to intervene like this and to expedite these kinds of situations for people is, well, some are getting the red card treatment.

Look at the red carpet treatment, look at the AFL officials. They can come on in, they can frolic, they can have a pool party for God’s sake on the Gold Coast.

Tom Hanks can just rock up whenever he likes, it appears, without having to go into quarantine. There’ll be 30,000 people gathering for the AFL Grand Final and everyday Queenslanders cannot gather in groups of more than 10. I mean for goodness sake.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yeah, you’ve hit the nail on the head and that’s what I’m talking about. It’s a ruthless Labor Party machine up here that does not care about people.

Annastacia, sorry, Annastacia Palaszczuk, one of her predecessors was Anna Bligh. Two weeks before a State election, the machine promised that they would not sell assets.

Within weeks of the election, just six weeks after their promise, they flogged off billions of dollars worth of core assets in this State. It is a Labor Party machine. It’s not Queensland, it is the Labor Party machine that is uncaring and inhuman–

[Marcus Paul]

Well, problem is–

[Malcolm Roberts]

And what the AFL Grand Final should be up here, but we need to treat Queenslanders with respect.

[Marcus Paul]

All right, well, our problem is, and we’ve got to call into Deb Frecklington’s office, I mean, she’s almost, what she’s back down really now because of populism, I guess, she’s supporting Annastacia Palaszczuk. I’ve run out of time, Malcolm.

[Malcolm Roberts]

See you, mate .

[Marcus Paul]

All right, buddy. Thank you so much. As always good to chat. We’ll talk to you next week, okay?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thanks, Marcus.

[Marcus Paul]

One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts, as always speaking a good deal of sense on the programme.

/by

Nationals lied about changes to Murray Darling Basin plan

, ,

Last week the Nationals claimed to have significantly changed the Murray Darling Basin plan for farmers. I want to be blunt. THEY LIED.They are wilting under the pressure One Nation has put them under through our use of facts and in response instead of doing good are trying to look good.

Take a listen to what the Nationals claimed the report said and what the report ACTUALLY says.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Senator Malcolm Roberts and I’m on the road from Rocky to Mackay in Central Queensland. I wanna make a statement about the and ask some questions about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan notice that came out of the government last week.

And I wanna ask a few basic questions after Friday’s media headlines. And I’m gonna read these questions, because I wanna make sure it’s accurate. Sky News called this the biggest change to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in 10 years, oh really? The Australian announced buybacks axed in Murray overhaul.

So I asked Minister Pitt for a copy of this supposed landmark report. And this is it, 10 pages, that’s all. The recommendations are two pages and a bit, that’s it. Does it really represent any change in the current policy? No, it does not. It doesn’t say any such thing and yet the Nationals Party and the government has been saying that.

One major issue and this is the first topic. One major issue with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is the last 450 gigalitres of water acquisitions called SDLs. Which is to be taken off farmers and given to the environment in South Australia. Since the plan started 2100 gigalitres of water has been taken from farmers.

That’s forced many farmers off the land and reduced our agricultural output by more than $10 billion. This is money that our economy needs especially when we try to recover from COVID. This is food that has been taken from the world’s hungry.

Now Senator Bridget McKenzie, who is leader of the National’s Party in the senate made this statement just a week ago. Quote, “You cannot take any more water from our communities. The 450 gigalitres will not be coming from our farmers. Enough is enough, you have taken enough.”

Well, that was clear, wasn’t it? But what does the reports really say? Let me read the recommendations. Quote, this is what the report says. “Work with the states to accelerate planning and delivery of the 450 gigalitre SDL acquisitions. Not stop the acquisition accelerate the acquisition.”

What of the promise to not take water off farmers? Perhaps Senator McKenzie is talking about this line. Quote, from the report, “Shift the focus away from on-farm acquisition to off-farm infrastructure.” What sort of a promise is shift the focus? These are with weasel words Minister Pitt.

450 gigalitres through fixing leaky pipes and burying irrigation channels, not possible. And for the record irrigation channels are lifelines for native Australian birds, animals and reptiles in a drought. Those canals are an entire ecosystem full of fish, turtles and crustaceans that die when you bury them underground.

This idea is literally killing our environment to save it. Secondly, as for splitting the Murray-Darling Basin authority into two, not so much. This is recommendation six, which establishes an Inspector General of Water Compliance. Now is this a new post?

No, they are simply renaming the Inspector General of Murray-Darling Basin Water Resources. When he was appointed, the existing Inspector Mick Keelty was called the tough cop on the block. What happened to that? This is nothing more than a re-branding exercise.

And the media has slapped it up the media has fallen for it. Does the media check anything anymore? Or do they just parrot what this government tells them? Thirdly, as for punitive powers, the Inspector General does not have any. Those powers vest with the State’s New South Wales in particular.

Where the most water rorting is going on. Has not even given the Murray-Darling Basin any punitive powers at all. If big Corporate Agriculture builds a new floodplain harvesting dam in the Northern Basin, the Inspector General has no powers to order that demolished nor even issue a fine.

The New South Wales State Agriculture Minister, Nationals Leader New South Wales, Nationals MP John Barilaro, has to make those orders and the government damn well knows it. Minister Pitt I have three questions. Who wrote this misleading press release?

Secondly, show me where in this report it actually says there will be no more buybacks from farmers? Thirdly, how does re-branding one position without any extra powers suddenly become splitting the Murray-Darling Basin authority into two? It doesn’t, does it?

I’ve heard the Nationals talk a lot of rubbish lately. But this takes the cake. These are lies they speak to distract. Under the Nationals, farmers will lose their water and rural communities will be destroyed. The only winner will be the Nationals Corporate Agriculture Mates.

When will the Nationals for a change? Join us in one Nation in putting Australia first.

/by

Aussie Manufacturing as Bad as Kazakhstan and Lebanon – 2SM with Marcus Paul

, , , , ,

Transcript

[Marcus] Minutes away from eight o’clock Senator Malcolm Roberts joins us on the programme, from One Nation, morning Malcolm, how are you mate?

[Malcolm] Good morning Marcus, I’m very well, how are you?

[Marcus] Yeah really good, look I’ve spoken a lot on the programme this week about our manufacturing sector. Look we need to make our economy capable of recovering from COVID-19, it’s, look it’s a complex issue I understand that but, I mean what do you think we should be doing mate?

[Malcolm] Well, you know it is a sad and scary story actually because it’s now recognised internationally that we’ve lost our economic security. We can’t make make protective equipment, we can’t get our supplies for handling the virus, we don’t make cars anymore, basic manufactured goods, tools, construction and mining equipment.

What we need to do is to harness the power we have in this country with our people and our resources. And to revive manufacturing and agriculture, the government needs to get back to doing its job to serve the people, and to create an environment for investing and making. Instead of just simple relying on digging and shipping

[Marcus] Yeah

[Malcolm] Which we need to continue to do, minerals and energy. We need to reform tax, we need to cut regulations, we need to build infrastructure, and we need to restore skills, particularly apprenticeships and restore the TAFE system.

[Marcus] Well absolutely, and what we do need to do Malcolm, is we need to value add the stuff we take out of the ground, otherwise we’ll fall further and further behind. I mean the latest indicator for manufacturing 2020 the manufacturing self-sufficiency index, ranks Australia almost, in fact, last among developed countries for God’s sake.

We’re ranked 59th, we’re somewhere between Kazakhstan and Lebanon, we’re not adding value to our primary production.

[Malcolm] Yeah you’re absolutely correct, and the reason why is in part because of the things I’ve mentioned, the tax that favours multinational companies, and also, that’s the company tax, and also the ridiculous regulations.

But what we’ve done is we’ve gutted our energy system, we’ve still got the world’s cheapest, high quality coal, very good, clean coal, and what we’re doing is we’re raising our energy prices artificially through these stupid regulations and this climate nonsense, and what we do now is we export our coal to China, and they sell electricity using our coal at eight cents a kilowatt-hour.

What we do here is we sell it at three times that price, our same coal that’s got less distance to travel. What we need to do is build coal fired power stations, end the ridiculous subsidies on intermittent energies, and that’s what they are, wind and solar, are intermittent, unreliable and expensive.

We need to remove these climate policies, we need to build a hybrid Bradfield Scheme in Queensland, because that comes with a hydro power system, and we need to stop the Queensland state Government for example, stealing one and half billion dollars every year, from every energy user, and that’s just basically a tax, they make that as a profit, and they just, it’s really a tax, so that’s crippling our manufacturing and crippling our ability to add.

We’ve now got aluminium smelter’s have shut, near your way down in Kurri Kurri and the Hunter. Looks like it’s under threat at Tomago, also in the Hunter, certainly in Geelong, and possibly now in Boyne Island. So what we’ll do is we’ll dig the bauxite out of the ground and then ship it off to overseas, and we won’t even get the aluminium out of our country, I mean it’s just ridiculous.

[Marcus] Well that’s right, that’s the value added that we’re talking about that we seem to be essentially either pricing ourselves out of, or basically because we’re lazy and we don’t want to look at any other way of perhaps taking advantage of this rich, mineral nation and land that we have here in Australia I mean, look manufacturing, back in the 1980’s, manufacturing was one of our biggest, if not the biggest employer at 17% of the total employment pie.

Now, it’s sadly just sitting down there at 6%, no wonder our economy’s hungry, I mean that’s how much less of the pie it’s getting.

[Malcolm] That’s right, 50 years ago, Marcus, and it’s so pleasing to see you using hard data. 50 years ago manufacturing was 30% of our gross domestic product, now it’s just 6%, and blue collar workers must be shaking their heads in absolute disbelief at what’s going on.

But I reckon every middle class person in this country, all blue collar workers, all small businesses, need to be very, very scared and worried about the Labor Party in particular, because it’s driving

[Marcus] Well hang on yes

[Malcolm] The agenda for renewables.

[Marcus] Well that was my next point, Labor are supposed to be supporting the blue collar worker, what are they doing about it?

[Malcolm] Well you know, Senator Sterle and Gallacher, Sterle, Glenn Sterle’s a wonderful guy and Alex Gallacher from South Australia, Sterle from Western Australia, they’re genuinely trying to stand up for workers like old Labor, and in One Nation, Marcus, we always give credit where credit’s due. But Fitzgibbon now, Joel Fitzgibbon

[Marcus] Yeah?

[Malcolm] A member for the Hunter, has stood up and said “the Green’s have infiltrated Labour.” Hello Joel, we’ve been saying that for decades, and what’s happening now is we’ve got new Labour, which is not like old Labor, and now we’ve got a confirmation of new Labor, because Albanese is rebuking Fitzgibbon,

And confirming that Labor will continue to abandon workers, in selling out to the Green’s, Labor has completely confirmed that it opposes coal mining jobs, opposes manufacturing jobs opposes blue collar jobs. They just want to go off and bend genders and all the rest of it, it’s completely absurd.

[Marcus] All right look, go easy on my mate Joel, I mean he’s the hope for the side. I think with Mr Fitzgibbon I’ve been very adamant, I mean I like Anthony Albanese but, I mean Anthony is simply too nice.

I really believe that, and Joel, perhaps I think he should have higher aspirations considering he speaks better sense than a number of his colleagues on the future of our energy sector and resources and mining and you know, he’s one of those that you’re right, will not be infiltrated by a Green ideology thank God.

That’s why I say that Joel Fitzgibbon is the hope for the side, and as soon as Anthony perhaps, realises this, he maybe needs to get out of the way.

[Malcolm] Well that’s the problem, that’s the problem you’ve identified Marcus, doesn’t matter what Joel thinks, because Anthony Albanese has gutted and cut the legs out from underneath Joel Fitzgibbon and no one stood up to support Joel publicly, no one, and they just let it all slide through.

So, basically what Albanese’s done is undermine the Hunter Valley, undermine all industry and undermine small business in this country, because he’s pushing absurd policies that are driving up energy pricing ridiculously.

[Marcus] Don’t hold back Malcolm okay? Don’t hold back, whatever you do. Tell me about this, a 23 year old university student is suing the government for failing to disclose the risk climate change poses to Australian super and other safe investments in government bonds, what?

[Malcolm] Yeah it’s ridiculous, you know this is just the ABC putting out another story, but unfortunately it’s true, but putting out another story in favour of their climate alarm crusade, but you know what Marcus?

You know where I stand on this, but I actually welcome this woman doing this, this young lady, 23 year old, because we need to bring this issue to court, because in court, they have to give hard evidence, empirical data, under oath. We’ve never had that in this country, and the second thing that she wants, she wants to change the way the government handles climate.

We want them to do exactly that, we want them to start using data, and you know, the third thing, so I actually support her getting into court, but what a ridiculous thing she’s doing because, it shows her entitlement mentality, she wants government to protect people from their own investment decisions, it’s just another stunt, again without the data.

[Marcus] All right and look I know you’re really chomping at the bit to get into this, the New South Wales police commissioner as we know, has fined BLM protestors.

It is pleasing, the law has been enforced, including Mr Patrick, who, the leader of the so-called BLM movement, here in New South Wales, at least, he was, well, I thought he was thrown in the back of a paddy waggon, but he was basically given a green carpet ride into the bowels of Parliament House don’t press, you know, don’t pass –

He certainly bypassed jail he got a thousand dollar fine, but I don’t know, what do we make of this Malcolm?

[Malcolm] Well didn’t he get the help from Green’s MP’s David Shoebridge and Jenny Leong to get into Parliament house?

[Marcus] Well I didn’t see Mr Shoebridge, but definitely Jenny Leong and she was there on the news last night, justifying this, well at least trying to justify it. It even had the New South Wales premier, who’ll join us on the programme soon, I mean, Gladys was even shaking her head, she didn’t quite understand how that could happen.

[Malcolm] But there is a wonderful positive side to this because the New South Wales police commissioner stood up last week and said that he will be enforcing the law and requiring police to enforce the law, and that’s exactly what the police force need to do. You know up here in Queensland, we have a premier Annastacia Palaszczuk who is soft on criminals, and hard on farmers and producers. And you know, she just invites people, and we got 30,000 people turning up to a black lives march protest last month, just crazy.

[Marcus] Yeah well, and then she closes borders, and worries about the importation, if you like, of COVID-19, meanwhile you’re right, that strange lily-livered, I guess mentality of preferring people’s civil liberties and their rights to protest over everybody’s health.

You know that’s, you’re gonna fester in your own nest I think up there, look I don’t know, maybe, I think as far as Queensland’s concerned, there needs to be a much stronger opposition Malcolm, because Annastacia seems to be able to be doing what she wants and she’s completely blocked out Sydney now as we know with the latest news that’s come through and off she goes mate, she’s on a tirade up there.

[Malcolm] Well we haven’t got any strong opposition here in the LNP because Deb Frecklington is really just the previous opposition leader Tim Nicholls with a skirt, you know, and what’s happening is the LNP are pushing similarly absurd policies to energy and climate policies as the Labor party.

And the Nationals are now following our lead, and pretending, we are actually opposing the UN and what it’s doing in this country, the Nationals realising that we’re stealing their votes are now pretending to oppose the UN. But the same people in the National Party are meekly following the LNP which signed the, which the coalition signed the Paris Agreement, which is gutting energy.

John Howard and the Nationals at the time, John Anderson, signed the, sorry committed to, committed our country to complying with the Kyoto Protocol, the UN’s Kyoto Protocol and that’s decimated farming

[Marcus] We’ve all been sold a dud, we’ve all been sold a dud on this climate change, we know that. Malcolm good to have you on the programme, let’s talk again next week thank you.

[Malcolm] Look forward to it, thanks Marcus

[Marcus] All right there he is Senator Malcolm Roberts

/by

Fast track the hybrid Bradfield scheme

, , ,

This afternoon Pauline ask Senator Cash whether the Prime Minister would fast track the hybrid Bradfield scheme, a nation-building project to help improve Queensland’s productive capacity.

While the government has committed to $72 billion in major infrastructure projects across the country, there is still no sign of the Hybrid Bradfield scheme.

Transcript

[Announcer]

Senator Hanson.

[Senator Hanson}

Thank you very much. My question is to the Minister Cash, representing the Minister for Infrastructure. On the 13th of November, 2019, the majority of coalition senators supported a notice of motion that the senate, and I quote, call on the federal government to take the necessary steps to ensure the construction of a Bradfield-type scheme can begin in Queensland as swiftly as possible.

Speaking to this motion, the government stated, and again I quote, there is no reason for the Australian government to oppose this motion. Today the prime minister announced plans to fast-track a number of infrastructure projects, yet despite the government’s plain support, there was no mention of any form of Bradfield scheme.

Why has the government chosen to leave the hybrid or new Bradfield scheme, a crucial, nation-building project they have expressed their support for, off the prime minister’s list of essential projects to be fast-tracked?

[Announcer]

The minister representing the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Senator Cash.

[Senator Cash]

Thank you, Mr President and I thank Senator Hanson for her question and in particular for acknowledging the significant announcement that the prime minister made today, as I alluded to in my previous question from Senator Antic, and the bringing forward of infrastructure projects across Australia to create around 66,000 jobs. In relation to the Bradfield scheme, I can provide you with the following information: the national water grid authority, which as you have referred to commenced operation on the 1st of October, 2019, is working with leading science agencies including the CSIRO to determine where and how water resources can be sustainably developed. This forms part of the Australian government’s commitment to invest $100 million into bringing world-best science together to identify opportunities for enhancing water supply and reliability for regional Australia. As part of this work, the authority is considering options for developing large-scale water harvesting and transfer schemes such as elements of the Bradfield scheme or hybrid versions of the Bradfield scheme to capture and transport water to both grow agricultural sector and improve drought resilience. Over the decade since it was first proposed, there have been a number of assessments on the merit of the original Bradfield scheme and more recent variations. It is important that the feasibility of these schemes are now investigated using the best available contemporary science.

[Announcer]

Senator Hanson, a supplementary question.

[Senator Hanson]

Thank you. Minister, there has been a feasibility study done on it by the Snowy Mountain Engineering Corp in 2018. Water security is crucial to all Australians especially given the horrendous drought that more than 60% of Queensland continues to endure. Why can’t the government simply give the people of Australia a firm commitment that the hybrid Bradfield scheme will be added to the prime minister’s list of projects that will be fast-tracked?

[Announcer]

Senator Cash.

[Senator Cash]

Well, thank you, Mr. President, and I would refer Senator Hanson to the answer I just gave to my previous question and my understanding is the prime minister announced certain projects today and said there’d be further announcements to come.

[Announcer]

Senator Hanson, a final supplementary question.

[Senator Hanson]

I appreciate that and I appreciate the water schemes that actually have been put in with the dams but there has been no real commitment to the hybrid Bradfield scheme which will actually bring water from going out to the ocean inland. So therefore I say to the minister, the government has been very critical of Queensland’s Labor’s failure to give a clear date on border openings, is it safe to say that because you won’t commit to a date to start this project, that the Liberal National Party have no plans to build the Bradfield scheme?

[Announcer]

Senator Cash.

[Senator Cash]

Thank you, Mr. President, and Senator Hanson I will have to reject the premise of your question, and as I said in my answer to your primary question, over the decade since it was first proposed, there have been a number of assessments on the merits of the original Bradfield scheme and more recent variations. It is important that the feasibility of these schemes are now investigated using the best available contemporary science.

/by

Murray Darling Basin investigation a whitewash

, ,

One Nation Senator Roberts expressed sheer disbelief and disappointment with the Keelty report into the Murray Darling Basin’s water allocations to farmers who need water to grow food.

Senator Roberts said, “As the nation reels from COVID-19 and faces food shortages this report is woefully inadequate and a tragic waste of taxpayers’ money. “

“An investigation should demonstrate rigour and analysis and instead Mr Keelty’s report is full of inadequacies.”

The report fails to include in its datasets this year’s substantial rainfall event and does not acknowledge rainfall within the MDB has increased over the past 100 years. Instead the Keelty analysis deceitfully uses ‘declining inflows’ as a way of arguing why farmers should be denied a fair allocation of water.

When 4000 disenchanted farmers descended on Canberra to protest the unfair allocation of water between the environment and farmers, they were promised that their zero allocations would be the subject of this review.

“It is deeply disappointing, particularly now when our agricultural productive capacity is under-utilised, that this issue was not rigorously examined by Mr Keelty.  Astonishingly the report fails to even mention those zero allocations,” added Senator Roberts.

As predicted by many farmers, the former Water Minister David Littleproud used the promise of an investigation into the MDB to quieten the crowd of protestors and conveniently shift blame to the States and irrigators.

Irrigators are suspicious of MDBA figures that show declining inflows when the Murray River has been running so high that environmental damage has resulted along the upper Murray and Barmah/Millewa forest from excessive water.

Disturbingly the report claims that environmental water is not being wasted, ignoring the unnecessary flooding of forests, excess water flushed out to sea in South Australia and keeping the lower lakes filled above their natural levels with Murray River water.

“The report may as well have been written by the MDBA itself, as it addresses none of the concerns from farmers, some of which have gone without a water allocation for 3 years.”

COVID-19 has highlighted the critical importance of Australia restoring our productive capacity across many strategic industries, including our agricultural sector.

“The Keelty report’s lack of due diligence in this investigation is akin to the last nail in the coffin of one of Australia’s most substantial food bowls. No water, no food,” Senator Roberts added.

Unsurprisingly, the report found that a lack of trust and leadership worsened the problems. One Nation calls for a Royal Commission into misconduct in the implementation of the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

“Trust cannot be restored until rorting has been exposed and fixed.  Australia needs management of the MDB Plan that reflects a genuine triple benefit – for irrigators, communities and the environment,” Senator Roberts stated.

200421-Murray-Darling-Basin-investigation-a-whitewash_

/by

Water Security for Farmers and Coronavirus – Rural Queensland Today with Ben Dobbin

, , ,

Ben:

Welcome back to Rural Queensland Today. 8th of April on a Wednesday morning, so much still going on with COVID-19. We know that the line is flattening, the curve is starting to flatten, but it’s still a long way to go. Senator of One Nation, Malcolm Roberts, joining us this morning on Rural Queensland Today. Malcolm, good morning. Thank you so much for being with us.

The federal government’s COVID-19 stimulus package needs to be addressed so more Australians can be more [inaudible 00:00:28] on food production. Now, One Nation has called for a guarantee of water for farmers to plant essential crops this month and this would go a long way to feeding the nation in very tough times.

Malcom Roberts:

Yes, and good morning Ben and thank you for the invitation to join your show. Yes, we have asked for that because farmers are needing a drink of water for their crops by April 15th, sorry, by May 15th so that they can get their winter crops in and going. That’s needed and that’s not going to be a subsidy or anything like that, Ben. That’s going to be pure wealth created just out of water that’s natural. It’s just been withheld from farmers mate and we need to give it back to them.

Ben:

Well, I mean there’s so much has changed. I mean Vietnam have banned exporting their own home grown rice to Australia and so we actually need to prioritise our food production for Australians because we’ve seen now what a risk to our health by letting anybody into this country. And I don’t want to in any way, I’m not trying to be racist, I’m not trying to be, but our biosecurity failed us and now is, more than any time, is where we need to shore up our food and shore up our buyer security, if ever there’s been a time. And this would go a long way to growing essential crops for the nation.

Malcom Roberts:

You’re exactly correct. We had a very strong rice production in Southern New South Wales and that has been decimated by the stupid and corrupt practises that have been going on with regard to water in the Murray-Darling basin. And that has been a fault of the Turnbull Howard government that brought in the 2007 water act and that has destroyed agriculture right across the Murray-Darling basin and it sent water to corporates and taking it away from family farmers.

And family farmers, Ben, are the guts of this country. They’re the core because they’re the ones who know that if you look after the land because you give it to your kids eventually or you retire or you sell it and use the retirement to go and live somewhere else. They’re being destroyed. And that’s what we need to bring back, family farming in this country because that’s where the communities are.

Corporates, global corporates, large Australian corporates don’t give a damn about communities. They don’t give a damn about rural Australia. They don’t give a damn about food security. It’s all a profit. And so what we need to do is restore our communities and their rural sector. There is an ideological assault on rural Australia and it starts with water policy, it continues with energy policy and it’s most of all, it’s about the stealing of the farmers rights to use the land they have bought. I don’t know if you know of Dan McDonalds-

Ben:

Yeah, sure.

Malcom Roberts:

I mean, Dan has said that every input, the farming these days is controlled by some bureaucrat. So farming has been nationalised. It’s no longer a private enterprise business. It’s been nationalised. It’s being destroyed and that’s what we need to protect because this Covid virus has exposed huge gaps in national security. We haven’t got enough face masks. We haven’t got enough ventilators. We haven’t got enough basic stuff. And yet we shifted all the production of this to overseas starting with the UN in 1975, the Lima Agreement signed by the Whitlam’s labour government and then ratified the following year in ’76 by Frazier’s liberal government.

The UN has just, we’ve taken it all off shore and we are now vulnerable. We don’t make masks, we don’t make ventilators, we don’t make cars. We make [inaudible 00:04:05] and we need to get that back into this country. We need to restore our economic productive capacity and their economic resilience. Mate, that’s really been highlighted by this.

Ben:

I agree with you. I mean we need to start building things back in Australia. There’s no two ways about it. Industry needs to happen here and for too long we’ve been relying on doing it cheaper from overseas and bring it in here.

But let’s just get back to what you’re talking about with the Murray-Darling basin. Now we know Queensland New South Wales, Victorian farmers received zero general security water allocation for irrigation over the last three years. That’s a fact. There’s no two ways about-.

They’re trying to get it under control, but big business and foreign owned companies have bought up all the allocation at different stages. They’ve sold it. It’s traded as a commodity. It’s been an absolute mess. Now how would you go about fixing it and can you get the numbers in the Senate to make some change?

Malcom Roberts:

Getting the numbers in the Senate is difficult because there are only two of us at the moment and that’s the big mess. [crosstalk 00:05:02].

Ben:

But there are people who are willing in the LNP and the national party to try and see farmers get more food secure and get more food security here in Queensland and New South Wales and Victoria.

Malcom Roberts:

There are also people in the LNP protecting the corporates and protecting the water act. And that’s what’s caused the disruption of farming in across the Murray-Darling basin, Ben. It’s not everyone in the liberal national party. It’s not for the land.

For example, have a look at Senator Matt Canavan and Barnaby Joyce. They were once the best speakers in parliament against this climate crap. And then they both got in the cabinet and their lips were sealed. And then even Senator Matt Canavan even spoke in favour of this climate nonsense.

And then now that One Nation is making inroads into their vote because we’re supporting coal, because we’re supporting land use being given back to farmers to control, Matt’s come out now he’s talking like one of us, but he still votes with the Trent Zimmermans and the Zali Steggles and the Graves, the same policies that are destroying land use, that are destroying farming, that are destroying [inaudible 00:06:12] in this country.

We’ve got farmers who have been told in North Queensland, I spoke to one personally, Central Queensland and Southern Queensland, who would not plant fodder during the drought because electricity prices were too damn high to pump water. I mean this is insane. That’s where we’ve got to with the policies that the liberal nationals have pushed. We’ve destroyed our farming sector [so] that John Howard [could] comply with the Kyoto protocol, which he proudly discussed, has stolen the land rights, the land use rights of farmers in this country. They’ve stolen the water through the water act, which was Turnbull and Howard, and then Howard complying to the Kyoto protocol and the liberal nationals complying with UN agreements, including the Paris Agreement, has wrecked our energy sector.

I mean there’s nothing more fundamental than being able for a farm to buy his or her land and then use it as they want. There’s nothing more fundamental than water. Then there’s nothing more fundamental than energy. Energy prices were decreasing for the last 170 years, relentlessly decreasing in real terms, Ben, and with the policies of the labour greens and liberal nationals party in the last 20 years, they’ve doubled. That’s the reverse of human progress. This is insane what’s going on in this country.

Ben:

Yeah, I think a lot of people are frustrated and clearly you are as well.

Malcom Roberts:

And angry.

Ben:

Yeah, and that’s the big thing. Do you think that they’ve offered enough the government as a stimulus package to try and get this back under control with COVID-19? Was it too little too late? I do know that now is not the time to politicise things, but do you think they’re doing enough?

Malcom Roberts:

Well, I think they are doing enough financially. They’re not doing enough health-wise. The countries that are leading the way and around the world are the East Asian countries of Taiwan and South Korea especially, and to a lesser extent, Singapore.

Now what’s happened is that in the West we’ve tried to balance health and the economics. That is not working. In East Asia, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, they made health number one priority. They got it under control, had rapid testing, very widespread testing, not only tested for Covid virus in people but tested for temperature because they would basically say, you’re coming into work today, Ben. Here, take your temperature. Mate, you’ve got a hot temperature over here and then we’ll test you for Covid virus. If you have got no temperature, then you go to work.

When they test you for Covid virus, then they say, “Ben, you’ve got Covid virus. Isolated. Off, away you go.” Or if you’re free of Covid virus you get a little note saying Ben Dobbin has got a high temperature today. He’s free to go to work.

What they did was they isolated the sick and the vulnerable, the elderly, the people with chronic disease problems. They isolated them. And Taiwan has had hardly a blip in its economy. South Korea got off on the wrong foot to start with. It went down Italy’s track and then it quickly copied Taiwan and then they got the back and so got everyone back to work.

What we’ve done is we’ve isolated everyone. Instead what we need to do now that we’ve got it starting to get it under control, Ben, we need to see the triggers in the government’s plan for changing our strategy to isolate those with the virus, isolate those vulnerable to the virus and let everyone get back to work. That time could be coming soon, but the government has not focused on that.

What the government is focused on is compromising health and economic activity. And you can’t do that because you end up undermining the health. What we’ve got to do, Taiwan has got the same population of Australia. They’ve had five deaths and they’ve got it earlier than we did, and they hammered it. And that’s what we need, real leadership, real strength.

At the moment, yesterday, Prime Minister Morrison and his health advisor released the broad statement about their modelling, but they didn’t give us the model. They didn’t tell us what the projections were in the future. We need to know them. They need to stop hiding on that. That’s the other thing they did in Taiwan and South Korea, they gave people the truth, gave people the information. That gives people confidence. It also gives people the sense of responsibility because people who are free to make up their mind usually make it the right way. And that’s what they did in Taiwan. That’s what we need to get to.

Ben:

Fantastic. You said it well. Malcolm, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you so much for being with us on Rural Queensland Today.

Malcom Roberts:

Anytime, Ben.

Ben:

Good on you. Malcolm Roberts, Senator for One Nation. This is Rural Queensland Today across the Resonate Broadcast network.

/by

COVID-19 Stimulus Package must include water

,

The Federal Government’s COVID-19 stimulus packages must address how Australia can be more self-reliant in food production, and calls for a guarantee of water for farmers to plant essential crops this month.

Senator Roberts said, “COVID-19 has changed our world forever as nations like Vietnam ban exporting their home-grown rice to us, and now more than ever, we need government to prioritise food production in Australia because our basic food security is threatened.”

“Nations are now prudently keeping their own food for themselves while stupid government policies mean we are dependent on the importation of food staples that we can grow here in Australia.”

While recent rains across the Murray Darling Basin have been welcomed, farmers need the certainty of a water allocation during the season to have the confidence to plant crops.

“When harvested, not only would this winter crop create a regional monetary stimulus but would also protect us from new food shortages caused by countries’ COVID-19 export restrictions,” stated Senator Roberts.

Absurdly, Australia already relies on importing cereals like wheat and rice and now COVID-19 trade restrictions means even durum wheat used for pasta has become impossible to source.

“It is in Australia’s national interest to prioritise water to farmers to improve our farming productive capacity, that has been damaged by successive Liberal and Labor governments who have given our competitive advantage away to overseas,” added Senator Roberts.

Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian farmers have received zero general security water allocations for irrigation in the last 3 years. The Murray Darling Basin Authority has chosen instead to water forests unnecessarily and send irrigation water out to sea in South Australia.

“I call on our Governments to guarantee the release of 1000gl of water for irrigation, to give our farmers confidence to plant a full winter cereal crop.” “The COVID-19 crisis has given yet another reason to reset the Murray Darling Basin plan, with a focus on sensible environmental practices and on growing and protecting the productive capacity of regional Australia,” declared Senator Roberts.

200404-COVID-19-Stimulus-Package-must-include-water-for-farmers

/by

One Nation Murray Darling Basin Update

,

The recent bushfires, some rains and now the CoronaVirus has taken attention away from farmers still struggling with drought or the Murray Darling Basin plan which is still failing to deliver water to farmers.

One Nation has not forgotten about our farmers and is still fighting for a fair and equitable allocation of water.

In this video I give a quick summary of my investigation so far and then an update on what we are continuing to do behind the scenes to restore the productive capacity of regional Australia.

TRANSCRIPT

Some people recently have asked us for an update on what we’re doing in the Murray-Darling Basin. It’s still a very very important issue. Just because some rains have come does not mean it’s over yet. There’s a long way to go. So I’ll just first of all, remind people of what we’ve done. Back in 2017 in February, I listened to people in the Ballone Shire Council, in their chambers in St. George and they told us about the devastation due to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the plan in Southern Queensland around the border and Northern New South Wales.

We listened to those people and we saw that they were right. Then we went as a result of that. Pauline and I went down the whole Murray River, right down to the barrages and the river mouth and we learned quite a bit from irrigators and farmers in northern Victoria, Southern New South Wales and South Australia. Then I got knocked out of the Senate and we were about to continue doing a lot more. When I came back in, the first thing we did, was start to understand the Murray-Darling Basin again.

So, we first of all did an overflight. We took off from Albury went right down the Murray River, down around the lower lakes, the Coorong and then up to Mildura, then up the entire Darling and then flew to the north of the basin above Charleville and then came back to Goondiwindi and then over the Clarence River catchment area, and then down the centre of the basin and actually back to Mungundi and then down the centre and then to Albury. We got a good overview of the whole lot. Wasn’t much water anyway, because it was so dry.

Then we went on the ground and we went to Southern Queensland, Northern New South Wales listening to people; irrigators, communities, businesses. We then went down, flew down to Adelaide and went down the lower lakes, the Coorong, then back up through the irrigated areas and non irrigated areas of South Australia, then along the Murray listening to people in southern New South Wales, Northern Victoria. And then we went along the Murrumbidgee.

And we went down the Murrumbidgee and partly under the Murray again, then up the Darling and ended up at Broken Hill. We’ve got a little bit more travelling to do, a little bit more listening with people on the ground in Central and New South Wales. And we’ve also got a few issues that we want resolved. But most importantly, we want to listen now to some experts. These are not technical experts as such, not because they’ve got, they’re not experts because they’ve got initials after their name or they’ve got a title.

These are experts, like former people in the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. Highly regarded. People who’ve done a lot of research, a lot of experience in the area. We want to listen to them, and then we pull it all together. But just now I just want to bring you up to date with a few things. First of all, the need for trust. There’s very little trust. Why? Because there’s so little data, there’s so little openness, there’s so little listening from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

And as a result, people are blaming each other between the regions. The flood harvesters in Northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland are blaming South Australia. South Australians are blaming everyone. Southerners in New South Wales and Victoria are blaming the Northerners and South Australia. And we’ve been told that we will get a water registry. Well, the federal government has had eight years to do that and still hasn’t got a water registry.

So what we’re doing is, we’re calling on the federal government to put in place a water registry in 12 months over the next 12 months. You should should be able to do that in a year. The data is largely there. But it needs to be part of a larger watering reporting system comprising the whole basin so we know where the water is coming in, we know where the water is being stored and we know where it’s flowing out. That’s essential. So that people have an understanding, a transparent understanding of the water flows.

The second thing. We want irrigation water to be treated somewhat as environmental water. The losses in irrigation water flow into the environment. Some of the irrigation water itself flows into the environment. So what we’re calling for, is carriage losses in irrigation water to be treated as environmental water because it ends up in the environment. Third thing as part of that by the way, we want farmers to be recognised that they are protecting the environment.

Their experience, their own livelihoods and the future value of their land depends upon them taking care of it. These people are the guardians of the land. Instead of being seen, treated as villains, they need to be treated as guardians of the land. The fourth thing we want is integrity. We want to restore integrity to the Basin. There is corruption.

We know that! Some of the irrigation authorities have a lot at stake and some of the people are telling us around the Basin that some irrigation authorities are corrupt. And with the amount of money involved, it’s easy to see how that could happen. And we know that some people have become very very wealthy as a result. So what we’re calling for is a Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission. Now what we’ve got to do, I just told you, we’ve still got a little bit more to do.

And then what we’ll do is we’ll put a plan out to the whole community. We’ve already released based upon our early understandings at the water convoy. Last year we released our basic plan. It was just a discussion paper, to get people’s feedback. That will become the basis of a policy. It is not our policy yet, but we will, we’ve got a little bit more work to do and then we will restore water to the farmers through a policy that we’ll be releasing to everyone. The plan ultimately is to restore water to the farmers and have a solid sustainable Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

/by

Farmers need water, not just handouts

It’s time the government invested in water projects that will ensure the future for Australian farmers and high quality, locally grown Australian produce on our supermarket shelves.

Without new water infrastructure and dams, farmers will be reliant on government handouts during every drought.

Stop promising dams and build them.

/by

Farmers: The best protectors of the environment

, , ,

Farmers have helped build this country but are now being hindered from farming the land by unnatural bureaucracy and unnatural levels of ignorance.

They are in the firing line from the United Nations for being one of the causes of “climate change” and by inner city greens from everything to fabricated animal cruelty claims and causing bushfires.

Our farms are being deprived of water by terrible government regulation.

What happens to a property in a drought once it is deprived of water? It turns into a wasteland with a corresponding loss of habitat for native Australian animals.

Farms are a part of the environment and not separate from it. The Murray Darling Basin plan is devastating the environment by depriving water to farms.

/by